The smoke lifts on a new Oregon era

The Ducks put up near historic numbers on offense as Dan Lanning recorded his first win as a Duck.

EUGENE — The smoke cleared enough by the second half to see Eastern Washington smoldering on the sideline.

Like so many FCS programs that have come west here to Autzen over the years, the Eagles were left in a heap. Oregon scored touchdowns on nine of 11 drives. The Eagles didn’t get a first down until midway through the second quarter and, for the most part, Oregon did to Eastern as Oregon is supposed to do to Eastern.

The final score, 70-14, could have been the final margin from any of those early-season Chip Kelly games. Heck, it took Kelly 14 games leading Oregon (0-0, 1-1) to reach 70, and here was Dan Lanning doing it in his second-career game to record his first-career win.

And the crowd went mild.

To be fair, you can’t really blame them. The 47,289 who filed into Autzen on Saturday really didn’t know what they were getting into. The football team they support had lost four of its final five games dating back to last season, highlighted by last week’s 49-3 sacrifice to the SEC gods in Atlanta. They showed up to cheer a coach they barely knew, a quarterback already under the duress of expectations and a defense missing go-to names like Thibodeaux and McKinley from a bygone era.