By Johnny Media
EUGENE, Ore – This weekend, the #9 Oregon Ducks will travel to The Farm in Palo Alto, California, and face off with the 1-4 Stanford Cardinal.
The Ducks head into the Saturday matchup as an undefeated team, with Oregon sporting wins over Portland State, Texas Tech, Hawaii, and Colorado. Oregon is coming off an impressive and dominant win over the then #19 ranked Buffaloes. The Ducks held a 35-0 lead going into the half and Colorado only had 31 yards from scrimmage on six drives that ended in six punts. That game ended 42-6 as Colorado scored a garbage-time touchdown with less than three minutes remaining in the game. Oregon looks to continue their dominance in their second game in conference play. You can catch the game at 3:30 on the PAC-12 network, and on KWVA 88.1 FM, where Ryan Milano and Wilder Lewis will be on the call.
Oregon
The Ducks Have started off strong this season. Their closest game thus far in the early stages of their campaign was a gritty 38-30 win against Texas Tech in the Jones AT&T Stadium in the heart of Lubbock, Texas. Oregon is averaging 54 points a game and has outscored their opponents 216-53 on their path to starting undefeated. The Ducks are no stranger to starting the season off 4-0. In 2021 the Ducks took a 4-0 record, one of those wins being a gritty win on the road against Ohio State University, into Palo Alto to face a 2-2 Stanford team. That game ended with a 31-24 Stanford victory. The Ducks look to avoid repeating that 2021 outcome by continuing to do what they’ve been doing all season–Playing great team football.
Leading the offense again this year is senior quarterback, Bo Nix, who is the nation’s most accurate passer with at least 130 attempts. This season, the former Auburn transfer has completed 79.4% of his passes and has racked up 11 touchdown passes compared to one interception. Nix ranks 17th in the nation as far as yards gained go. That is a deceiving stat when you consider that Nix has been able to rest for most of the second half of three of the four Oregon games so far. In fact, Nix has only seen fourth-quarter action in one game, the Texas Tech win, three weeks ago.
Nix and the offense will be playing without the elusive running of Noah Whittington. After a left ankle injury in the second half of last week’s victory, Whittington will be out “a few weeks,” according to the team. A true dual-threat running back who could hurt defenses either carrying the ball or catching it out of the backfield. The Ducks still have plenty of depth at the position with the likes of Bucky Irving, who is averaging 8.2 yards a carry, Jordan James, who is averaging 7.5 yards a carry, and Dante Dowdell and Jayden Limar, who are both averaging over 5 yards a carry. Oregon’s ground attack has averaged 232 yards per game with 14 touchdowns through four games. Continuing that success will be key for the Ducks in this game.
Stanford
In Troy Taylor’s inaugural season as the head coach for the Cardinal, Stanford is struggling to do much correctly. Taylor comes in replacing David Shaw after the disappointing 3-9 (1-8 in the PAC-12) record of last season. Off to a 1-3 start, the struggling Cardinal are looking to continue their historical Oregon-Busting ways. So far, the team’s lone victory happened nearly a month ago when Stanford traveled to Hawaii in week one and beat the Rainbow Warriors 37-24. It was a week in which all PAC-12 schools went undefeated, the only power-5 conference to do so. For comparison, Oregon beat the Rainbow Warriors 55-10 in week three of this season.
Ashton Daniels will be the Cardinal signal caller. He’s coming into this game with a 59.2% completion rating, 10th overall in the PAC-12, while also having only three touchdowns versus two interceptions. The sophomore played sparingly in 2022, only appearing in four games. This season, Daniels hasn’t had much success pushing the ball downfield. He’s also coming off a game in which he was sacked four times, a season-high for Stanford. He’ll be facing off against an Oregon team that already has 12 sacks this season, seven in their last game, and who is hungry to get more.
The Stanford Defense hasn’t been elite by any standard this season, outside of academics of course. The Cardinal defense has looked paper thin at times. They’re allowing over 300 yards a game passing and 120 yards a game rushing. The defense ranks 108th in the nation in points allowed, giving up an average of 32.8 points every time they square off against an opposing team. They also have just six sacks through four games. It’s been tough going for the front four and linebacking groups. The one bright spot within those two units has been sophomore outside linebacker David Bailey. The 6’3” OLB has racked up 16 tackles this season and more than half of the team’s sacks, with four. Two other defensive players to keep an eye on are the high-flying safety duo of senior Alaka’i Gilman and sophomore Scotty Edwards. Gilman has 25 total tackles, 15 being solo. Edwards has 21 total tackles with 14 being solo while also picking up one sack and one interception this season. If Stanford wants to have a chance in this game, Edwards and Gilman will need to have an all-star effort in this matchup. Slowing down Nix and the surging Oregon offense will be an essential key for the Stanford Cardinal.
Final Overview
Oregon is on a mission in this game. They want to prove that they have the skills and focus to dominate on the road. Their lone road trip resulted in a nailbiter and coach Dan Lanning wants to leave that in the past by dominating from start to finish on The Farm. Stanford is in a rebuilding year, from top to bottom. The 11-on-11 match-ups all favor the players wearing candy-apple and white this Saturday. With that said, Stanford loves playing early-season spoiler to a high-achieving Oregon team at every opportunity they get. The last time these two faced off at The Farm, Stanford pulled out a huge upset over then-ranked #3 in the nation Oregon 31-24 in overtime. That was two VERY different teams led by two VERY different coaches. Lanning has the Ducks locked in early in the season while Taylor and the Cardinal struggle to figure out what this team’s identity is. The Ducks are #2 in the nation when it comes to limiting turnovers while Stanford is #50. It’s also been 342 days since Stanford last beat a PAC-12 opponent. That last win was against Arizona State University on October 22, 2022. Oregon should escape this
game without worry. As long as Oregon can avoid sloppy play, reckless penalties and protect the ball, Nix should have another short day at the office and the “Bodacious” Ducks will head back to Eugene 5-0 going into a week of rest and getting healthy.