UW vs. Oregon game thread

Oregon 21, Washington 10

Oregon added to its lead on its first drive of the second half, following a Washington three-and-out. Jeremiah Johnson, who already has a career high in rushing yards, scored on a 13-yard run.

Washington’s offense continues to look pretty bad other than an occasional Locker run, though most of those are coming on broken plays.

Oregon is driving as we start the fourth quarter, looking at third and eight at the UW 17.

Oregon 14, Washington 10 at halftime

Looks like the Huskies plan to make a game out of this. Down 14-0 early, the Huskies looked like they were headed towards another blowout loss at the hands of Oregon. Ten UW points in the second quarter made this one close, however, so we should hopefully have an interesting second half.

In case you didn’t notice, though I’m sure the TV guys pointed it out, Oregon is now playing with its backup quarterback, Jeremiah Masoli. Justin Roper apparently hurt his hand in the second quarter, and may not return.

Here’s a few halftime stats

Oregon has 252 yards of total offense to just 133 for the Huskies, and that’s having run nine less plays that Washington.

Jeremiah Johnson is leading the way on the ground for Oregon with seven carries for 78 yards. Terence Scott has four catches for 104 yards, including a 60 yard touchdown.

Jake Locker leads the Huskies with 37 rushing yards on 10 carries, while Chris Polk has nine carries for 15 yards.

D’Andre Goodwin and Kavario Middleton each have three catches.

Locker, after starting zero for six, has completed seve of nine to make him seven for 15 for 66 yards.

Just a warning for anyone glued to this blog (but why would you be when it’s on TV) the updates will be less frequent in the second half while I write for tomorrow’s paper.

3:17 left in the half

After looking dead in the first quarter, the Huskies have found a little life here and trail 14-10 late in the half. Following the Perkins field goal, Washington go the ball back when Quinton Richardson, one of many Huskies making his UW debut, picked off an underthrown Justin Roper pass.

Thirteen plays later Paul Homer dove in from a yard out to give the Huskies a touchdown.

Let’s see now how the defense does with a critical late-in-the-half drive. An Oregon touchdown could take away a lot of the momentum the Huskies have built, whereas a stop, with or without an ensuing score, should have the Huskies pretty fired up in the locker room.

12:15 left in the second quarter

And the Huskies are finally on the scoreboard. Oregon’s lead is now 14-3 after a 35-yard field goal from Ryan Perkins. Washington moved the ball on Oregon for the first time of the night, with the two biggest plays being a pair of 16-yard passes, one to D’Andre Goodwin, and one to Kavario Middleton, the first catch for the freshman tight end.

Oregon 14, Washington 0, end of first

Bad as a 14-0 hole is for the Huskies, this could probably be worse. After the aforementioned Ballman shank, the defense held and forced a field-goal attempt, which missed wide right from 31 yards.

The Huskies will start the second quarter with the ball at the Oregon 41, which—and here’s another bad sign for the Huskies—is as far as they’ve driven today.

One thing (and there are many) hurting the Huskies is their first-down production. Washington’s first down plays have gone for one yard, one yard, zero, minus four, zero, minus nine, and two yards.

5:13 first quarter

Just got a text from a friend watching at home. It was simple and to the point.

“uh oh” it said.

Um, yeah, that about sums it up so far for the Dawgs. Oregon is up 14-0 after a 60-yard touchdown pass from Justin Roper to Terence Scott.

And in the time it took me to write that, the Huskies had another three-and-out. Jake Locker is now one for seven after completing a pass to D’Andre Goodwin. He has been the victim of several drops, however.

And now Jared Ballman shanked a punt for six yards. Yikes.

10:20 first quarter

Well, so far not a good start at all for the Huskies. On Oregon’s first drive, at least, the Huskies defense looked as suspect as last year, allowing a four-play, 63 yard scoring drive capped by a four-yard Jeremiah Johnson run. Johnson set up his touchdown with a 44-yard run one play earlier.

And for what it’s worth, Washington was using three down linemen in that drive.

Washington’s offense is going to have to answer soon to keep this one from getting away.

We’re underway

Oregon won the toss and deferred. Tripper Johnson and Jordan Polk were the deep men to return. Matt Evenson’s kick went about eight yards deep in the endzone, forcing Polk to take a knee.

And not quite the start the Huskies would have liked to try to take the Ducks fans out of the game. The Huskies managed one first down on a seven-yard Jake Locker run, but then had to punt. Cleary the Huskies want to run the ball and try to burn clock, as the first five plays were all runs before Locker threw incomplete on third and seven.

Let’s see how the new defense does.