With 15 seconds to play in Tempe, Oregon football needed to get into field goal range in hopes of pulling off a comeback win against Arizona State.
On 4th-and-10 on the Ducks side of the field, quarterback Justin Herbert took the snap, looked up and threw the ball up the middle to a seemingly open Jacob Breeland, who was unable to make the catch. Herbert slouched down, put his hands on his knees and dropped his head.
Oregon, which had been 14-point favorites entering the game, lost its perfect 3-0 record against the unranked, 1-2 Sun Devils. The Ducks promising start had hit an unexpected snag that quieted many of the voices claiming that Oregon was back.
Oregon head coach Willie Taggart runs with players during a drill. The Oregon Ducks host an open practice during their spring season at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex practice fields in Eugene, Ore. on Saturday, April 8, 2017. (Adam Eberhardt/Emerald)
In short, it was a wake-up call.
“It was definitely a big eye-opener because it gave us a sense of you can’t take any team lightly, regardless of how they look on film or anything like that,” running back Tony Brooks-James said.
The goal for Oregon now is to keep this loss from snowballing into a situation like last year’s.
In 2016, two victories over UC Davis and Virginia were quickly forgotten as Oregon went on to lose five straight games before finishing the season 4-8, its worst finish since 1991.
Fast-forward to 2017, and the Ducks are in a more promising, yet familiar position. Oregon logged several convincing wins to open the season, but a disappointing showing against a lesser opponent is an ominous way to start conference play. Another losing streak in the Pac-12 could doom Oregon’s season as the toughest stretch of its schedule approaches.
“We’ll look at [last season] and learn from what we did wrong last year,” quarterback Justin Herbert said. “Coach Taggart, we trust him completely, and he’ll get us in the right position.”
In the days leading up to the Arizona State game, Oregon head coach Willie Taggart said that ASU was going to be the most athletic team it had faced so far.
That was no lie as Arizona State shut down Oregon’s running game and outran the Ducks’ defense, especially early in the first and third quarters. The Sun Devils scored 17 points in the first quarter, 14 in the third and held a 31-28 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Oregon scored 42 points in the first half of each of its previous three games but was limited to only 14 points in the first half against the Sun Devils. ASU quickly scored two touchdowns after halftime, and the game seemed like it would become a blowout.
“I think we just came out unfocused and unprepared, as far as with the mindset that we needed to go out there and handle business,” running back Royce Freeman told reporters. “Just need to lock in a little bit more and start on a better foot.”
Oregon did bounce back in the game and inevitably took the lead late in the fourth quarter.
“I thought we responded well,” Taggart told reporters postgame. “We got ourselves back in it and took the lead in the fourth quarter. I was really impressed with our football team by doing that and not giving up. They fought and took the lead. We just didn’t finish it off at the end.”
But it was the sloppiness in the beginning of the game, and the penalties throughout, that hurt the Ducks. So how do they stop the mistakes, and ultimately avoiding the same fate as last season?
For one, Taggart wants to bring back the energy in the game and on the sideline. He consistently talked about bringing “the juice,” which he said his players lacked early in the game.
“Again, I put that on me,” Taggart said. “I didn’t put as much emphasis on that during the week like I had been in prior weeks. Our football team is not to the stage where they just do it all the time. We’ve got to continue to stress the message and how important it is to have energy on the sideline the entire game.”
Oregon Ducks quarterback Justin Herbert (10) carries the ball while being pursued by Nebraska Cornhuskers defensive back Aaron Williams (24). The Oregon Ducks host the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore. on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. (Adam Eberhardt/Emerald)
Home games can provide the energy that a team lacks. The “Swag surfin’” song and a dance Oregon adopted during kickoffs is better when the music is blasting over the Autzen speakers. The roar of Autzen fans can be contagious.
The Ducks are home for the next two weeks, which could help remedy issues like energy. However, Taggart also blamed a lack of execution for some of the struggles throughout the game. The players are confident that they can stop any kind of negative snowball effect.
“We just really gotta lock into the little things and still play like us,” Brooks-James said. “Just come out and execute our plays and our assignments and get back into our usual rhythm.”
Oregon’s 14 penalties for 99 yards is also an indicator that the team was unfocused. Penalties killed any momentum Oregon gained throughout the game against the Sun Devils.
“I told our team after the game, ‘We’re not good enough to beat ourselves and try to win Pac-12 games,’” Taggart said. “We’ve got to play clean ball games and not have too many penalties and dropped balls and expect to win those games.”
The penalties were correlated with Oregon going 1-for-11 on third down, a departure from the success on third down it experienced through the first three games of the season. The failure to get first downs is a worrying sign, but it can easily be brushed aside as simply a fluke
Converting third downs will come when the efficiency on the first two downs improve. Oregon elected to throw the ball more than it had in past games.
Herbert threw the ball 35 a season-high times against ASU but only completed 19 of those attempts. Against Southern Utah, he went 17-of-21, against Nebraska he went 25-of-33 and against Wyoming, Herbert completed 18-of-29.
Many times, he was forced to take the issue into his own hands. He elected to run the ball ten times, another season-high, when he couldn’t find an open receiver. The absence of wide receiver Charles Nelson certainly didn’t help.
“Charles is an excellent player and we miss him, but we’ve got to get the guys behind him ready to go,” Herbert told reporters after the loss. “We can’t just pack up the tent, we’ve got to get the guys ready to go.”
Oregon’s players are confident that they can bounce back on Saturday against Cal. They’ve been in a similar situation before, and will look to that experience to not repeat past mistakes.
“I think we’re still headed in the right direction,” Freeman said. “I mean you can’t let one game be a setback for the whole season. You can’t let it define your season. You can’t let it define your team.”
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