Over the past day, I’ve tried several times to accurately depict what the No. 8 Oregon Ducks did to the No. 13 Utah Utes in their home stadium on Saturday afternoon, but nothing will ever be as accurate or eye-opening as the way that Utah coach Kyle Whittingham described it after the game.
“That’s as thoroughly and as soundly as we’ve been beaten in a long time, particularly at home,” Whittingham said. “Give Oregon credit, they are a complete football team just like I’ve been saying all week long.”
Utah is not a team that loses at home, especially like that. Going into Saturday, the Utes had won 18 straight games in Rice Eccles Stadium, and lost just one of their last 30 games playing in Salt Lake City. Then Dan Lanning and the Ducks rolled to town and stomped them, putting up 35 points on a defense that is regarded as one of the best in the country, while holding the Utes out of the endzone entirely.
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35-6 was the final score, though Whittingham thinks even that is underselling the Oregon dominance.
“The score wasn’t indicative – the game was a mismatch. It was worse than what the score indicated.”
When you get a game as lopsided as this, it becomes hard to nitpick. In this stock report exercise that we do each and every week, I comb through the stats and try to highlight who improved the most, and who has some room to grow going forward.
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We’re going to see nothing but highlights today. In the first complete game of Oregon’s season, I’m not going to bother trying to find the minute places where things can get better — that’s for the coaches to do. Instead, here are your biggest stock risers after a dominating performance from the Ducks.