A week after using a dominant first half and touchdowns on six of its first seven drives to blowout Colorado, Oregon had to overcome a slow start Saturday on the road before eventually getting to the exact same final score -- a 42-6 win.
The No. 9-ranked Ducks trailed early and had just one touchdown on the scoreboard until the final minutes of the first half before finding their momentum after halftime to pull away and move to 5-0 overall and 2-0 in the Pac-12.
Oregon has won its last three games by an average margin of 39 points.
Watch coach Dan Lanning's postgame press conference after the thorough road win over the Cardinal.
Opening statement:
"Alright, started off a little slow but we kicked into gear there after that first quarter really got it rolling. Part of our guys playing a complete game. We felt like it was going to be a physical game; it was physical early. Those three-and-outs early on on offensive really hurt us. We didn’t get all our possessions. They did a good job of controlling the clock, but I thought our guys responded we just had to get through that lull to start. Took care of some penalties. We were able to, early, they were able to get some runs. They got a lot of runs early in the game, QB runs something we knew we were gonna see. They took advantage of it and were doing a good job with that early but I think we shut that down later on in the game and overall thought our players came to perform today.”
On taking away Ben Yurosek:
“I think our guys had a heightened awareness all day and there was a couple times I thought he was running free that we didn’t cover him great. But pressure combined with the coverage, I think equaled them not being able to get him the ball. We knew (Yurosek), he’s a hell of a player. He’s one of the best we’ll seen this conference, one of the best we’ll face all year. And we knew if we handled that and quarterback runs, we’d be in a good position.”
On the difference in starts between first and second half:
“I think ultimately we were kind of hurting ourselves. We were playing behind the chains a little bit on offense. We weren’t having as efficient runs. I thought our coaches made some good adjustments in the second half about what runs we like. They had some good, they did some schematic changeups early in the game too. Stuff we hadn’t seen from them before. We had to adapt to that and be able to adjust our call sheet based on that. And then our players just knew it’s a long haul, the long haul. We’ve talked about winning the fourth quarter, and we won the fourth quarter, and we didn’t win it last week. Just all those pieces add together. I think it came together at the end for us.”
On Bo Nix:
“I thought he showed patience. If you go in there forcing it, like I said, they pitched a couple different looks at us. Then when we came out in the second half they really played the defense they’ve been playing all year. Once they got back to what they’ve done all year we had some really good answers for it and they got out of some of the funkier stuff they were doing early on.”
On Nikko Reed:
“That’s what we talk about when we say strength in numbers. We have a guy that’s up and ready to play. He’s a really quality player and he competed on some tough throws today. Was able to play physical, had a good blitz at the end there was able to get in on third down. So exactly what I expected from him. We brought him here for a purpose and he did a great job.”
On Troy Franklin:
“I think our coaches one do a good job of finding ways to move him around ato where we can find matchups. I think our quarterback has a heightened awareness to where he’s at and when we have a chance to get it to him we want to. And then he does a good job finding the ball in the air. He adjusts to the ball really well. Certainly, he’s a strength of our team but what’s great is we have other strengths around him so you can’t just dedicate all your time to one player, because there’s some other players that are going to hurt you on the field if you do that.”
On 5-0 start:
“We’re not going to bye week; we’re going to work week. Our guys know what our goals are, what we have to accomplish. A lot of the teams are gonna relax this week, we’re gonna get better. We started exactly how we expect to start. We’re about to go play a real opponent there. Those guys are playing good ball up North. So we gotta bring our best. It’s going to be one of our great preparations. We got some really tough teams down the road so we got to continue to build and play our best ball moving forward.”
On final sequence of first half before field goal:
“I think our guys knew exactly what we were trying to accomplish. I probably could have called that timeout a little bit earlier. I let like 10 seconds run off the clock there trying to make a decision are they were going to go for it or not? Once you figured out that you’re probably not gonna go for it, that’s one where I could’ve called that timeout just a little bit earlier. But our guys understood the situation understood the time and clock. I mean to be able to run the ball at the very end there to get it within field goal kick position there and call timeout. I think that’s really smart. Bucky going down instead of fighting for extra yards. We talk about being the smartest team in college football, and those are the situations we have to be elite at. And Cam’s going to make that kick nine out of 10 times; 99 out of 100 times and didn’t happen today. That’s alright, we’re trained for it now.”
On status of Khyree Jackson and Popo Aumavae:
“Yeah, I don’t completely know yet. We’ll have to get with medical staff and figure out exactly where they’re at. Like I said, strength in numbers showed up today. We had some other guys that can go in there and contribute.”
On Jordan James:
“I love running backs that look for contact. I love running backs that don’t look to just run out of bounds. Jordan James when he touches the ball, he looks to score. So he ran hard. He’s a physical runner. He’s proven to get North and South. I thought he did good job of that today.”
On energy and crowd:
“And I’m so grateful to talk to our fans. You know it felt like a home game in a lot of ways with the juice that we had from our crowd. When they travel like that that makes it a special environment for wherever we go. And I had that same expectation for them the rest of this year. Because they certainly made it a great environment for us. I thought our players they came in with the right mentality. We didn’t play music all week in practice for a reason. I told the players ‘Hey, when I hear you singing on the sideline, I know we’ve done something right.’ So those guys brought the juice and again, we didn’t start off as fast as we wanted to. A little slow on D at times, didn’t give up a touchdown, but a little slow on those three-and-outs. Once we got through that we kind of figured it out and settled in.”
On the bye week:
“We’ve adjusted some things but we have a plan in place. We’ll work future opponents. We’ll work certainly Washington. We got some good teams coming up. And then we really got to self scout ourselves, right? It’s time to peel back the layers and figure out, OK, what do we have to do to be a dominant team moving forward.”
On the message to the team with two weeks ahead of a massive rivalry game:
“Play the game, not the occasion. It’s no different than the other big games that we’ve been a part of. We’re gonna be a part of a lot more. It’s about the 20-mile march consistently. On Monday, we can’t go out there and march 60 miles. We want to march 20 miles and be consistent with our approach. Find something we can get better at. Aim small, miss small. We’re going to pick small details that we can improve schematically, individually, for each person on our team. And then we’re gonna try to figure out how to take away other team’s strengths.”
On Jordan Burch:
“Yeah, he’s a big man who’s hard to block. You talk about differences in teams this year to last year, one thing that we have is we have a front where we have guys that can roll and make an impact. And that makes it really hard to go play quarterback when you got somebody who’s on your neck. And he’s proven that he can be a guy who’s like that.”
On energy differences from last week, to this week, to bye week and Washington:
“It’s based on the maturity of your team. I think we have a mature team. We have good leaders on this team. And again, it’s about consistency. You can’t let your highs get too high and your lows get too low. I think our guys understand the approach. They certainly understand the mission at hand.”
On two penalties:
“I think our guys are tired of doing up-downs. That’s probably what I would attribute it to. We’ll be doing less.”
