3 takeaways from Oregon's dominant win over Hawaii
Oregon was up 24-0 on Hawaii after the first quarter. The Ducks were cruising by halftime.
After surviving an upset scare on the road a week ago, No. 13 Oregon returned to friendlier confines on Saturday for one final tune-up before conference play begins. There was no looking ahead to next week’s matchup with Colorado; the Ducks took care of business and walked out of Autzen Stadium with a 55-10 victory.
Quarterback Bo Nix completed 21 of his 27 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns. The offense went for 560 total yards while the defense limited Hawaii to 201. Thinks coach Dan Lanning will have wanted to see cleaned up were better.
The Ducks are 3-0.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
The run game gets runnin’
Oregon’s ground game was bottled up last week on the road against Texas Tech. Bucky Irving had just 38 yards on 11 carries. Noah Whittington had 21 on seven carries. The touchdown machine, Jordan James, had just 8 on four carries.
It was an uncharacteristic showing not indicative of the ground game’s potential. Was it a sign? Or just an off-game? That was a fair question given the nature of Oregon’s first opponent.
I’m leaning toward an off-game against a good opponent. The Ducks have the best trio of running backs in college football. Argue with your grandma.
Irving is darn near impossible to tackle in a one-on-one. Whittington is bigger and badder. And James looks special.
Against Hawaii, the Ducks ran for 210 yards and three scores at 7 yards a carry.
Whittington had 80 yards and a touchdown on five carries.
Pardon me, Noah coming through.@TheLegitMpr goes 3️⃣4️⃣ yards for his first TD of the year.
ORE 48, HAW 3 (Q3 | 1:27) #GoDucks
📺 @Pac12Network pic.twitter.com/SFOIyIDo2F
— Oregon Football (@oregonfootball) September 17, 2023
James had 61 yards and two scores on seven carries, showing once again he’s a real threat as a short-yardage specialist.
To the house.@JordanJames24 takes it 22 yards for the score, his fourth of the year.
ORE 17, HAW 0 (Q1 | 5:52)#GoDucks
📺 @Pac12Network pic.twitter.com/ZVko3oQcFK
— Oregon Football (@oregonfootball) September 17, 2023
Irving had a “quiet” 59 yards on 12 carries.
The Ducks had eight explosive runs. Backs ran hard. Linemen blocked well. Things are back and rolling again ahead of a massive Pac-12 opener.
Defense shuts it down
Mase Funa came screaming off the edge on a third-and-1 on Hawaii’s first possession of the second half and stuffed a run in the backfield for a 3-yard loss.
The Ducks played in and around the backfield quite a bit Saturday. They had two sacks and seven tackles for loss. Hawaii doesn’t really try to run the ball, so the numbers don’t jump off the page, but Oregon stuffed what it needed to in order to make life tough on quarterback Brayden Schager.
Schager threw the ball 43 times against a heavy press-man defense from the Ducks. He completed 27 of those passes for just 131 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. That’s 3.0 yards per pass attempt. Against a run-and-shoot offense, you’ll take that every time.
Hawaii was 2-for-14 on third downs. Oregon stopped third-and-short six times on eight tries. Hawaii converted just one third down through the air on eight pass attempts.
What have been issues looked cleaner Saturday night.
Not quite cleaned up yet, to be clear. The Ducks were still flagged for a pair of pass interference penalties in the game after a week of harping on that exact play in practice.
Schager, though, came into the game ranked sixth nationally in pass yards per game and third nationally in attempts per game. Oregon was going to have its pass defense. The response was encouraging.
Tez Johnson is heating up
The connection between Bo Nix and Tez Johnson is becoming a very productive one.
After the Tech game, Johnson promised more touchdowns were on the way. He had 41 yards in the opener but couldn’t find the endzone. Last week in Lubbock, he brought in 37 yards and his first touchdown as an Oregon wideout.
This week, he added two more to the tally.
The Bo Nix/Tez Johnson connection remains ELITE🎯
— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 17, 2023
Bo ➡ Tez: The Sequel#GoDucks
📺 @Pac12Network pic.twitter.com/7dw5lo3iCM
— Oregon Football (@oregonfootball) September 17, 2023
Johnson finished with 77 yards on four catches. Another home run hitter for an offense with a ton of them.