I owe Bo Nix an apology. When Oregon landed Dillon Gabriel from the transfer portal over the offseason, my assumption was that it would be a relatively seamless transition for the offense because I viewed Gabriel as a “left-handed Bo Nix.” I underestimated Nix.
Over the weekend, Nix helped lead the Denver Broncos to their third straight win. Meanwhile, Gabriel threw two red-zone interceptions against Michigan State and now has three such picks in two Big Ten games. His shaky decision-making has Ducks fans a little worried heading into the weekend as they prepare for a top-three battle against Ohio State.
Oregon’s a good enough team to overcome those mistakes against UCLA and Michigan State, but you’re not likely to survive them against the Buckeyes. That much is easy to figure out. What’s far more complicated is trying to figure out if something’s wrong with Gabriel or the Oregon offense as a whole.
The Ducks offense got off to a slow start this year because of injuries along the offensive line, but the unit has gotten healthier in recent weeks and the run game has improved considerably. Jordan James has rushed for 269 yards and two touchdowns in conference play, and that’s reflected by the team’s overall performance on the ground. As you can see in the table below Oregon had a more difficult time running the ball against Idaho, Boise State and Oregon State than it has against Big Ten competition due to injuries up front.
| Oregon Rushing Offense | Success Rate | EPA per Rush | Yards per Game | Yards per Attempt | Tackled For Loss Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Nonconference |
45.3% |
0.12 |
152.3 |
4.3 |
20.43% |
|
Conference |
54.4% |
0.15 |
183.0 |
5.0 |
8.57% |
The same cannot be said of the Ducks passing offense. Now, some of this can be explained. Since Oregon couldn’t run the ball as effectively, it needed Gabriel to do more against its nonconference opponents, and he did. Still, the drop-off in performance shown below is a concern.
| Oregon Passing Offense | Efficiency Rating | EPA per Dropback | Completion Rate | Yards per Attempt | TD Rate | INT Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Nonconference |
183.5 |
0.29 |
83.7% |
9.5 |
6.1% |
0.0% |
|
Conference |
142.1 |
0.19 |
68.4% |
7.1 |
6.6% |
3.9% |
An improved run game should theoretically make things easier for a passing offense, but even taking into consideration the improved difficulty of competition, that’s a severe step backward in production.
The red zone interceptions are the biggest problem. Gabriel panicked on two of them and bailed on his first reads a little early. If Gabriel waited a fraction of a second longer on his first pick against Michigan State, he would have had an easy touchdown. Instead, he rolled out into more trouble, and by the time he saw his wide-open original target (as he had been for about five steps at that point), it’s too late. A Michigan State defender peeled off the man he was covering to pick off the throw. That one’s on Gabriel.
While it’s easy to pin the blame on the quarterback and Gabriel must shoulder a healthy portion of the blame, they’re not all on him. His second interception against the Spartans I put on the play call.
If you’ve watched Gabriel’s career, there are two unquestionable truths. One is that he’s much better throwing to his left than his right, and the other is that he’s lost a bit more zip on the fastball since breaking his left clavicle (and he never had a rocket arm to start). For Oregon to ask Gabriel to roll to his right and fire a throw back across his body to the front pylon on the far side of the field is too much.
As you can see, Gabriel was a little late, and the throw was too far inside his receiver when it needed to be toward the sideline, but the job of a play-caller is to put his players in a position to succeed. Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein has done a great job of doing that in his time in Eugene, but this was not one of those times. Nothing about this play call was suited to Gabriel’s strengths as a passer.
It’s an understandable error, though. One of the obstacles of grabbing a QB in the transfer portal is that, while the player might be experienced and talented, there’s a lack of familiarity. The play-caller hasn’t spent years working with the QB in practice or the film room, and it takes time to figure each other out. Then there’s the relationship between the QB and his teammates that takes time, too.
But there isn’t much time left. Ohio State’s coming to town this weekend, and it’s not the kind of team to experiment against. It’s also a team in a similar situation: Chip Kelly is a new offensive coordinator with a transfer QB of his own in Will Howard. So far this season, they’ve hit fewer speed bumps, but this will be their biggest test of the year to date as well.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this game came down to which offensive coordinator has the best understanding of what his quarterback can and cannot do.
Call of the Week
There are plenty of coaching decisions I don’t agree with on a weekly basis, and I’ll readily admit that I was shocked at P.J. Fleck’s decision to go for it on fourth-and-goal late in Minnesota’s upset of USC. The game was tied 17-17 in the final minute, and the Gophers could’ve kicked an easy field goal to go up three and hope their defense held up its end of the bargain. Given Fleck’s more conservative nature overall, I thought that’s exactly what he’d do.
Instead, the Gophers sent the offense out and ran the tush push, with QB Max Brosmer just squeezing through into the end zone. I still don’t know that I agree with the decision, but Fleck believed in his offensive line and it paid off.
It was also a huge win for the Gophers. I wrote in this column last week that I was beginning to wonder if the spark in that marriage was fading, but knocking off ranked teams is a great way to rekindle it.
Explaining the rules of celebration
An important distinction for college football players across the country to understand this fall. Shotgunning a quarterback after a sack? That’s going to be a penalty. Pretending to shotgun a beer? Not a penalty.
I found both pretty amusing, though.
Three Hot Takes
Blazing — The Big Ten is only going to get three teams into the playoff: Maybe this seems like a ridiculous assertion considering the Big Ten currently constitutes three of the top four spots in the AP Top 25, but the next-highest Big Ten team is Indiana at 18. The AP poll has no say in the playoff, but it does give you a decent read into how teams are viewed. Right now, the Big Ten doesn’t have a fourth team that is an obvious playoff contender.
Yes, Indiana is 6-0, and it has a schedule that will ensure it keeps winning games. But it’s so ridiculously hard to go undefeated for an entire season; only elite teams do it. I like Indiana a lot — it may even be love — but it is not an elite team. It does not have the talent, so it’s reasonable to believe it will lose a game you don’t expect. I don’t know if you noticed what took place around the country last week, but that happens in this sport all the time!
The same applies to other teams like Illinois, Nebraska and Rutgers. Sure, they can all exceed expectations and pull it off, but Michigan and USC suffering their second losses of the season Saturday night was a big blow to the league’s odds of getting four in.
Will leave a scar if touched — Purdue will allow more points in conference play than any team has since the league moved to nine games: The Boilermakers gave up 52 points to Wisconsin. The Badgers came into the game with the worst explosive play rate on offense in the country, and they were just dropping 50-yard touchdowns on Purdue left and right.
The Boilermakers have allowed 184 points in four games against FBS competition, and they haven’t played any of the best offenses in the Big Ten yet. They still have to deal with Oregon, Ohio State and Penn State. They also get Illinois and Indiana, which have proven to be effective on offense, too.
In 2018, Illinois allowed 410 points in nine conference games, averaging 45.6 ppg. Purdue is currently allowing 40 points per game through two, but again, they haven’t faced the better offenses yet.
This feels warm — Will Rogers will lead the league in touchdown passes: Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke currently leads the Big Ten with 14 touchdown passes, which is two more than Rogers. Ohio State’s Will Howard is also at 12 and has played only five games to Rogers’ six. But there are plenty of games where Howard could be sitting out fourth quarters, and he also has to face some of the top defenses in the Big Ten (vs. Oregon, Penn State and Michigan).
Ohio State also has a lot more mouths to feed, whereas Washington is a bit more dependent on Rogers’ arm. Throw in the fact that Washington will be on the road for four of its final six games and could be trailing in plenty of them, and Rogers is likely to throw the ball far more often than Howard or Rourke.
Jeremiah Smith of the Week
Can Jeremiah Smith catch a ball with two hands? Is he physically capable of doing so? Because I swear I’ve only seen him use one hand on every ball thrown his way this season. It’s almost getting boring at this point.
I am issuing a challenge to Jeremiah to catch a pass with his feet against Oregon this weekend. C’mon, kid, show us something.
Going with my gut
Every week I pick the Big Ten games against the spread based on nothing but my gut reaction to the number. No digging into numbers — just vibes, baby. I even track my record to embarrass myself publicly. Odds via SportsLine consensus.
No. 2 Ohio State at No. 3 Oregon: The game of the season so far in the Big Ten. There’s been a stat floating around this week that Big Ten teams are 1-8 when forced to travel at least two time zones this season, which is an interesting look at the impact expansion is having on the sport. While it’s worth noting, one caveat of that stat is none of those teams have been Ohio State. Both of these teams are good, and neither has been tested the way they will be in this spot, but I have more confidence in the Buckeyes right now than the Ducks. Ohio State -3.5
- Northwestern at Maryland — Maryland -10
- Washington at Iowa — Iowa -2.5
- Wisconsin at Rutgers — Rutgers -2.5
- No. 4 Penn State at USC — USC +5.5
- Purdue at Illinois — Purdue +19.5
- Minnesota at UCLA — UCLA +5.5
Last Week: 3-3-1
2024 Season: 39-25-1
