Husky Defense Was Good on Fourth Down, Stopping Oregon 3 Times

The Huskies bent but didn't break against the Ducks offense Saturday in a comeback victory.

When Washington needed most to get a stop against eighth-ranked Oregon, after struggling to do so much of the afternoon, the defense answered. 

The Ducks went for it on three nervy fourth-down attempts on Saturday against the Huskies and failed each time.

Oregon's last fourth-down misfire turned the ball over to the Huskies at their 47 with 1:49 left to play and was turned into in a game-winning 18-yard touchdown pass to UW wide receiver Rome Odunze to secure a 36-33 victory at Husky Stadium. 

However, the UW wouldn't have been in position to win at the end of the game if its defense hadn't kept Oregon off the scoreboard to end the first half. 

"I think the defense gets sick of me letting the offense go for it on fourth down in the spring ball scrimmages and the fall scrimmages, but here we are," Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer quipped after the game. 

Following an interception, Oregon took possession at its own 49 with 55 seconds left in the half. With the Ducks trailing 22-18, quarterback Bo Nix marched the offense all the way to the Husky 3.

Yet that's a far as Oregon got before it ran out of downs and time. Nix threw consecutive incomplete passes to wide receiver Traeshon Holden and running back Bucky Irving and third- and fourth-and-goal, and the Ducks came away empty-handed.

"I had questioned the first couple," UW cornerback Jabbar Muhammad said of the Ducks' passing up field-goal attempts. "I was like, 'Why aren't they taking their points?' I guess that's just them."

With 10:30 remaining in the third quarter, Oregon began a drive at its 25-yard line and once again drove nearly the length of the field and into the red zone before turning the ball over on downs at the UW 8-yard line. 

Although taht failed fourth-down gamble didn't cost the Ducks, it set up a repeat of last year's UW-Oregon game at Autzen Stadium, which favored the Huskies 37-34. 

"You get in those moments and you keep playing, and you understand, "OK, third down, this is in four-down zone,' " DeBoer said. "We know with Oregon how aggressive they just are all the time. These guys just playing through those series and knowing, 'OK, it isn't just one more stop we have to get on third down, we have to get another one.' "

Oregon retook the lead 33-29 with just over 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter before Washington made its third and final fourth-down stop on the Ducks.

After starting at the Oregon 2-yard line with just over six minutes left, Nix completed a pair of passes to tight end Terence Ferguson and wide receiver Troy Franklin to move the ball into UW territory. 

Ducks coach Dan Lanning, as he did the year before in the Eugene game, called for a fourth-down play that fell short when Nix threw an incomplete pass at the UW 47 and the Huskies used this opportunity to make amends for a spotty defensive performance. 

On an afternoon in which UW gave up 542 yards, the third-most total offense under DeBoer, the Husky defense showed it could make the necessary play to win when in the most pressurized situation. 

Plus, those guys grew weary of people second-guessing them on the outside.

"I'm not going to lie, I deleted Twitter and Instagram for this game," Muhammad said. "The reason I did that, it was because I was seeing all the our secondary is this, our defense is this, we haven't had a test."

They have now.

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