A game against Portland State was never going to answer every question surrounding Oregon. After two shaky season openers, including last week’s ugly loss at Oklahoma State, beating an overmatched FCS opponent wasn’t suddenly going to prove the Ducks are back among the best teams in college football.
But there are ways to beat Portland State, and then there’s what Oregon did Friday night. The Ducks rolled up 726 yards of offense, allowed just 103, and completely overwhelmed the Vikings in an 84-0 win at Autzen Stadium.
It was Oregon’s largest margin of victory ever at Autzen and a modern-era program record for points. It was also the Ducks’ 15th shutout in program history, which is a pretty decent way to respond after a week of hearing about everything that went wrong at Oklahoma State.
Portland State isn’t USC, and nobody should pretend otherwise. Still, after what we watched during the first two weeks, this was exactly the type of night Oregon needed.
Here are three takeaways.
1. Oregon finally played like Oregon
This sounds ridiculously simple after an 84-point win, but Oregon needed to dominate somebody. The Ducks didn’t really do that against Boise State, and they certainly didn’t do it against Oklahoma State.
Friday looked different immediately. Oregon led 28-0 after one quarter and 49-0 at halftime, eventually finishing with 43 first downs, 726 total yards, and four forced turnovers. The Ducks also held Portland State to 103 total yards and just two rushing yards for the entire game.
Yes, Portland State is an FCS team that fell to 0-4 with the loss. Oregon should win this game easily, but after the first two weeks, it was encouraging to watch the Ducks make a massive talent advantage look even bigger.
They still have things to clean up. Oregon committed seven penalties for 65 yards, which is worth watching after the Ducks struggled with penalties earlier in the season. Still, there wasn’t much else to complain about in an 84-point shutout.
More importantly, Oregon looked comfortable again. The Ducks played fast, controlled the line of scrimmage, and never gave Portland State even a tiny opening to make the night interesting.
That doesn’t tell us what will happen next week against USC. It does tell us Oregon responded exactly how it should have after one of the more disappointing losses of the Dan Lanning era.
2. Dante Moore looked like himself again
The most important development Friday wasn’t Oregon scoring 84 points. It was Dante Moore looking comfortable again after a difficult week.
Moore completed 19 of 23 passes for 280 yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions before handing the ball off to the backups. Oregon’s official postgame recap noted that Moore had spent the week re-evaluating his pre-snap footwork, and the difference showed against Portland State.
Again, opponent matters here. Portland State wasn’t generating the type of pressure Moore will see against USC and the better teams on Oregon’s Big Ten schedule, but confidence and rhythm still matter for a quarterback.
Oregon also showed a little more variety around him. The Ducks used a direct snap to a running back, put Moore under center on a pitch play, and even used an offensive lineman at fullback on a touchdown run. Lanning specifically praised the offensive creativity afterward and, more importantly, the execution of concepts Oregon had worked on during the week.
That might be the bigger takeaway than Moore’s four touchdown passes. Oregon has too much offensive talent for moving the football to feel as difficult as it did at times during the first two games, and Friday finally looked more like what this offense was supposed to be.
Moore won’t get this much time and space against USC. But heading into the beginning of Big Ten play, getting his confidence back and letting the offense find some rhythm was about as productive a night as Oregon could have hoped for.
3. Oregon’s depth got a very useful test run
By halftime, the competitive portion of this game was essentially over. That gave Oregon something it hadn’t really gotten during the first two weeks: a chance to turn things over to the rest of the roster and let younger players get meaningful snaps.
Dylan Raiola certainly took advantage. In his Oregon debut, Raiola completed all 11 of his passes for 124 yards and three touchdowns, while the Ducks eventually used four quarterbacks.
The depth showed up all over the field. Messiah Hampton stepped into a bigger role after Jeremiah McClellan was injured during pregame warmups and finished with six catches for 71 yards and two touchdowns. At the same time, Kendre Harrison and Andrew Olesh also caught touchdown passes.
The younger defensive players also got involved. Jett Washington intercepted two passes and forced a fumble; Davon Benjamin added another interception, and Gavin Nix recovered Washington’s forced fumble on a kickoff.
Freshmen Brandon Smith and Tradarian Ball also scored the first rushing touchdowns of their Oregon careers. None of that guarantees those players will be ready when Oregon needs them in a close Big Ten game, but Friday gave the coaching staff a chance to see them somewhere other than the practice field.
That’s one of the few genuinely valuable things you can get from a game like this. College football seasons get weird quickly, injuries happen, and somebody buried on the depth chart in September almost always ends up playing an important snap later in the season.
Oregon is now 2-1, and the Oklahoma State loss hasn’t magically disappeared, even though the Ducks scored 84 points against Portland State. The questions surrounding this team still exist, particularly with USC coming next Saturday.
But there was really only one acceptable response Friday night. Oregon needed to dominate Portland State, get Moore back into rhythm, give the younger players some work, and move forward.
The Ducks did all of that, and then some. Now USC should tell us a whole lot more.
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