Wet and angry, Oregon again passes the Washington test

The Ducks kept their cool all week. Then they ran all over the Huskies in a convincing road win.

(Eric Evans/GoDucks.com photo)

SEATTLE — Everything played into Mario Cristobal’s hand. 

From his rival repeatedly placing his foot in his mouth, to the weather that allowed Travis Dye and the Ducks to obliterate the Huskies on the ground. Oregon erased an early deficit, quieted the crowd by the half and then snuffed anything interesting out of this game in front of a mostly-empty Husky Stadium in the second. 

The Ducks won 26-16. They’re 8-1 with a one-game lead in the Pac-12 North. And after a week of playing everything close to the vest, Oregon’s fourth-year coach unleashed when he reached the visiting locker room. 

“Those fucking guys right there,” Cristobal said of Washington, captured through multiple players’ live social media feeds, “they represent everything that’s wrong with football. 

“So when you kick their ass, you let them know it.” 

And it was an ass-kicking once the Ducks figured out how to fight. 

Oregon trailed 9-3 early thanks to an Anthony Brown Jr. interception that was quickly turned into points, followed by a Ducks safety. Oregon regrouped before the half, stopping Washington on a fourth down soon followed by a Brown touchdown pass for a 10-9 lead. At the half, leading by a point with much of the stadium filtering out towards shelter, Oregon booster and Nike co-founder Phil Knight was asked his thoughts in the press box. 

Got them right where you want them? 

“Yeah,” Knight replied, as he walked back from the coffee station to his booth, “maybe.” 

But there really were no maybes. Dye and Oregon’s defense made sure of it. 

On Oregon’s first drive of the second half the Ducks went: 

Dye for 11 yards. 

Dye for 4 yards. 

Dye for 5 yards. 

Dye for 45 yards. 

Dye for 3 yards. 

Then Oregon capped the six-play 70-yard drive with a 3-yard Brown rush for the 17-9 lead. Dye carried the ball 28 times for a career-high 211 yards. It’s Dye’s second time eclipsing 140 yards in the four games since CJ Verdell’s injury.

“He’s a game changer,” Cristobal said. “And he changed it in a lot of different ways.”

The Ducks tallied 324 rushing yards, averaging 7.5 yards a carry and easily moved the ball against the Huskies despite just 98 passing yards from Brown.

“We were really having a tough time finding our offense early. It was raining sideways,” Cristobal said. “…The rain was coming down at such a high clip that it wasn’t going to be easy.” 

It was harder for Washington. The Huskies managed 166 yards of total offense. Between their first touchdown and second — with 11:13 to play in the fourth — the Huskies managed seven punts and two turnovers. Noah Sewell led the Ducks with 10 tackles. Jeffrey Bassa had a sack and Jordan Happle came down with an interception. 

Maybe no play signified the gap between these two teams better than when down eight, with under two minutes left, the Huskies elected to punt — then watched the snap fly high over the punter, through the end zone and into rivalry infamy for the safety. 

With much of college football’s top 25 treating Saturday as a collective struggle, No. 4 Oregon won conformably and convincingly. Cristobal repeatedly talked up his defense in the postgame, mentioning how important the stops they made were.

Lake spent his time talking about how differently things would have been if UW had made stops.

To be fair, focusing on what could have been might have been the best way to cope after what actually happened this week. Lake kicked off rivalry week by chiding Oregon for not being up to snuff academically. Or to be specific, that Washington battled “more academically prowess teams” in recruiting. Then he had to spend the majority of his postgame Saturday defending his physical altercation with one of his own players — not to mention the decision to punt with less than two minutes left in a one-score game. 

And for most of the week, in public, Cristobal walked the perfect line. His response to the week’s headlines came on Wednesday when he said “every single ounce of our focus is on this game.”

“I’m sure guys hear and see things, but we’re just very real,” he said. “We don’t ignore. We acknowledge and we move on.” 

The Ducks acknowledged fine on Saturday. Their coach let them know in the locker room, then saved one last official nugget for his postgame. 

“Proud of the way our guys came over and showed their prowess in the inclement weather,” he said, wrapping up his third aced test against the Huskies in as many tries. 

— Tyson Alger