Oregon opened its 2023 season on Saturday with the best kind of performance a team can have in a buy game — convincing.

The Ducks dominated the Portland State Vikings for just about the entire afternoon and walked away with an 81-7 victory. The 81 points scored set a record for the most in a single, modern-era game in school history.

Here are three takeaways from the win:

Build a few more billboards

The folks who got all bent out of shape over the Bo Nix billboards that popped up around the country last month never saw the Ed Oliver bobbleheads from Houston and it shows.

This isn’t a new or unique take, but it’s worth repeating over and over because people seem to disregard it. Marketing is about drawing attention. Oregon is marketing its super-duper quarterback with a “Bo-Dacious” Heisman campaign.

Does Bryce Young need a Heisman campaign? Or Caleb Williams? Or Tim Tebow?

No. Of course not. Everyone in the country is watching those guys. ESPN is talking about those guys every chance they get. They’re in commercials.

A significant percentage of the college football public hears the name Bo Nix and thinks about Auburn moments because they tuned in to see Oregon get the doors blown off against Georgia last fall and promptly tuned out.

They don’t know Bo Nix has become one of the most effective quarterbacks in the country.

He’s a legitimate Heisman contender in 2023. In his 2023 debut — again under a new offensive coordinator — Nix completed 23 of his 27 passes for 287 yards and three touchdowns.

The senior missed his first pass, then hit his next seven. He missed on a second-and-8, then hit another four in a row. He hit each of his last 11 before his day was called, and he completed passes to eight different players.

The Ducks had seven first-half possessions. All seven ended in touchdowns. Six of the seven needed more than 50 yards to reach the end zone, and all of those drives reached paydirt in fewer than eight plays.

Nix wasn’t sacked. He wasn’t picked. He wasn’t threatened.

Oregon just tore Portland State’s defense apart. Nix did what he was supposed to. More of that and he’ll be in New York City in December to see his billboards in person.

Run over

Oregon had 37 first downs.

Oregon faced just seven third downs.

Oregon ran 72 plays and scored 81 points.

The Ducks — get this — posted an 85% success rate.

Eighty. Five.

How do you do that? Your offensive linemen absolutely dominate the man who lines up across from them. And they do it across the board. And they do it all game. The Ducks completely ran over Portland State, which you expect to see in this kind of matchup but that doesn’t mean it’ll always happen.

And the Ducks had plenty of questions on the offensive line entering the game after four wonderful, veteran linemen left from last year’s team.

Oregon totaled 406 yards of offense on just first-down plays, hitting at 10.2 a pop. It ran for 163 yards on first-down plays, hitting at 8.2 a pop.

When you can do that, you’re going to be able to do whatever you want offensively. The whole playbook is open, and the entire depth chart will be able to see the field. Oregon imposed its will on offense, and that’s exactly what you hope to see in games like this.

Star tailback Bucky Irving had 119 yards and two touchdowns on just four carries. On a fourth-and-1, he went for 56.

Jordan James added 86 yards and three scores on 10 carries. Dante Dowdell had 55 yards and a score on eight carries. Jayden Limar had 51 yards and a touchdown on eight carries. Oregon had 350 as a team, and I don’t need to adjust that number for sacks because Oregon didn’t allow any.

We’ll need to wait on grand proclamations about the offensive line, but they certainly passed the first test.

The offense looked like a fine-tuned machine in a Week 1 game under a new offensive coordinator. That’s very impressive.

A start on defense that gives Dan Lanning something to harp on

While Oregon’s offensive line absolutely dominated Portland State’s defensive front, Oregon’s defensive line took a little bit longer to settle in.

The Vikings had 126 yards of offense in the first quarter thanks to 99 rushing yards on 13 carries.

Now, the rest of the game, they had just 49 yards on 24 carries. Oregon tightened up. (And the Ducks threw out a ton of different personnel packages.) But Portland State caught Oregon on its second drive, when it rumbled for 75 yards and a touchdown on nine plays.

Portland State quarterback Dante Chacere ran for 20 yards on the first play of the drive. Two plays later, the Vikings had a 22-yard gain up the middle. On a third-and-2 later in the drive, Chachere ran left for 12 yards. On a third-and-goal from the 9, Chachere got loose again for a 9-yard score.

The Ducks weren’t able to get to the quarterback for a sack, and they had just three tackles for loss.

Oregon had a nearly perfect debut. Coach Dan Lanning has one thing he can harp on in film study after the game, though.