Playing without your two best players is usually a recipe for disaster, especially when they are the key components to your offensive attack.
The Oregon Ducks simply say, “No problem, next man up!”
Without both LaMichael James and Darron Thomas (not the entire game, though) the Ducks were able to pound Arizona State despite a very good first half from ASU quarterback Brock Osweiler.
Oregon was simply too fast both offensively and defensively in the long run, mostly wearing down the Sun Devil defense with a solid ground game and very good decision making from Oregon’s backup quarterback Bryan Bennett.
The true breakout player from this game though was Oregon running back Kenjon Barner, a 5’11” 180 pound junior out of Riverside, California. Barner saw his most extensive work of the season with James sidelined, carrying the ball 31 times for 171 yards and a touchdown.
Barner showed great quickness and a surprising willingness to take on tacklers, and proved he is more than capable of filling in for James for any extended period of time. He is still a smaller back, but their running back situation really reminds me a lot of Clemson’s a couple of years ago when they had both C.J. Spiller and James Davis, two very good college runners with one simply waiting his turn to shine.
Barner has five total touchdowns over the last three games, and if the Ducks continue to get him involved, they could be nearly impossible to stop when they have the ball offensively.
That was the case for Vontaze Burfict and Arizona State, who were able to hang with the speed of Oregon for a while, but eventually just couldn’t play sideline-to sideline with them anymore. Burfict is still a top linebacker prospect, and even though he had two personal foul penalties last night, he looks like he’s playing with a fear of getting in trouble at times. He’s not as aggressive as you would expect from someone with his reputation, and a lot of it has to do with what people have been saying about him.
I was pretty impressed with the play of Arizona State quarterback Brock Osweiler last night in the first half, but in the second half, he seemed to be off and out of sync with his receivers.
Speaking of those receivers, Osweiler has an interesting pair of guys to throw the ball to in seniors Gerrell Robinson (6’4″ 222) and Mike Willie (6’4″ 211) both of whom had touchdowns last night. I remember seeing Robinson drop a couple of passes he should have caught, and Willie’s been impressive so far this season. These guys have very intriguing size so they will undoubtedly get looks from NFL teams.
Obviously, Oregon is still among the nation’s elite, and they should be ranked as such. They are so fast on both sides of the ball and have such great depth that they can really hang with anyone. It will be interesting to see how they match up with Stanford later this season.