In just 61 days on September 9th, Oregon travels to Lubbock, Texas to take on former Duck quarterback Tyler Shough and the Red Raiders of Texas Tech.
TTU finished last season with four straight wins with Shough taking over as the starter. After a 34-24 loss at #7 TCU on November 5th they beat Kansas, Iowa State and Oklahoma in successive weeks, then dumped Ole Miss in the Texas Bowl 42-25.
In the bowl game Shough threw for 242 yards and a touchdown and ran for a career-high 111 yards and two more TDs. His MVP performance boosted the Red Raiders to 8-5, their first 8-win season since 2013.
Wednesday before the game, first-year head coach Joey McGuire was awarded a new six-year, $26.6 million contract. Immediately after the victory over the Sooners, the school began renovations on Jones AT&T Stadium.
Optimism is running high in Lubbock and for the first time since he was a touted 4-star senior at Hamilton High in Arizona, Shough looks confident and in command as an established starter. Three years ago, starting for the Ducks in the Fiesta Bowl against Iowa State he was benched at halftime, partly because he missed seeing Travis Dye wide-open for a touchdown on an RPO early in the game.
In 2020 Shough, offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead and then-Duck head coach Mario Cristobal suffered through a messy three-way relationship that was like a household who couldn't decide who was going to cook and who was going to do the dishes.
For now, in Lubbock, everyone is on board and on the same page and nobody has left a load in the dryer. The team, coaching staff and fans have bought in to McGuire's mantra, "The Brand" which is faintly similar to Nick Saban's The Process, P.J. Fleck's Row the Boat and Chip Kelly's old Win the Day. How we do anything is how we do everything. We're going to play fast. Run the football. Stop the run. Hit their quarterback and protect ours.
What’s Next!!! #TheBrand https://t.co/ozJzt0bbLk
— Tyler Shough (@tylershough2) February 9, 2023
Sound fundamental football wears a lot of different colored sweatshirts. It's the volume and conviction that give a coaching mantra power, and the power lasts until the seniors tune it out or it stops getting results. Right now, everyone has bought in. Shough, an intelligent, nice-looking kid with some genuine talent, is walking quite a bit taller in red and black. Like most of us he responds better to a pat on the shoulder pad than he does to a glower and a "what the f___ was that?"
While Tyler isn't necessarily bitter and vindictive he is a competitor. He'll be juiced up to show the wrong quarterback left town. Similarly, the Red Raiders, who scored 34.2 points a game last season while converting 64% on fourth down, will be eager to show that their surge of new-found confidence has staying power. In year two they want to break out of the pack in the Big 12, and after beating Texas and Oklahoma in the same season, capping that off with a win over an SEC opponent, they are fully convinced they can beat anyone.
Which is exactly what they can do if Oregon's secondary and offensive line haven't gelled fully for their first road game. It's always tough to win on the road. Jones AT&T holds 60,454 and they will be loud for a night game on national television. Lubbock is the third-windiest city in the United States. It'll be hot and the crowd will be a sea of red. The Masked Rider will have his guns up.
Leading into the game (TTU opens at Wyoming on September 2nd) the coaches can lean hard on the disrespect narrative. They can talk about Nike money and thousands of uniform combinations and a flashy team from the West Coast that hasn't accomplished much but gets lots of attention. "You're tougher! Show them you're more physical!" Something like that.
Shough has his two leading receivers back, part of an offense that threw for 302 yards a game. The defense led the Big 12 in sacks while finishing 9th in the FBS in Red Zone defense.
The early line has Oregon as a 4.5-point favorite, but that's something that can easily evaporate in the heat and the noise. The Ducks will have to be poised, and Duck fans have to hope that the rebuilt offensive line and revamped secondary are on schedule.
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