Tag: Dorian Thompson-Robinson

3 keys to victory for No. 10 Oregon Ducks against No. 9 UCLA Bruins

How the Oregon Ducks can pull off a huge victory over Chip Kelly and the UCLA Bruins at Autzen Stadium on Saturday.

Saturday’s battle between the No. 10 Oregon Ducks and the No. 9 UCLA Bruins will be among the most exciting college football games of the year.

Chip Kelly returning to Autzen, two top-10 teams with high-octane offenses, ESPN’s College Gameday in tow, with Sabrina Ionescu guest picking, man it’s going to be quite the spectacle.

Of course, the theatrics are a lot more fun for Ducks fans if the game results in a victory for the men in green and yellow, and no doubt Kelly and the Bruins want to spoil the party and keep their undefeated record.

For Dan Lanning and the Ducks to secure a victory, here are three keys that need to be followed:

Bo at his Best

Syndication: The Register Guard

Simply put, Bo Nix playing the best football of his career on Saturday is the easiest way for Oregon to secure a huge victory at Autzen Stadium.

UCLA is a top-20 defensive team against the rush, holding opponents to under 100 yards per game on the ground. They are less effective at stopping air attacks, surrendering 245.8 yards per game on the season.

If Nix can move the ball efficiently through the air, while avoiding costly mistakes, this Oregon team should be able to put up enough points to stop Chip Kelly’s offense from winning.

But, Oregon can’t just rely on the offense for a win in this one:

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Ducks Wire Roundtable: Predictions and opinions for the Oregon vs. UCLA game

How big of a factor will the elements be? What are our final score predictions? We’ve got it all in our Ducks Wire roundtable.

Not only did last week’s by for the Oregon Ducks provide the team and players an opportunity to sit back for a week and recover after the opening half of the season, but it also allowed us at Ducks Wire to do the same, focusing on the first six weeks as a whole rather than getting into the nitty gritty of game previews.

That’s all behind us, though, and we are as excited as ever to be back together and getting ready for what looks like an incredible matchup between the No. 9 Oregon Ducks and No. 10 UCLA Bruins.

It will feature two candidates for the Heisman Trophy, two teams that have a good chance of making it to the Pac-12 Championship, if not the College Football Playoff, and the return of a coach who should be known by nothing less than a legend in Eugene — Chip Kelly.

To help preview all of the action, Ducks Wire writers Zachary Neel, and Don Smalley got together to make predictions, and offer opinions on what we might see.

Here is your seventh Ducks Wire Roundtable of the 2022 season. Enjoy.

Oregon should expect to see vintage Chip Kelly with UCLA’s offensive attack

Oregon might want to look at film of itself from a decade ago in order to prepare for the Bruins offense on Saturday.

It’s been quite a while since Chip Kelly’s offense has been rolling like this. The current UCLA Bruins are 6-0 and are going to put their perfect season on the line when they stroll into Autzen Stadium Saturday to take on the Ducks.

The uniforms have changed, the uniform manufacturer has changed and of course, the players inside the uniforms have changed. But what hasn’t changed is Kelly’s offensive schemes and ability to light up the scoreboard.

Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson is having a banner senior season as he is completing 75 percent of his passes and is averaging 251 yards through the air as well as 15 touchdowns to go with just two interceptions.

“He’s really familiar with their system. He’s completing the ball at a really high rate right now; he’s operating their offense,” Oregon head coach Dan Lanning said. “Obviously, he’s a weapon with his legs. He understands what they’re trying to accomplish. I think it’s a lot of the same things you see right now with our quarterback. Understanding what’s supposed to be accomplished on the field and executes at a high level and he’s certainly doing that.”

Senior tailback Zach Charbonnet is doing his best LaMichael James impersonation, although he is quite bigger than the former Duck great. At 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds, Charbonnet is lumbering down the field at 123-yard-per-game clip. He has found the end zone six times.

Lanning said the Ducks need to keep Charbonnet lumbering down the field and avoid those explosion plays. If he’s going to rack up over 100 yards on the ground, Oregon needs to make sure Charbonnet does it in as many carries as possible.

“Ultimately, it’s about preventing explosive plays. You pull up explosive plays given up this year and created this year, what’s unique is both UCLA and us are, I think a plus 31 ratio right when it comes to explosive plays,” Lanning said. “That’s a really big indicator of wins and losses. But look at the top of our conference, I think maybe Washington is the only team that has more explosive plays created than UCLA and Oregon. When you look at those given up and those created that’s a really big factor in this game. I think the team that walks away with giving up less explosive plays and creating more is gonna have a great advantage.”

DTR can also hurt the opposition with his arm and he has a couple of good receivers to choose from. Jake Bobo is a tough matchup for any corner with his size-speed combo that he possesses. At 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, Bobo leads the Bruins with 64 yards a game and five touchdowns.

Kazmeir Allen has seemingly taken over that possession receiver role from Chase Cota, who moved to Eugene to become a Duck. Allen leads UCLA with 28 catches, but he’s averaging just 33 yards a game.

A lot has been made about Oregon’s experienced offensive line, but UCLA’s big uglies up front have done a good job for the Bruins. Raiquon O’Neal, Atonio Mafi, Duke Clemens, Jon Gaines and Garrett DiGiorgio have started all six games this season.

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Midseason Pac-12 football report: Offensive MVP

The midseason Pac-12 offensive MVP resides at UCLA … which is why this weekend’s Oregon test is so huge in the conference on many different levels.

Who is the 2022 Pac-12 Offensive MVP through seven weeks? We talked to Ducks Wire about our midseason Pac-12 awards.

This is what we wrote:

Right now it’s either Dorian Thompson-Robinson or Zach Charbonnet. The answer will depend on — most likely — the USC-UCLA game on Nov. 19.

Oregon’s offense is putting up huge numbers. Emphatic victories over UCLA and Utah could elevate Bo Nix in this conversation. USC obviously has Caleb Williams and Travis Dye in the discussion.

Troy Franklin of Oregon also has to be considered.

Those six players are all in the hunt, and they will all have the big showcase games needed to catapult them up the board.

I don’t think anyone outside these six players has a chance, but I also don’t think any of these six players should be written off.

If Franklin, for instance, has a 200-yard receiving game against a suspect UCLA secondary, he could supplant DTR as the Pac-12 Offensive MVP. It’s a fluid race. Right now, the two best UCLA skill players lead the chase, but Caleb Williams will get a say in the argument one month from now.

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Ranking the Pac-12 QBs through Week 7: Maybe winning does matter after all

The Pac-12 quarterback rankings may finally have stabilized after a couple of huge upsets in the conference.

In last week’s Pac-12 quarterback rankings, we questioned whether actually winning games had an effect on the Pro Football Focus numbers because it didn’t seem so. Dorian Thompson-Robinson had won a huge game for UCLA, but his numbers and overall ranking didn’t adjust all that much.

Although the rankings themselves, according to PFF haven’t changed all that much, the numbers for each quarterback may have been properly skewed into a more realistic spot.

One would think a couple of fairly big upsets, such as Stanford defeating Notre Dame and Utah over USC, would throw everything out of whack, but as Lee Corso will say, “Not so fast my friend!”

We also have a new member of the group. Oregon State’s Ben Gulbranson makes an appearance after his second full week at the helm of the Beaver offense. We’re not sure when Chance Nolan will return, so he’s out of the rankings for now.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Miyan Williams headline Maxwell Football Club’s Weekly Honor Roll

Six players made the weekly Maxwell Football Club’s honor roll.

UCLA is suddenly hot, an upset win last weekend over Washington giving a real jolt to the Bruins’ season.

It was the play of quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson that helped lift UCLA to a statement win. With his arm and his feet, Thompson-Robinson was simply dominant for the Bruins.

Also dominant this week was the performance of a pair of running backs: Miyan Williams (Ohio State) and Jahmyr Gibbs (Alabama). Both players made the weekly honor roll from the Maxwell Football Club.

The Maxwell Football Club awards the Maxwell Award, annually given to the nation’s top college football player. They also hand out the Chuck Bednarik Award for the top defensive player in college football.

Every March, the club hosts an annual awards gala at the Harrah’s in Atlantic City, N.J.

Check out the six players who made this week’s Maxwell Award Weekly Honor Roll!

Kirk Herbstreit names top-performing players in Week 5 of college football

ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit recognized Oregon quarterback Bo Nix as a top performer for Week 5 of the college football campaign.

It’s nice to know that someone is paying attention to college football west of the Mississippi.

ESPN’s top college football analyst, Kirk Herbstreit, tweeted out his top performers for Week 5, and Oregon quarterback Bo Nix made his list.

Nix certainly deserved the recognition as he dominated Stanford with both his arm and his legs. He was 16-of-29 for 161 yards and two touchdowns. Nix also surprised many, especially the Cardinal defense, when he rattled off an 80-yard run for a touchdown.

While it’s nice to see the Ducks get the pop, Herbstreit inexplicably missed the top performance in the Pac-12 from UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson. The Bruins senior quarterback torched Washington to get them to 5-0 on the season.

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UCLA downs Washington as QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson dazzles

Dorian Thompson-Robinson was dazzling for UCLA in its win over Washington

UCLA is the first college football team to reach 5-0 in large part due to the incredible performance of quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson in Friday’s 40-32 Pac-12 victory over Washington.

Thompson-Robinson made a pair of dazzling plays with his legs while also throwing for 315 yards in the victory.

In the first half, he hurdled a Washington defender on a run and we mean he got big air.

Then, he showed some fancy footwork that caused a pair of Huskie defenders to collide as Thompson-Robinson scored a TD on a 2-yard run that made it 33-10 in the third quarter after the PAT.

Overall, Thompson-Robinson accounted for 358 yards of total offense and 4 TDs as he outplayed Washington QB Michael Penix.

 

The best player Oregon will face each week during the 2022 season

Oregon will face plenty of talent on the other side of the field this season. Here is the best player for each of the Ducks’ opponents in 2022.

Aside from one or two opponents, there are almost no gimmes on the 2022 Oregon Duck football schedule this season. Although the official strength-of-schedule is somewhere in the middle, don’t tell that to the actual players and coaches who have to prepare for the Georgia, BYU and Utah.

Besides the teams as a whole, Oregon is going to face some very good players that will present many problems for coordinators Kenny Dillingham on the offense and Tosh Lupoi on defense.

We’ve decided to go through the Ducks’ schedule and figure out which player week-to-week will cause those coaches to lose the most sleep as Oregon looks to go through the fall.

It would have been easy to just pick the quarterback from each team, but that wouldn’t be fair to the other highly talented players that the Ducks will see on the field this year. Sometimes, yes, the quarterback will be that team’s best player, but not always. Here’s a look at the best player Oregon will face each week.

Where did Dillon Gabriel land in ESPN’s tier rankings?

ESPN paired Dillon Gabriel with former Sooner Spencer Rattler in their FBS quarterback tiers rankings.

As the days’ inch closer to the start of college football, one thing remains the same: quarterback play matters. In today’s world of football on any level having the right signal caller is crucial.

Oklahoma over its history has had quite a few quarterback that have been simply extraordinary.

Last year’s was supposed to bear the ascension of another OU QB ascending to college football greatness, but it never quite manifested. Things have dramatically changed in Oklahoma’s quarterback room since this time last year and now as they near closer and closer to the start of a new season most quarterback situations are ironed out. Including Oklahoma’s.

David Hale of ESPN took the liberty of ranking each NCAA Division 1 program’s quarterbacks into tiers instead of an individual ranking. With this, it helps loop similar talents together while accounting for nuance with things such as their team situations around them, expectations, and whatever else.

Dillon Gabriel falls into tier 4. Tier 4 was named: Definitely. Probably. Maybe. Alongside Gabriel were UCLA QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Kentucky QB Will Levis, and former Sooner turned South Carolina Gamecock, Spencer Rattler.

ESPN had this to say about their rationale for this group:

The previous tier was named after Larry David’s famous catchphrase from “Curb Your Enthusiasm”; this one is more reflective of the popular GIF from that show, in which David is visibly debating the pros and cons of a decision. Are these guys underrated? Overrated? Future NFL stars? Future XFL stars? Honestly, we’re still trying to decide. – Hale, ESPN

It seems the biggest theme of this group is that these guys are considered talented wild cards due to things like turnovers and possible soft scheduling. In a nutshell, no one really knows what to make of them yet but there’s talent in all of them. This year could really be the separation season to really and truly get an accurate read on who these guys are.

Rattler was benched at Oklahoma, but there’s a reason he was projected as the best QB in college football before last season began, and a fresh start could rejuvenate his career. … Levis’ overall numbers were strong (24 TD passes, 13 interceptions, 7.1 yards/dropback), but against teams that finished the year in the FPI top 40, he fared far worse (7 TDs, 6 INTs, 5.4 yards/dropback). … Thompson-Robinson finally seemed to blossom into a borderline star last season (Total QBR of 79.0, 30 touchdowns), but he played just two games against FPI top-40 teams, so it’s fair to wonder whether the numbers were more indicative of real progress or a soft schedule. … With Jeff Lebby as his OC in 2019, Gabriel racked up 33 touchdowns and more than 3,700 yards as a freshman. He’s reuniting with Lebby at Oklahoma this year. – Hale, ESPN

Gabriel still has something to prove, especially with the significant bump in competition, but the Sooners quarterback has produced in college and has done it with the guy he gets to work with again, Jeff Lebby.

It’ll be interesting to see how he performs  compared to the other guys he was mentioned alongside as the season goes on. Gabriel will have more weapons and possibly a better offensive line than he ever had with UCF, which should lend itself to positive results.

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