The Oregon Duck offense led the NCAA in scoring through their first five games. But when No. 11 Washington State brought its unblemished 5-0 record into Autzen Stadium on Saturday night, they could hardly move the ball. With starting quarterback Justin Herbert out with a broken collarbone, true freshman Braxton Burmeister got his first college start, and the team that ran and passed up and down the field earlier this season was held to 10 points.
Burmeister was afforded neither the protection nor the receiving weapons that Herbert had enjoyed. Under pressure much of the night, his targets were limited with starting wide receivers Dillon Mitchell and Charles Nelson out with injuries.
Washington State was able to load up the box against an Oregon running game which was never able to get itself going with a banged-up Royce Freeman and few lanes to work with.
In the end it was the Cougars' ability to make enough plays on offense, and the Ducks' lack of offensive production, that led to the WSU victory.
Washington State 33 – Oregon 10
Notes:
- Ducks made it into the red zone one time. 1-1 red zone offense
- Fifth time this year (in six games) the Ducks have amassed 10+ penalties.
- Braxton Burmeister 15-27, 145 yards, TD, 2 INTs
- Ducks averaged just 2.9 yards per rush after averaging 5.9 going into this game
- Ducks held WSU to 87 yards rushing, 3.5 yards per rush
- Ducks gave up 11 tfl’s, most this season
- Oregon was 2-17 on third downs, 0-3 on fourth down
- The Oregon offense averaged 1 minute, 32 seconds per possession
- Troy Dye led all defenders with 11 tackles, Jalen Jelks led the Ducks with 1.5 tfl
Quotes from Taggart:
On Burmeister: Braxton did some good things and did some bad things. He did some things freshmen do sometimes. This game, I think he can learn a lot from. He needs a lot more help around him.
The two early offsides: That was the cadence with the quarterback being louder. It was more than that than anything. Sometimes you have to take lumps.
More Burmeister: He had a great week of practice. He was calm and collected and good to go. When he got in the game he was ready to roll.
On going for it on fourth: Our offensive line is our bread and butter. On fourth and one we feel we can get that. We did not execute those plays the way we did earlier this year.
On defense: I thought our defense played well. I didn’t think we did enough offensively to show out how well they played.