Oregon's Offensive Keys to the Game Against Fresno State
We are less than 24 hours away from the 2021 Oregon football season and seeing all of the work that the Ducks have put in this offseason come to fruition. Players are getting healthy, the film is being inspected repeatedly, and the playbooks are being fully installed after a weird year in 2020.
It was especially a weird year for the Ducks offense in its first year under Joe Moorhead, as he didn't have a full offseason to really explore the playbook as he has this offseason.
The offense has as much talent as any in recent memory, and execution will be a big focal point as Fresno State comes to town.
Here's what the offense will have to do to go 1-0 this weekend.
1. Establish the Run Early
Oregon's run game was fairly average in 2020 compared to recent years, averaging 166.7 yards per game on the ground, which ranked only seventh in the Pac-12 and was the fewest the Ducks have recorded since 2005.
CJ Verdell and Travis Dye looked like they were going to be one of the best 1-2 punches at running back in the country early in the 2020 season, fueling the Ducks to 538 total rushing yards in the first two games.
Verdell suffered a thumb injury in the Washington State game and was fairly limited for the rest of the season, and so was the Ducks' rushing attack. Oregon rushed for only 629 yards in the final five games combined (125.8 yards per game).
Now that Verdell is healthy, as are Dye, Trey Benson, and freshman backs Seven McGee and Byron Cardwell, the run game should be much improved playing behind an offensive line that returns all of its starters from last season.
Fresno State had the third-worst rush defense in the Mountain West last year, allowing 212.3 yards per contest. The Bulldogs held UConn to only 35 yards on the ground and 107 total yards of offense, but UConn is not necessarily one of the more talented teams in the country and hadn't played a football game since 2019.
Bulldogs Defensive Coordinator William Inge has a lot of guys that can get in the backfield and blow plays up, including David Perales, Levelle Bailey, and Ryan Boehm. The Bulldogs logged 10 tackles for loss in their 45-0 shutout over the Huskies on Saturday.
If the Ducks can get the run game going early, it allows for Joe Moorhead to get creative with his playbook and call up draw plays for their dynamic running backs, play-action passes, jet sweeps, and RPOs.
2. Keep Anthony Brown Upright
Fresno State recorded four sacks on Saturday, which was right around the season average from last season (4.17) that ranked third in the nation. Alex Mirabal's unit will be tested right out of the gate.
Brown is a mobile quarterback and has a good sense of when the pocket is collapsing, but the Bulldogs' defensive front seven is scary fast. The Bulldogs also return more than three-quarters of their sack production from last year, so there is plenty of film to study before Saturday.
As previously mentioned, the Ducks brought back their entire offensive line, and the group has been praised in the offseason as one that has made remarkable improvements. We need to see that Saturday.
The offensive line understands its assignment, but what Brown must do is get the ball out fast and have good pocket awareness. Fresno State throws a lot of different guys at the quarterback and disguises its pressures well, so the Ducks will have to be prepared for anything.
3. Push the Ball Downfield
This Oregon team has an absurd amount of pass-catching talent at every level of the depth chart. The spring game was great evidence of that.
Oregon's offense was said to be "explosive" entering last year, but 2020 was just an outlier of a season in which any guarantees or expectations that fell short should be mostly excused. Tyler Shough was not the gunslinger that Justin Herbert was, and there was almost a hesitation from him to throw the ball deep down the field. The past two years have seen a lot of short-yard plays and screens, and Ducks fans have been calling for a more explosive offense.
This could be the year.
Brown has all the tools to be a gunslinger for the Ducks. He has a bazooka for an arm, and he showed great touch on the deep ball at Boston College and at times during fall camp. The talent around him isn't too shabby either.
When the ball gets into the hands of guys like Johnny Johnson III, Jaylon Redd, Devon Williams, and Mycah Pittman, it's a big play waiting to happen. Now, the Ducks bring true freshmen Troy Franklin, Dont'e Thornton, and Isaiah Brevard into the fold, and those guys are as talented and athletically gifted as any true freshmen receiver Oregon has had. The tight ends and running backs are more than capable of being deep threats as well.
Keeping the secondary on its heels would be a big win for Oregon. That strategy was a huge reason why the Ducks of the early 2010s were so lethal offensively and scored nearly 50 big ones a game.
If the Ducks can rack up passing yards against a pretty solid Fresno State secondary while taking care of the football, they would feel confident heading into Columbus next weekend to take on a very young Buckeyes secondary.
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