Oregon squeaks one out

UGH! What a terrible game we played. Spotting a team 20 points in the 1st half on the road is never a good idea, neither is taking the 1st 1/2 off!

On the 2nd play of the game Purdue had a very nice 80 yard run to take the lead. The Ducks offense and special teams then decided to make it difficult on the offense by giving them the ball just outside the red-zone on 2 occasions. Oregon had to claw and fight their way back into the game.

The good news -

Defensively the game was not as bad as the stats would indicate. If you take away Sheets' 80 yard run he ran for 100 yards on 28 carries. Just over 3 yards per carry is a pretty solid day. The Ducks, along with some big wind, held Painter to 207 yards passing with a just over 50% completion percentage.

The Ducks were able to keep themselves composed and not let this game get away from them. I had a bad feeling going in to halftime that if the Ducks gave up 1 big play in the 2nd it woudl be over. They didn't give up a big play and created a couple of their own.

2nd stringer Legarrette Bount had another tremendous performance rushing for 132 yards on 12 carries and 2 touchdowns. Take away his big run of 72 yards and he still was 11 carries for 60 yards, just under 10 yards per carry. Jeremiah Johnson also pitched in rushing for 96 yards on 17 carries. Purdue's defense was obviously keying on Johnson the whole game so it was good to see Blount jump in there and help out.

The Bad News -

Justin Roper, the Ducks starting QB this season, was 2nd on the depth chart at the seasons begining. He was injured in OT and will be out 2-4 weeks. This means that 3rd string Masoli and 4th strip Harper (a true freshman) will take the snaps this upcoming week against Boise State.

Jeremiah Johnson also left the game in overtime, he seemed to be holding his hip. I don't ahve any word on what the injury is or if he'll miss any time but this is the 2nd week in a row Johnson has had to leave a game. We're already down to the #3 on our QB depth chart, we don't need to be down to #2 on the RB side.

Hopefully the Ducks have got there bad game out of the way and will go back to playing thier brand of football, if they don't they may have trouble with Boise State, let alone the trip to USC that is right around the corner.

It will not surprize me this week if they stay where they are or lose a spot in the polls, both Penn State and BYU dominated in their games and even those Arizona State lost I think those other 2 teams will slide past Oregon this week.