3 takeaways from No. 6 Oregon football’s 63-19 win over Cal
No. 6 Oregon football picked up its third straight win in dominant fashion, taking down the California Golden Bears, 63-19, Saturday afternoon at Autzen Stadium.
The Ducks (8-1, 5-1 Pac-12) got off to a bit of a rocky start but settled in and continued both their offensive and defensive excellence to stay in the mix for the conference crown. Oregon will play USC next week back at Autzen Stadium at 7:30 p.m.
Here are three takeaways from another dominant win.
Ducks overcome turbulent start
The Ducks shot themselves in the foot throughout the first quarter, with two penalties wiping out touchdowns and a botched exchange hitting Tez Johnson in motion on offense that set up a Cal scoop-and-score.
Despite that, the Ducks settled down and still won decisively by 44 points.
“Disappointing,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “It was a disappointing first quarter for me. I have a standard that I think we should play at, and it really doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We didn’t play well enough to start. It's hard when you play good teams and you put yourself in that hole … you have as much to learn from wins as you do losses. We won the game today but there’s a lot we can learn.”
That message permeated throughout the Ducks’ postgame press conference, with players and coaches expressing frustration at a lot of mistakes that should not be occurring in the ninth game of the season.
That said, after almost every negative play, Oregon responded in a big way. Nothing showcased that more than back-to-back penalties putting the Ducks into a second-and-37 hole in the first quarter.
The Ducks answer to second-and-forever? A near 50-yard strike from Bo Nix to Johnson right up the seam on the next play.
Lanning was impressed with his team’s resolve in those moments.
“You’re not always going to be able to execute when you put yourself into second-and-long and third-and-long when you put yourself in those situations,” he said. “We’re going to coach it really hard. We’ve had games where we’ve played really clean ball and we’ve had games where we’ve played like this.
“I thought our guys responded. Unfortunately, I think we hurt ourselves too much today. That’s a hungry locker room and they certainly aren’t satisfied.”
Oregon defense masterful on third down
A year ago, the Ducks had one of the worst third down defenses in college football. Oregon ranked 123rd in college football out of 131 teams, allowing a first down on 46.82% of third downs its defense faced.
That number is down over 10% this season, and the defensive unit’s improvement was on full display once again.
The Bears started 1-of-9 on third down and finished 3-of-14.
Since a narrow loss to Washington, Oregon’s defense has allowed just three touchdowns over 12 quarters.
“I thought we should’ve held them to less,” Lanning said. “Our D-line in general had a dominant day. We were doing a lot with less because of some of the scheme that they run. Running insert plays where we had to have a D-lineman win up front, and he had some elite pressure.”
But even when it faced a short field or weirdness after a bizarre first quarter, the Oregon defense has responded all season along.
Part of that improvement comes with being in Lanning’s second year in the system, and another part comes with improved talent and buy-in across the board.
“It goes down to us being in those critical situations in practice and always knowing that when everybody is doing their 1/11th and we have our defensive line getting to the quarterback,” linebacker Jeffrey Bassa said. “Rush and coverage are always going to work together. It goes down to everyone doing their job and staying poised.”
Tez Johnson’s big day
Tez Johnson’s day probably couldn’t have started much worse.
On the very first play of the game Nix rifled a pass that bounced off his hands and fell into the waiting lap of a Cal defender for an interception. It was just Nix’s second interception of the season. Shortly after, Johnson made up for his mistake and caught a Nix deep shot for the game’s first touchdown in the first quarter.
More weirdness involving Johnson closed the first quarter, however. With the receiver in motion, Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson snapped the ball early and it ricocheted off Johnson into a Cal defender’s hands, who scooped it up and ran for a touchdown.
From then on out, it was all Ducks, and all Johnson on offense.
The Troy transfer caught a career-high 12 passes for a career-high 180 yards and two touchdowns.
“Tez is a guy that battles every single moment he’s on the field,” Lanning said. “I know he wants that first play back, just like all of us do. But those moments happen in football, when you see adversity hit, seeing guys go out and respond and react to that adversity is really important. He wants to be coached hard and demands the best of himself. We’ll continue to challenge him and see him grow as a player as well.”
Johnson said after the game several players approached him after the game-opening drop and encouraged him to leave it in the past and focus on the next play.
That message seemed to resonate in his best individual performance as a Duck.
“It was part of our plan to hit some three-level routes and execute some stuff with him,” Lanning said. “With his speed across the field that’s a hard guy to cover if you decide to go man. He creates matchup issues with the speed that he has.”
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon football overcomes turbulent start to down Cal Golden Bears
