With injuries to WR Tez Johnson and RG Marcus Harper, the Oregon Ducks will be stress-tested as their championship dreams forge ahead.
The Oregon Ducks left Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Saturday afternoon with a 21-point win, a 9-0 record and a guarantee that Sunday would kick off their third consecutive week as the No. 1 team in the nation.
Dan Lanning’s team became the first since 2015’s Michigan State Spartans to beat both the Michigan Wolverines and Ohio State Buckeyes in the same season. It took them all of 10 weeks to establish themselves as the clear king of the Big Ten Conference in 2024.
You’d think the vibes among the fan base were high, right?
Wrong. All anyone could concern themselves with after the 38-17 victory was a looming negative that has plagued many seasons in Eugene.
Injuries.
We’ve seen championship aspirations knocked sideways in years past, most famously in 2007 with Dennis Dixon tearing his ACL in the desert. Each of the last two years, Oregon has had an injury or two derail its season late. Bo Nix’s ankle sprain led to a loss against Washington, and a slew of injuries to Jordan Burch, Troy Franklin, and Khyree Jackson ended the Ducks’ College Football Playoff hopes in Las Vegas.
So familiar feelings rose to the surface on this crisp, November Saturday in Ann Arbor when star wide receiver Tez Johnson jogged off the field on the first drive of the game, favoring his right shoulder. He made a pit stop at the blue medical tent before heading to the locker room. He later emerged in street clothes with a sling on his right arm.
The CBS broadcast team speculated it was a separated shoulder or a fractured collarbone. Either way, the conversation began about whether it would be a two-game absence for Oregon’s leading pass-catcher — a player on pace to break his own Oregon record for most receptions in a season — or something longer that could spill into the postseason. I’m told to expect the latter.
The situation worsened for the Ducks later in the game when starting right guard Marcus Harper went down with an apparent knee injury. He headed to the medical tent and emerged with the knee wrapped in ice.
Laments of being a cursed program started to ring out on social media almost immediately. The familiar feelings of broken championship dreams resurfaced. I heard them and understood them. This time around, I met them with a different feeling.
This time around, Lanning’s culture may provide enough cushion to keep those dreams alive.
Remember a few weeks ago when Oregon overcame every curse, jinx and mistake known to a Duck to beat the Ohio State Buckeyes at home? I wrote then that it felt as if a new era of Oregon football was beginning, and trauma-ridden fans who went into each big game expecting the worst might need a change of disposition.
Why can’t that be the case here, as well?
Should Tez Johnson miss the next five weeks and be unavailable for a Big Ten Championship game appearance, it will hurt. Should his career at Oregon be over, it would be devastating. Johnson leads the team with 64 catches for 649 yards and 8 touchdowns. You don’t just make up for that overnight.
Oregon has the depth to ease the burden, though. The Ducks have an Evan Stewart, Traeshon Holden, Justius Lowe, Terrance Ferguson and Kenyon Sadiq up their sleeve. Hell, we might even find out in the coming weeks that they have a Jeremiah McClellan and Jurrion Dickey hiding up there as well.
They have a culture that has prepared them to weather storms like this. It’s something they’ve been preparing for since the summer months.
“You say at the beginning of every season, ‘I don’t know if people realize what this guy’s role might become,'” Lanning said earlier this year. “Still, we’ve had a lot of guys’ roles that have grown because of availability, but they were also ready for those moments when they came.”
In other words, next man up.
It’s a cliche that gets passed around the football world like a runny nose at daycare, but a mentality that has been revered in Lanning’s program. Injuries happen in college football every day. You can protect against them, but never eradicate them.
So while losing Tez and Marcus for any amount of time is difficult and will stress test this team, I’m not as worried about Oregon’s future as I may have been in years past.
Like we said after that program-altering win over Ohio State: Something about this team feels different. Maybe that something is enough to keep these championship hopes alive a little longer.
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