5 takeaways from Oregon’s statement blowout over Arizona Wildcats

A lot of wacky stuff took place in the Pac-12 conference on Saturday.

For starters, an unproven and unbeaten UCLA Bruins team hosted the class-of-the-conference Utah Utes in Los Angeles and shook up the power balance with a convincing 42-32 win. Over in Tempe, a somewhat feisty Arizona State team proved that you don’t need a head coach to be successful, further exposing an apparently fledgling Washington Huskies team, 45-38. Down in Los Angeles, the USC Trojans briefly engaged in a dogfight with the Washington State Cougars before eventually pulling away.

Across the conference, it was clear that there were some weird vibes out and about as spooky season is upon us. That’s the last thing that Oregon Duck fans wanted to hear as their team got set to kick off in the desert against the Arizona Wildcats, a team that has had their goat in the past.

Fortunately, it seems that Dan Lanning doesn’t believe in ghosts, and the tough losses of the past seemed to bare no weight on Saturday’s matchup.

The Ducks took care of business and made it clear early on that this would not be a game that came down to the wire. With a final score of 49-22, we got another chance to see the depth on the roster get a good run while the proven starters sat back and relaxed for the final quarter.

On a day when some of the top teams in the conference faltered, Oregon stayed afloat and proved that they belong near the top of everyone’s power rankings. Here are some of our biggest takeaways from the performance:

Oregon's Defense has finally arrived

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For the first several weeks of the season, we were left wondering where the dominant defense that we had been promised from the Ducks was hiding. It certainly didn’t come out to play in a 49-3 drubbing at the hands of the Georiga Bulldogs, and we didn’t really see it much against BYU or Washington State either.

Last week against Stanford was the first glimpse I feel like I really got. Oregon held the Cardinal to 3 points and just over 100 yards in the first half, and proved that they could be dominant in spurts at the very least. This week against an Arizona passing attack that had some of the most talented players in the nation, the defense was going to be put to the test.

They absolutely stood up when called upon.

The Wildcats finished with just 22 points, amassing 356 total yards of offense and only 241 passing yards. Arizona QB Jayden de Laura only completed 24 of his 42 passes with 1 TD and 1 INT. On top of that, Arizona was only able to rush for 115 yards and one score in the game. The Ducks came up with three turnovers, and had 2 sacks and 5 tackles for loss.

The points will make you avoid thinking it was a world-beating display, but this is as impressive as I’ve seen the Ducks’ D play all season. If they can keep this type of production up, then the ceiling for this team is higher than I initially expected.

Ducks' rushing attack top tier

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Can we talk for a second about how deep and how talented this Oregon rushing attack is? Take into consideration the fact that Byron Cardwell, who everyone perceived as the top option coming into the year, has missed the last four games. Now let’s consider that the Ducks are still one of the best rushing teams not only in the Pac-12 but in the nation at large.

That was on full display Saturday night with Oregon racking up 306 yards on the ground with 7 rushing touchdowns. What makes that even more impressive is the fact that 5 different players scored those seven touchdowns. Maybe even wilder than that? QB Bo Nix accounted for three of those rushing TDs.

Between Bucky Irving, Noah Whittington, Sean Dollars, and Jordan James, the Ducks have a complete array of backs that can be used in many situations. Irving and Whittington are the de-facto 1st and 2nd-down backs capable of hitting the home-run ball. Dollars offers a pass-catching ability on 3rd down, and James is the go-to man in Oregon’s ’14-J’ package that includes multiple tight ends in a jumbo look near the goal line. On top of that, you have Nix, who has proven time and again that he is more than capable of escaping the pocket and letting his legs do the talking. He showed that against Arizona with 70 yards rushing on 8 rushes with 3 TDs.

We’ve talked a lot about the passing game in Eugene, with Nix’s arm and Troy Franklin’s hands. It’s nice to know that’s there, but make no mistake — Oregon’s bread and butter is between the tackles, and there are few better teams in the nation better at running the ball than the Ducks.

Dominating the 'Middle 8'

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This may be a bit “inside baseball,” but one of the marks of a good team is their ability to win the middle eight in a game. Don’t know what the middle eight is? It’s simple — the last four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half. Often times when teams can get a score going into the break, and then start the second half with a score as well, it can swing a game completely in their favor.

The Oregon Ducks have been completely and utterly dominant in the middle 8 this season.

I tracked the stats after the Arizona game, and so far this year, the Ducks are outscoring their opponents 83-17 in that period of time through six games. If you were to take away the season-opener against Georgia, Oregon is winning the middle 8 against opponents by a score of 80-3.

Don’t have a feeling for how good that is? Don’t worry, just trust me when I tell you that it’s better than good, it’s elite.

Penalty Improvement

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A lot has been made about penalties and the Oregon Ducks over the past week. Rightfully so, as they had an egregious 14 flags for 135 penalty yards a week ago against Stanford. Despite the fact that they still won in a blowout, you can’t be a great team and remain that undisciplined.

Fortunately for the Ducks, it looked like they really cleaned things up on Saturday night against Arizona. Oregon finished the game with only 6 penalties for 56 total yards. Even more encouraging than that, only one of those penalties was against the offense — a false start for 5 yards.

It may be too early to declare Oregon’s penalty issues a thing of the past, but it was incredibly refreshing to go through a game without several red zone drives being stalled due to mental mistakes.

Oregon's young cornerbacks step up

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I expected the Ducks’ secondary to get exposed tonight. With Jayden de Laura and one of the best group of wide receivers in the nation on the docket, I had a feeling that Oregon’s group of young defensive backs — arguably the weakest spot on the team — was going to have a rough go at things.

That didn’t turn out to be the case, and I credit that to the performacne from two players in particular.

Dontae Manning and Jahlil Florence, please step forward and receive your helmet stickers. You both played a heck of a game.

For Manning in particular, it feels like this has been a long time coming. As a former 5-star recruit, it has taken a bit of time for Manning to find his footing in the defense, but he played as well as I’ve seen him in an Oregon uniform before getting ejected at the start of the 2nd quarter for a questionable targeting call. Before that penalty, Manning had two impressive solo tackles, both of which came in the open field. He also made a couple of nice plays on the ball.

After Manning went out, the true freshman Florence came into the game and had a bit of a coming-out party. He finished with 4 total tackles and his first career interception. There were some bad moments, like a holding call on a deep pass to Jacob Cowing, and a couple of other missed coverages. However, it was impressive, to say the least, that some of the Ducks’ young and unproven defenders came to play. We’ve worried a lot about Oregon’s secondary, but for the first time this season, I left this game feeling relatively confident in the players at the cornerback position not named Christian Gonzalez.

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Story originally appeared on Ducks Wire