College Football Preview: Oregon

Oregon

12-1 in 2012 (8-1 in the PAC 12)                                      defeated Kansas State 35-17 in the Fiesta Bowl

2012 Recap:

What might have been? That is the only thing Oregon could ask itself after winning the Fiesta Bowl last year. The path to the National Title game was clear for Oregon. They were 10-0, hosting Stanford with only one more regular season game ahead of them against Oregon State. But it all went wrong. Stanford’s physicality slowed the proficient Duck offense all night long, and eventually outlasted Oregon 17-14 in overtime.

Oregon would defeat Oregon State a week later, but they would miss out on the PAC 12 title game because of the loss to division foe Stanford. Oregon was 12-1 in 2012, but the 1 loss was at the wrong time to the wrong team.

The Schedule:

Oregon must be given credit for their non-conference schedule. After a warm up game against Nicholls State, Oregon travels across the country to play Virginia. They host Tennessee the following week before closing out September with their first Pac 12 game against Cal at home. They travel to a dangerous Washington team in October and host UCLA at the end of October.

For some unknown reason, the biggest game of the Pac 12 season will be played on Thursday November 7. That is the night that Oregon travels to Stanford in a rematch of last year’s epic game.

Oregon will host Oregon State on the day after Thanksgiving to finish their season.

Key Returner:

Marcus Mariota, quarterback. For SEC fans who were thrilled last season watching the exploits of Johnny Manziel, the Pac 12 version of Johnny Football were pretty impressive as well. Mariota threw for almost 2700 yards and had 32 touchdowns compared to only 6 interceptions. He added 5 touchdowns on the ground. Mariota will be extremely important in 2013 because running back Kenyon Barner graduated, leaving a huge void in the Duck backfield. The biggest question surrounding Mariota is how effective he will be without…

Key Loss:

Chip Kelly, head coach. In four years as the head coach of Oregon, Chip Kelly lost only 3 games in the Pac 12. He lost to Stanford twice and he lost to USC once. In this day and age of college football, you don’t get much more dominant than that. Kelly led Oregon to the National title game in 2010, where the Ducks came up just short in a very close game against Auburn. Kelly’s high powered and fast paced offense has been mimicked around the country and both the high school and collegiate levels. It was that offense that made him such an attractive candidate for the NFL, so no one was really surprised when Kelly left Eugene for the Philadelphia Eagles in the off season.

Although Kelly was only head coach since 2009, his offense has been the staple of the team since he was named offensive coordinator in 2007. Kelly’s offensive coordinator, Mark Helfrich was named as Kelly’s successor, but is the student as good as the teacher. Can Oregon survive without the man that took it’s program to levels it had never seen before?

Success Will Be:

With Mariota back, Duck fans will expect no drop off in the Duck’s performance in 2013. Oregon is ranked in the top five preseason, right along with Stanford. The two best teams in the conference just happen to play in the same division, so I guess a successful season for Oregon would be to win the Pac 12 North, and go on to beat whatever mediocre team comes out of the Pac 12 South to win the conference title. If Oregon is undefeated, they should be in line to play for the National title, but if they slip up like they did in 2012, there is no guarantee that 13-1 and a Pac 12 title will be enough to get in to the title game.

2013 Prediction:

Oregon is just better than most of the teams on their schedule. They should have no problem beating Virginia and Tennessee early in the season, and while everyone is looking towards the Stanford game, I think Oregon will slip up a bit sooner than that when they have to go play at Washington on October 12^th. Even a loss at Washington won’t completely put Oregon out of the title race, but a second consecutive loss to Stanford will. I just think Stanford is the more physical team and I think they are a bad match up for Oregon’s style of offense. Oregon will go 10-2 in 2013. Not a bad year, but a considerable step back from the Chip Kelly era.