Watching that first quarter it seemed as though the great shoot-out was going to be a low scoring defensive battle between two evenly matched, well coached, teams with neither able to get it into the end zone and both settling for field goals and a 3-3 tie. But that changed in a hurry just a mere four seconds into the 2nd Qtr on a Bo Nix 17 yard TD pass to Terrance Ferguson to go up 10-3. The Bruins came right back to tie the score on a seven play 75 yard drive and a Dorian Thompson-Robinson 36 yard TD pass to Keegan Jones. Things got real interesting after that as less than two minutes later Bo Nix completed his second TD pass, this time to Troy Franklin for 49 yards to go back up 17-10. Then with 10:49 left in the 2nd Qtr and as Helen Elliott put it for the Los Angeles Times; “Chip Kelly gets out-Chipped by Lanning,” as the Ducks go for and recover an on-side kick and score again eight plays later to go up 24-10, this time on a 2 yard TD run by RB Jordan James, and then again after a Bruin field goal on a second Bo Nix TD pass to Troy Franklin with just six seconds left in the half to go up 31-13 at the break.
Scoring wise for UCLA the third quarter was like the first—a field goal on their first possession to make it 31-16. And even though UCLA would get back into the end zone early in the 4th Qtr on a Zach Charbonnet TD run and again with 4:11 left on a 22 yard DTR pass to WR Jake Bobo, it wasn’t enough as the Ducks scored a TD in both quarters to win it 45-30. As Chip Kelly said afterwards; “That’s a good team that played really well today [but] we didn’t get the stops when we needed to. I thought we moved the ball well today, but not well enough against this team. We had to keep up with them and we didn’t.” That’s for sure as Oregon scored each of the first seven times they got the ball—six of those touchdowns. As James Crepea pointed out in his article for the Oregonian/OregonLive; “The No. 8 Ducks [now] lead the Pac-12 and rank in the top 10 nationally in scoring, total offense and rushing.”
The Oregon offense was about as evenly distributed as it gets with QB Bo Nix connecting on 78% of his passes for 283 yards, 5 TD’s and no interceptions while the Ducks rushed 46 times for 262 yards and 1 TD. DTR wasn’t quite as efficient as Nix connecting on 27-of-39 for 262 yards, 2 TD’s and one interception while lthe Bruins rushed 30 times for 186 yards with Zach Charbonnet carrying most of load while churning out 151 yards and UCLA’s only score on the ground. As Crepea points out; “Bo Nix had his second game with five passing touchdowns this season, sending his passer efficiency rating up to 165.93 . . . and is completing 71.5% of his passes, fifth nationally.”
What’s that old colloquialism; “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” That’s kind of how it is after UCLA’s loss to the Ducks. The PAC-12 Conference Championship is a four horse race right now with Oregon sitting on top at 5-0, undefeated in conference play. USC is right behind at 4-1 with a one point loss to Utah, UCLA is third with a record of 3-1 and this loss to Oregon, and in fourth is Utah—also at 3-1 but with a loss to UCLA. Obviously if Oregon wins out they will be one of the two teams to compete for the PAC-12 Conference Championship. If UCLA goes undefeated the rest of the way—having already beaten Utah and winning their match-up against the Trojans in November—they will get a chance at a rematch against the Ducks. However, if USC and Utah both win out the Utes will be the first team as they hold the tie breaker having beaten the Trojans earlier and would have beaten Oregon. We should know the weekend before Thanksgiving.