With Oregon football set to begin their 2019 fall camp in a mere two weeks, Duck fans are starting to focus in on the upcoming season. Last week Duck Sports Authority released its latest Roundtable: Trap game. In that edition, three DSA analysts picked three different 2019 games as potential trap games.

In the inaugural DSA Member View, Diehard Duck gives his take representing a fourth possible game Mario Cristobal and staff need to be wary of this season.

Although it has been mentioned many times how tough the Ducks schedule looks this season, there’s a lot to like about it. In fact, it’s about as SECesque as you can get for a PAC-12 school. What I mean is, while the AD can’t schedule a patsy the week before the biggest game of the year like SEC schools tend to do toward the end of the season, there is a lot of reason to believe the Ducks should be surprisingly fresh (barring injury of course) deep into the schedule thanks to what amounts to two bye weeks.

First, while Oregon does travel to the Farm to face the Cardinal, I see two intangibles that week that should benefit them. One, the Ducks will be coming off what should be their easiest game of the year after playing Montana the week before, so while not a bye, the Ducks will be well-rested for their first test in the PAC-12. Secondly, Stanford could be coming in a bit road-weary, after consecutive road games starting at the Coliseum two weeks prior, then a cross-country trip to face UCF, last years “other” national champions (including defeating Auburn in the Peach Bowl), before coming home to face the Ducks.

Then Oregon has their true bye week, which should make them ready to handle a well-coached Cal squad that might otherwise have upset aspirations against the Ducks. If it wasn’t for the extra time that the bye gives them, Cal could be the trap game, but I would expect the Ducks to handle them in what still could be a tight game. Wilcox’s teams haven’t looked good against his alma mater yet, but this might be the year his team can at least hold their own.

While I can appreciate Scott’s pick of the Buffs the next week, Colorado will be on a short week as well. I don’t think that’s where the Ducks would stumble, as the home field and more talented of the two tired teams favor Oregon. What concerns me about that game is tired bodies are more prone to injury, so I get concerned about those uncontrollable things on short weeks. Looking forward, playing on a Friday night gives them just a little bit more rest going into the next test @ UW, so I like that little advantage there against the Huskies.

After that is where the big questions come to my mind; will Leach be able to find the next plug-&-play QB for his system with the transfer from EWU, or will one of last years’ backups take the reins? Last seasons’ game between these two squads in my mind showed very little. WSU had the first-time ESPN Gameday adrenaline rush, Oregon clearly had a massive hangover from the big win against the Huskies the week before, and does anyone believe the Cougs were anywhere near their best in the second half when the Ducks frenzy made the game interesting for a bit? If what I think will be a big win against UW the week before the Cougs come to town happens, the WSU game will provide a clear example of how the Ducks are able to handle success compared to last year.

Others know more about the drama going on @ USC than I care to pay attention to; all I know is SC has been looked past to the detriment of Duck teams before (see 2011 LeBron James game), so the predictions of the Trojans being used and thrown in the trash by the rest of the conference by the time the Ducks have the opportunity to stick it to them sound too good to be true to this pessimist. Which brings me to what I referred to earlier; after the trip to LA, the Ducks have a rare second bye week before getting the opportunity to repay the shellacking they received in Tucson last year. It should be noted that Arizona is the only school that comes off a bye the week before playing the Ducks this season.

Considering the Ducks also have that same week off, any advantage for the Cats is mitigated. It hasn’t been talked about for several years on DSA other than wishes the PAC would go to eight games in-conference rather than nine, but when the Ducks have had their best seasons, a lot of the time they’ve had that benefit of two bye weeks. It is a huge advantage IMO. For that reason I expect a lot of success this season, and hope the AD does everything possible to make it an annual occurrence, at least until the league does cut one conference game from the schedule.

Taking this line of thought further, going into what Brandon and Dale think the biggest trap game will be, @ ASU, the Sun Devils will be coming off of two games since their bye compared to the Ducks one against AZ, so it stands to reason UO should be the fresher team yet again. I think Brandon and Dale are probably right though, this one is going to be so close certain parts of Ducks fans will pucker up.

For me, I was unfortunately correct coming into last season thinking WSU would be the stumbling block, and until Mario Cristobal can get past Leach and his scheme, that’s the trap game I’m most concerned about.