Well it had to end sometime—right? Winning at Autzen Stadium is difficult enough but when you come in with a record of giving up the most yards per game in the PAC-12—bottom 10% in the country along with Stanford—as well as the second most points in your conference against much lesser competition—the inevitable was bound to happen and it did. Oregon Head Coach Dan Lanning (former Defensive Coordinator of Georgia whose 2021 defense was first in the SEC and first in the country giving up only 9.5 points per game) and Tosh Lupoi, who spent five years at Alabama and then three years in the NFL before being hired by Lanning as his Defensive Coordinator, dialed up a butt whipping for the upstart Buffaloes. Shedeur Sanders came into the game having already been sacked 16 times and by the end of this one that number was up to 23. Let’s hope Coach Prime and his very capable staff can coach up that offensive line as well as recruit the seven players Sanders admits to being short of what he needs for next season because if not, Shedeur may have a very short career—think Andrew Luck who was sacked 352 times in three years with the Colts and walked away from millions of dollars because after all your health is everything, right?
Oregon QB Bo Nix was lethal, connecting on just about 85% of his passes for 276 yards, 3 TD’s, and 1 interception as well as rushing five times for another score on the ground. He connected with five different receivers four or more times with Junior WR Troy Franklin collecting 126 yards and two of his three TD’s on only 8 receptions, averaging 15.8 yards per catch. Junior TE Casey Kelly caught the other one near the end of the 1st Qtr to put the Ducks up 13-0 at the time. On the ground Oregon was equally effective while rushing 38 times for 240 yards and 3 TD’s including the one Nix ran into the end zone at the end of the 2nd Qtr to go up 35-0 at the break.
For Colorado, they most certainly missed their uber-talented two-way player Travis Hunter who was injured the previous week against Colorado State. But even with a healthy Hunter, Colorado is just not up to the level of an Oregon yet. As I mentioned Week-1 regarding Colorado; “With a very tough schedule that would make a .500 season a huge success, we’ll have to see what it all means when it shakes out.” It’s shaking out now and next week they’ll be back home to face another prolific scoring machine in the USC Trojans. After what should be a couple of manageable weeks they’ll be looking at UCLA, Oregon State, Washington State (who I’m watching beat the Oregon State team I thought stood a great chance at winning the conference this year) and Utah—three of those on the road. I think their schedule was the toughest in the conference and based on how well the PAC-12 is doing this year, maybe one of the toughest in the country. But I digress—back to this one.
In spite of tremendous pressure, Shedeur Sanders still connected on 69+% of his passes for 159 yards, 1 TD, and no interceptions. The Oregon defensive line was brutal against both the pass and the run picking up the seven sacks mentioned above as well as 7 tackles for loss, a number of those against Sanders himself who rushed 10 times for negative 34 yards. The team collectively rushed 25 times for a dismal 40 yards, way less than two yards a carry. The game stats matched the 42-6 scoreboard at the end with Oregon out-pacing Colorado in 1st Downs, 30-13; Passing, 282-159; Rushing, 240-40; as well as having possession of the ball for 10 more minutes. Not only was the game a blowout, it was an ugly blowout with both teams combining for 21 penalties for 186 yards. Regarding the game afterwards Coach Prime said; “Good old-fashioned butt-kicking, no excuses, no nothing.”