Three Up/Three Down: Oregon Loses to Washington 37-34

In a heartbreaking loss to Washington Oregon played well but had some big mistakes.

Author:
Mark Wang
Publish date:
Nov 13, 2022 9:42 PM EST

In this story:

Oregon Ducks

Oregon's 2022 season took a blow on Saturday night with a 37-34 loss to the Washington Huskies.

The game turned into a shootout and the Ducks ultimately came up short. Their college football playoff chances are dashed, but they're still in the mix for a Pac-12 title game appearance.

Here's our three up and three down from Oregon's week 11 game.

Three up

1. Loud Crowd

Autzen is loud. Anyone who’s been to an Oregon home game knows how loud it gets in there. Despite only holding around 54,000, it sounds like almost double that when it’s sold out. The crowd came out and helped against the Huskies. It confused the Huskies and led to some penalties and early timeouts.

The crowd also never really seemed out of this game. Even when Washington pulled ahead the Autzen crowd stayed in it the whole way. They really got loud when Oregon was getting aggressive towards the end of the game, especially when Oregon pinned UW deep by their own one-yard line.

2. Showed resilience in adversity

One of the marks of a great team is how you respond when you get punched in the mouth. The Ducks responded well, granted it wasn’t pretty, but they responded. Oregon played almost the entire first half from behind and went into halftime behind trailing for the first time since week 1 against Georgia.

To open the second half, Oregon got the ball, drove straight down the field, and Bo Nix ran it in for a touchdown. After that the Ducks kept their foot on the throttle and refused to back down. Even though the Ducks lost to the Huskies they fought all the way through.

3. Rushing attack

If I were Oregon, I’d give the offensive MVP to the entire running back room, because they saved Oregon's neck this game and have been the catalyst for this whole season. Bucky Irving and Noah Whittington kept Oregon in this game and Nix contributed some yards of his own on the ground. The trio put up a combined 129 rushing yards in the first half and carved up Washington's front seven. Nix rushed for his 14th touchdown of the season and is now just one away from tying Marcus Mariota’s single-season record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback.

3 down

1. Defense

The only thing worse defensively for Oregon other than the secondary, is their third-down defense. Oregon couldn’t get off the field and the Huskies converted five of nine third downs en route to putting up 522 yards of offense.

Whenever the Ducks seemed like they were about to get a stop, the Huskies responded with a big conversion. Oregon just got out played along the line of scrimmage. Michael Penix Jr. had plenty of time to throw and promptly shredded the secondary for 408 passing yards.

Ultimately, Oregon's bend, but don't break defense caught up to them and they weren't able to get the stops they needed in the games final minutes.

2. Play calling

Oregon's offense has showcased creativity and utilized trick plays pretty frequently this season. On Saturday the Ducks took some risks, particularly on fourth-downs, but the play calling was relatively dry compared to what we've seen most of the year.

Those risks didn't always pay off, with Washington recovering the early onside kick and getting points out of the following drive. Dan Lanning has been aggressive and taken risks this season, but on Saturday those risks didn't pay off in the crucial moments.

3. Not scoring fast

For a team that's been renowned for their offense, the Ducks looked off--and not just a little bit. For a team that's scored over 40 points in all but one game, they weren't productive in the first half, only scoring 10 points and trailing 13-10 at the half.

The Ducks had long drives but couldn’t get into the end zone. Their red zone trips in the first half ended with a field goal, a fumble, and a touchdown.

The first drive that the Ducks looked like themselves was the opening drive of the second half, when they methodically ran it down the field and punched it in.

However, for a team that typically puts up 20 points by the half--that’s seriously underperforming. They were able to stay aggressive in the second half, but they needed a fast start and more efficiency to get the job done.

The Ducks now sit at 8-2 with another critical home Pac-12 matchup with Utah next week at Autzen. The Ducks still control their destiny to the Pac-12 title game, but there's no room for error.