Finally it's game week. The Ducks play Portland State next Saturday at noon in Autzen Stadium, televised on the PAC-12 Network. Oregon fans get their first look at the new and improved defense, find out whether the Will Stein offense can reach Kenny Dillingham rpms on the tachometer.
After practice yesterday the media asked Dan Lanning what he was most looking forward to. "Yeah, just touching the grass. Right. We're ready to hit another team. You know, it's been a long time going back to the very end of July right now, where you're playing the same team every single day."
"There's some challenges presented when you get to practice against something you haven't seen every single day or play against something you haven't seen. So there's a lot we haven't seen it when we get to go out there for another opponent. But part of that but fun in that is preparing for that. What do you think you might see? What do you think might show up? And then, how do you prepare for that moment?"
Last season the Vikings fell short of their legendary history in ransacking and pillaging, 4-7, 3-5 in the Big Sky. As unassailable as it is in mathematics, there's no transitive property in college football, but it's at least mildly interesting that last season the Ducks played Big Sky Conference Eastern Washington in the season opener and beat them 70-14. PSU traveled to EWU in late October and won 38-35.
One other common opponent: in the opening game of the 2022 campaign the Viks visited Washington at Husky Stadium. The Huskies pummeled them 52-6. Michael Penix tossed a pair of touchdown passes while the Dawg defense had four sacks. They outgained their Big Sky victims 617-131. Portland State managed just 13 first downs and a pair of field goals.
Bruce "Barney" Barnum has coached at PSU since 2014, compiling a record of 30-50.
Their best player is junior quarterback Dante Chachere, 6-3, 195. Last season he threw for 1,968 yards while running for a team-leading 744. Leading receiver Nate Bennett caught 47 passes.
In the Washington game the Vikings had the ball for 51 plays, 20 passes, 31 runs. Washington scored on their first four possessions, coasting to a 28-3 lead before Penix threw an interception on third and five from his own 22.
The Ducks last hosted Portland State in 2018, winning 62-14 behind four touchdown passes by Justin Herbert and a 49-yard touchdown run by Travis Dye. When the teams met in 2010 Oregon blanked them 69-0, Darron Thomas with four TD passes. Since 1994 they've met five times, the Ducks winning all five, the closest contest a 41-0 whitewash in 2002.
The past is not prologue, but Oregon's advantage in talent level, roster size and budget are overwhelming and should be decisive. Still, in 2021 Jimmy Lake and the Washington Huskies managed to lose to Big Sky Montana 13-7. Lake would be fired in November of that season after striking a player on the sideline, not lasting the full year in his second season as UW coach.
Yet in the winter of 2020 Husky fans all thought he was a genius, the handpicked heir of Chris Petersen. Coaching is savage business. Lose a few times as a 35-point favorite, and suddenly you're not a genius anymore.
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