Andy McNamara and the staff at goducks.com have a feast of Duck stats for Oregon fans to chew on during the bye week. Think of it as a big bag of Jacklinks beef jerky to tide you over until October 21st.
LaMichael James has 23 rushing touchdowns and 13 100-yard games in his 18-game Oregon career.
Cliff Harris is now the single-season Oregon leader in punt returns for touchdown in a season with three. Michael Fletcher (1998) and Keenan Howry (2001, 2002) shared the record previously with two, Howry being the career leader with four.
Jeff Maehl is now seventh all-time in career receptions at Oregon with 132. His 10 catches on Saturday moved him ahead of Bobby Moore. Sammie Parker is the all-time leader with 178 and probably out of reach, but Maehl needs 31 more to pass Demetrius Williams, Tony Hartley and Cristin McLemore, who have 162, 162 and 160 respectively.
James leads the nation in rushing with 169.6 yards per game. His 848 yards this season give him 2394 for his Oregon career, sixth all-time in career rushing yards, just ahead of Jeremiah Johnson's 2336. If he gains 903 more yards in the season's last six games (slightly below his current pace) he will pass Derek Loville as the all-time leading rusher in Oregon history after just two seasons in a Duck uniform. If James returns for his junior or senior years, he could put that mark out of reach, easily becoming the only UO rusher to reach 4,000 or 5,000 career yards. If he plays four seasons 6,000 is a possibility, but the NFL will dangle a lot of money in his face before then.
Darron Thomas has shown steady statistical improvement at quarterback. His completion percentage in his last three games: 57.6%, 69%, 67%. In his first six games as a starter Thomas is 6-0, 86-147 throwing the football, a 58.5% completion per centage, for 1213 yards, 14 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He's also run the ball capably, 37 carries for 221 yards and 2 touchdowns. Consider this: Masoli's passer rating for all of 2009: 129.46. Thomas' so far in 2010: 152.4. Add in Costa's production off the bench, and you could argue the Ducks made an upgrade at quarterback. Of course, Masoli had some great performances in the critical games down the stretch last year against USC, Arizona and Oregon State, and that's the real challenge for Thomas and Costa. There may come a time they have to lead the team to a victory and take the game on their shoulders, rather than merely contribute. Andrew Luck had that kind of game Saturday against USC, leading a drive in the last minute for a winning field goal.
Defensively, Scott Grady had seven tackles against WSU, his career high and tied for tops on the squad for the game, an example of the stellar defensive depth Oregon enjoys. One of those was a crunching tackle on a kick return, and he made several sure tackles in pass coverage. Eddie Pleasant had seven as well. He leads the team overall with 33 tackles, and he added two sacks against WSU.
Brandon "the Beast" Bair continues to be beastly. Against WSU he also had seven tackles, including 3.5 for loss, bringing his season tfls to 12 for 48 yards. In six games Bair has pushed opponents back half a football field. The Ducks had four sacks yesterday and Bair and Clark didn't get one inside, but the push, penetration and pressure they create inside collapses the pocket and keeps the quarterback from escaping, allowing the speedy Oregon outside rushers to swoop in from the edge. Rowe, Paysinger and Pleasant had sacks, and although it doesn't show on the stat sheet, the inside pressure keeps the quarterback home.
John Boyett seems to be in a slump, or maybe the swarming pressure has meant all the tackles are being made in front of him. In his last two games, since a great performance against Arizona State in which he had 11 tackles and a pass interception returned for a touchdown, Boyett has a total of one tackle and one assist. No doubt the heady sophomore safety will return to his ballhawking aggressive ways, but he has been strangely quiet against Stanford and Washington State. Casey Matthews recently singled out his roommate Boyett as one of the hardest workers on the team in the weight room and film study. He'll be back when Oregon needs him most.
Meanwhile Matthews has been brilliant in Oregon's first six games, an active, playmaking middle linebacker. He worked hard offseason to get more lean and agile, and spent extensive time in the spring working on catching balls out of the Jugs machine, and the preparation has paid huge dividends. His anticipation is better and he has softer hands. The senior NFL-bound linebacker has three interceptions, three fumble recoveries, a sack, 3.5 tackles for loss, and two quarterback hurries. Matthews would be the first to tell you he needs to improve his tackling in the run game, but he has had an extremely productive campaign in Oregon's first six games, making a lot of plays in the middle, plays he would just miss on as a junior. Duck fans will remember in-the-bread-basket interception opportunities last season that he's finishing now. As good a player as he has been throughout his Oregon career, Casey has ramped it up for his senior year. Great to see, from a leader and a class kid.
The Oregon second unit of linebackers continues to very productive and developing their skills for next season when Paysinger and Matthews will be gone. Next year's probable starters, Clay, Kaddu and Lokombo, have combined for 51 tackles while sharing time in Oregon's deep linebacking corps. Kaddu has 2.5 tackles for loss, Lokombo two fumble recoveries including one for a touchdown, and Clay has a fumble recovery and 19 total tackles.
Oregon's receivers continue to get better, and their downfield blocking is a huge edge that other teams don't get. Watch most any of LaMichael James long touchdown runs, and you will see Drew Davis, LaVasier Tuinei, Jeff Maehl, David Paulson and Josh Huff screening a defender downfield. That doesn't show up in a stat sheet, but it does in the win column, without question. The downfield passing game is way ahead of where it was after six games last year. Huff's rapid development answered a critical concern about depth in this group, and even though it was called back by a holding penalty, his kickoff return for an apparent td last Saturday is further evidence of his explosiveness. Expect to see even further evidence in the second half, more big games from Maehl, and more of the steady, tough blocking and hard-running contributions from Tuinei and Davis.
What a hard-luck season Kenjon Barner has had so far. He broke out with 147 yards and four touchdowns rushing against New Mexico, added a 60-yard scamper on a screen pass, followed it up with an 80-yard punt return against Tennessee the following week, and since then he has suffered a painful groin injury and a frightening helmet-to-helmet concussion and had to leave two games early. He hasn't been 100% since week two. Here's hoping Kenjon gets healed, gets his feet under him, and is free to enjoy playing football in the season's second half. So far he's had to absorb a lot of punishment and adversity, and he's another quality young man in the Oregon program that deserves a chance to shine. The team could really use his dynamic gamebreaking ability in the six critical conference games that are left.
Oregon's special teams have been effective this year, particularly in punt returns and punt coverage, but frankly the kickoff return team needs an upgrade in both blocking and ball handling. While the Ducks have returned four punts for touchdowns and limited opponents to 8 total yards in punt returns, the kickoff return team has coughed up the ball three times and had at least four big returns called back with penalties. The short fields for opponents, poor starts and lost possessions are a disturbing trend. The Ducks have to learn to return a kick, hold on to the football and block properly in this unit, because mistakes like this can lose a game in the stretch drive of conference play.
A side note from watching the film: One of the hardest throws for inexperienced quarterbacks to master is the little touch pass in the flat. It can be a very effective weapon because it's a simple throw and the defense spreads downfield to cover, but it requires that the passer take a little something off the ball and lay it out in front of the receiver so that it's easier to handle, the receiver having to look over his shoulder running away from the quarterback at a bit of an awkward body angle. This kind of play can be used with devastating effectiveness, but the quarterback has to learn to adjust his delivery. Nate Costa only had two incompletions yesterday in an otherwise flawless day. One was a pass like this in the flat that handcuffed Tuinei, and the other was a Hail Mary at the end of the first half.
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