5 takeaways from Oregon’s defensive collapse in defeat vs. Washington
The Oregon Ducks walked into Autzen Stadium on Saturday afternoon with a good bit of machismo under their pads. The fan base was sporting a similar pride, walking tall as they entered a game against their most bitter rival. I could sense it when traversing through the parking lot tailgates, making my way to the front gates of the stadium.
There was a prideful confidence present in Eugene.
That feeling vanished rather quickly. While Dan Lanning and his squad may have entered this game against the No. 25 Washington Huskies with all of the bravado in the world, they left with a broken ego and the realization that this Oregon defense has some real issues that will likely limit how far they can go this season.
The final score read Huskies 37, Oregon 34. It was a thrilling back-and-forth game that at times felt like a heavyweight fight between two boxers landing blow after blow. In a 3rd-quarter stretch that saw 35 total points scored, Ducks and Huskies swapped touchdowns of 46, 29, 76, 67, and 62-yards.
Let me make that point again: that all happened in the third quarter, alone.
In the end, this game left Oregon with a broken path to the College Football Playoff and zero room for error when it comes to the Pac-12 Championship. On the other side, it gave the Huskies new life, and opened a door for them to get down to Las Vegas in December.
Here are our biggest takeaways from the game:
Tosh Lupoi, Dan Lanning have some explaining to do
The Oregon Ducks have too many great defensive minds on the coaching staff to be this bad on defense. Of course, the players on the field are the ones who are needed to step up and perform when all is said and done, but at this point in the season, the defensive coaches need to take accountability.
That means defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi and head coach Dan Lanning.
Both came to Oregon this offseason being regarded as some of the best defensive coaches in the game. Lanning was fresh off of a national championship as the coordinator of one of the best defenses that the sport has seen in years, and Lupoi has a trophy case full of rings he won as the defensive coordinator at Alabama. These guys have the chops to put a dominant unit on the field.
So what the hell is happening on that side of the ball in Eugene?
It’s a question that was asked many times on Saturday. Michael Penix Jr. and the Huskies obliterated the Ducks, throwing for 408 yards and racking up 522 total yards of offense on the night. The most abysmal area for Oregon came on 3rd down, where Washington converted 5-of-9 attempts, with conversions of 15, 11, 15, 7, and 62 yards.
Talk about putrid.
“I don’t know if it’s one thing here or there,” Lanning said after the game. “It’s just you know a magnitude of moments that we gotta go to evaluate.”
The biggest moment of all was the final third-down conversion for Washington, which came in the 4th quarter, Huskies down 34-27 with just over 3 minutes to play. Penix faced a 3rd and 7 but found a hole in Oregon’s secondary and connected with Taj Davis for a 62-yard TD that tied the game.
“We’ve had a tough time this year,” safety Bennett Williams said after the game. “A couple of games we started to trend upwards on third down, but this game we didn’t play how we wanted. We focus a lot on (3rd down defense) and it’s one of those things that we just have to keep getting better at. I don’t really have an explanation for you.”
The people who should have an explanation for what’s going wrong are Lanning and Lupoi. Both have seen stellar defenses, and know what the right formula for dominance on that side of the ball is. They haven’t been able to recreate the recipe in Eugene.
After the game, Lanning was asked what Georgia coach Kirby Smart and Alabama coach Nick Saban would say about their defenses giving up over 500-yards with TDs of 76 and 62-yards.
“They would watch the film. They’d try to figure out why and then they establish a plan of attack to move forward.”
We’ll see what plan these two defensive coaches can establish next week.
Was focus an issue?
Dan Lanning and the Ducks had a little bit of fun earlier this week, taking a different approach to this rivalry by going full-blown out in the open about how badly they wanted to win this game. Of course, we all know it’s important to each and every individual who wears an Oregon O on their chest, but Lanning and the Ducks didn’t shy away from the emotion like we’ve seen past Oregon coaches do. Instead, they cranked up the volume.
That doesn’t look so good in hindsight. The Ducks were at times unprepared, and the defense looked completely lost and unable to stop the Huskies throughout the second half.
“I think we got a little comfortable, all around,” safety Bennett Williams said after the game.
Nobody can say for sure that things would have been different if the Ducks took a different approach in the leadup to this game, or if Lanning had done a Chip Kelly impression when previewing the matchup with media members. However, Williams’ comment after the game was a bit revealing to me. The Ducks had a path to the College Football Playoff and might have gotten caught looking ahead a bit more than they should have.
Future Goals Remain
Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports
Speaking of the College Football Playoff…
That dream is out of the window for the 2022 season. However, everything else that the Ducks set out to try and accomplish in Dan Lanning’s first year is still very much attainable. With a pair of wins in the next two weeks, Oregon can make it to the Pac-12 Championship Game. A win in Las Vegas, and they can make it to the Rose Bowl. A win there, and we can officially declare Lanning’s first year one of the most impressive in Oregon history.
All of that can still happen.
“We have to understand that a lot of our goals are still right in front of us,” Bennett Williams said. “Yeah, maybe the playoff is out of the picture. But the Pac-12 Championship is still very much in the picture. You know, a big bowl game. But we have to take it one game at a time and look at what happened this game and just ramp it up another step.”
It hurts to lose, of course, and to have the dream of making it back to the CFP in Lanning’s first year ripped away, to Washington no less, is certainly painful. The season isn’t over, though. There is still a lot to play for in Eugene.
The Downside of Decisions
Big and bold decisions are often tricky in the world of sports. If you execute, and a 4th-down in your own territory turns into a first down, or an onside kick is recovered and swings the momentum in your direction, then it’s all fun and games.
If those gambles don’t pay off, though, you’ll often be left answering some hard questions.
That was the case for Dan Lanning on Saturday night. Late in the second quarter after an Oregon touchdown, Lanning decided to pull out the onside kick once again. It had been successful against UCLA, and was part of the reason why the Ducks won that day. It didn’t work against Washington.
There was also a 4th and 1 situation late in the final quarter of the game with Ty Thompson at QB because of Bo Nix’s injury. Oregon was on it’s own 33-yard line with the game tied. A punt would make UW have to drive the field with less than 2 minutes remaining to get a go-ahead score. The Ducks instead went for it and came up short after Noah Whittington slipped to the ground. Huskies’ ball in instant field goal range.
“You know, we’ve sat in this room and talked about it when they worked out and now we’re sitting in this room and talking about when they didn’t, right?” Lanning said. “You look back and you could say in retrospect, we should punt there, have a chance. But you also feel like hey, you get that first and got a chance to go win the game.”
This is the price you pay as an aggressive head coach. Sometimes things don’t work out, it’s just the nature of the game. Unfortunately, that’s how the game broke for Lanning on Saturday.
Oregon can go as far as Bo Nix takes them
We saw what life was like without Bo Nix for a total of four plays on Saturday night. That was more than enough.
With the Heisman candidate sidelined with an apparent knee injury in the second-to-last drive of the game, it was Ty Thompson who came in for the pivotal and potential game-winning drive for the Ducks. It went 4 plays, 8 yards, and ended with a turnover on downs.
All due respect to Thompson, but if for some reason Nix is unavailable going forward, then I don’t see Oregon making it to the Pac-12 Championship Game. Fortunately, it appears that Nix will likely be able to play next week, based on the fact that he came in for the final drive of the game on Saturday night and tried to complete the comeback.
We’ve known for a while now that Nix was one of the main reasons that Oregon is finding success, but it became even more clear on Saturday that the Ducks will only go as far as he can take them.
