Washington State has always been one of the toughest teams to defend as the Cougars have used the Air Raid offense ever since Mike Leach was there.
Two coaches later, WSU is still throwing the ball as much as possible and the Cougars will come into Autzen Stadium looking to test the Oregon secondary.
But Washington State also has the capability of running the ball with tailback Max Borghi just enough to keep the defense off-balance.
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The senior running back has had a heralded career in the Palouse and has scored eight touchdowns this season. The offense, however, revolves around the arm of sophomore quarterback Jayden de Laura.
As de Laura goes, so do the Cougars. In their four losses, with him playing in three of those, de Laura was held down to an average of 176 yards passing. In their five wins, the quarterback averages nearly 290 yards.
According to Oregon Ducks defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter, the Cougars will provide a very different look than the previous opponent in Washington.
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“That’s the unique thing about this league,” DeRuyter said. “You go from playing a Washington team who played in a lot of big personnel sets against us and we had to play in our base package stuff. This week is a different challenge. We’re going to have to give some different looks. We’ll have to play some man coverage … hopefully disguise some coverages and obviously we’ll have to get pressure on this quarterback.”
Getting pressure on de Laura doesn’t seem to be much of a problem for the Cougars’ opponents. Washington State has allowed 20 sacks in their nine games so far and now they face a Duck defense that features one of the best defensive lines in the conference. Oregon has sacked the opposing quarterback 18 times.
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When de Laura does have time to throw the ball down the field, his favorite targets seem to be a pair of receivers; Senior Travell Harris leads the team with 54 catches for 574 yards and six touchdowns, and Calvin Jackson, Jr., a graduate senior, has 49 catches for 667 yards and five touchdowns.
“He really has a gunslinger mentality,” DeRuyter said de Laura. “The scheme is a little bit unique, but I think de Laura ran that scheme in high school, so he understands the concept. You have a couple of really good slots that have been running this thing now and it seems like they’ve been there forever. It’s going to be a heck of a challenge.”
It’s a challenge that, should Oregon pass, will give the Ducks complete control of the Pac-12 North as they would be up two games in the standings with just two left in the regular season. If Oregon State happens to lose to Stanford on Saturday and the Ducks win, Oregon will clinch the Pac-12 North outright.
Oregon and Washington State are scheduled to kick off at 7:30 p.m. televised on ESPN.
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