Tag: Troy Franklin

5 Utes the Ducks need to watch out for in Saturday night showdown

There are five Utes Utes the Ducks need to hold down in order to avoid a two-game losing streak.

There were just two “utes” in the movie My Cousin Vinny, but on Saturday night inside Autzen Stadium, there are five Utes Oregon needs to pay close attention to in order to avoid a second straight loss.

Utah is 8-2 on the season with road losses to Florida and UCLA. Luckily for the Ducks, this matchup will occur at Autzen Stadium and not Rice-Eccles in Salt Lake City where the forecast calls for a high of 37 and a low of 17.

The Utes are coming off of a 42-7 win over Stanford and the Ducks are going to try and make sure the Huskies don’t beat them twice. Unfortunately, the Utes actually did beat Orgon twice last season and that should be on the minds of some of the players that suffered those defeats.

In order to exact some revenge, Oregon will need to concentrate on these five opponents and limit their damage.

Oregon OC Kenny Dillingham nominated for Broyles Award, given to nation’s top assistant coach

Oregon Duck offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham has been nominated for the Broyles Award, given to the nation’s top assistant.

It’s been a pretty good season for the Oregon Ducks offense and committees for certain national awards have taken notice.

Oregon offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham has been nominated for the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach.

In his first season in Eugene, Dillingham has led Oregon to become one of the top offenses in the country. The Ducks are averaging 42 points a game and nearly 530 yards of offense per contest.

It helps to have a senior transfer quarterback in Bo Nix, who is familiar with the playbook, but Dillingham has improved every aspect of the Duck offense from a year ago. He has helped the receivers become everything Duck fans hoped they would be when they were recruited.

Troy Franklin has been the biggest beneficiary of Dillingham’s scheme. He was recently named to the official Biletnikoff Award for the nation’s best receiver.

Last year’s winner was former Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, who is now with Mario Cristobal in Miami.

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Injury Report: Updated news for Oregon Ducks ahead of game at Colorado

There are a few starters who may be unavailable to play this weekend against the Colorado Buffs due to injury.

The Oregon Ducks coaching staff would never admit it, but if there was a week they could hold back some players due to nagging injuries, this might be the week. With a game against the 1-7 Colorado Buffaloes, the Ducks will likely be able to get by without a few of their key pieces.

As it turns out, the Ducks might be without a few of their more important guys this weekend. A few starters were missing from both days of practice sessions that were open to media members this week, and others are not quite ready to return.

With a tough stretch of games ahead, kicked off by Washington coming to Autzen Stadium on Nov. 12, Oregon wants to make sure it comes home as healthy as possible, and of course, with a win, before the rival Huskies come calling.

The Ducks don’t release an official injury report each week, but based on quotes from head coach Dan Lanning, as well as observations from practice, here is our best guess at what that report would look like:

With Chase Cota’s availability up in the air, Oregon’s WR depth gets chance to shine

Chase Cota seems unlikely to play vs. Colorado, giving way for guys like Dont’e Thornton and other Oregon WRs to step into the spotlight.

At the moment, it’s technically unclear whether or not Oregon Ducks wide receiver Chase Cota will be taking the field on Saturday as the team lines up against the Colorado Buffaloes for a 12:30 p.m. PT kick-off on ESPN.

As someone who covers the team, though, if I were to read the room and give you my opinion on the matter, Cota will not be playing, and likely will not be traveling to Boulder either. The veteran transfer WR from UCLA went down with an apparent knee injury last week against California in the first half and returned to the sideline after halftime in street clothes. He has missed both practices that were open to media members this week. When asked about Cota’s status on Monday night, head coach Dan Lanning said that the injury was still “to be determined,” without an accurate timeline for return.

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With all of that being said, it looks like the Ducks are going to have to prepare for a game without their No. 2 WR on the roster. All that means is that the guys lower on the depth chart will have a chance to shine with the greater opportunity.

Paging Dont’e Thornton. Dont’e Thornton, please pick up.

Last week, Thornton saw more of the field than he has in a while, recording 36 total snaps. Not much opportunity came of it though, with Thornton catching one of his two targets for 7 yards. On the year, Thornton — who was billed as a potential breakout candidate before the season started — has just 8 catches for 129 yards and has fallen down the depth chart behind guys like Troy Franklin, Kris Hutson, and the aforementioned Chota.

There’s now a chance to turn things around, though. We can expect that the Ducks are going to try and air it out a little bit against a suspect Colorado defense, and with more targets up for grabs, Thornton has been identified as a player who step into the spotlight. Lanning also highlighted the depth at the position for Oregon, pointing out that any number of guys could be in line for an increased workload.

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“We’ll see. I think it will be some of the same receivers that we saw last week,” Lanning said on Wednesday. “We got to see more Delgado, we got to see more Thornton. We have a good group there, a group that works really hard, and I think we’ll be able to see a lot of those guys make a good contribution to us.”

With the multipleness of Oregon’s offense, it’s hard to pinpoint which players are going to step up. Selfishly, I led with Thornton as my candidate because I propped him up coming into the year, buying into the narrative that was being pumped out regarding his commitment and his growth over the offseason. In reality, there’s a good chance that we see a heavy dose of Hutson alongside Franklin, rather than a new WR enter the mix. After Cota went down last weekend, it was Hutson who stepped up, catching 4 of his 5 targets for 64 yards after moving from spread out wide into the slot.

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“Hutson got to move positions a little bit. I thought that was really positive to see him be able to change positions within a game and have some success and not have a lot of mental errors,” Lanning said earlier this week. “He was able to go out there and do something he hadn’t really practiced as much during the week and execute at a high level.”

So with Colorado scheming up for Oregon and likely presuming that Cota will be unavailable, though no official determination has been made, it will be hard to know where to look to try and slow the Ducks down. According to QB Bo Nix, that’s the beauty of the Kenny Dillingham offense.

“I think we’ve done a good job of rotating guys in this year,” Nix said on Wednesday. “Coach (Junior) Adams does a really good job of getting those guys ready to roll. We’ve got guys out there like Troy and Kris who are going to continue to play well. Tight ends, running backs, we use a lot of those by committee. We throw the kitchen table at defenses, so there’s a lot that they’ve got to prepare for.”

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Where Oregon’s offense ranks nationally after sixth straight 40-point game vs. UCLA

The Ducks’ offense only continues to get better, and the national rankings are reflecting that.

The Oregon Ducks faced arguably their biggest test of the year on Saturday against a UCLA Bruins team that featured one of the best defenses in the Pac-12 conference and one of the best scoring defenses in the nation.

It didn’t matter much for Kenny Dillingham and the Oregon offense.

The Ducks stepped up to the challenge and put up 45 points on the Bruins, marking the sixth straight game with more than 40 points. Oregon gained 545 yards of offense, led by quarterback Bo Nix, who had almost as many touchdowns (5) as incompletions (6).

As we do every week, let’s take a look at where the Ducks’ offense ranks nationally in some key statistics:

Stock Report: Troy Franklin’s big day headlines booming business for Oregon offense

Stock up? Troy Franklin. That’s an easy one. Stock down? Dare we say Justin Flowe?

At this point in the season, we shouldn’t exactly be surprised when the Oregon Ducks’ offense puts up gaudy numbers like this.

For the sixth-straight game, Oregon has scored more than 40 points in the game, and they’ve picked up more than 500 yards of offense in 5 of their last six games. Quarterback Bo Nix is playing better than he ever has in his career, wide receiver Troy Franklin is breaking out as one of the best pass-catchers that the Ducks have seen in quite some time, and the offensive line has established itself as one of the most dominant units in college football, leading the Oregon rushing attack to endless success, where they’ve had more than 200 yards on the ground in 5 of their last 6 games.

It’s safe to say that when we take a look at the offense, the stock is going to be up across the board.

The defense still needs a little bit of help, but with a defensive-minded head coach like Dan Lanning, and a solid staff of coaches around him, I have faith that Oregon will get things clicking on that side of the ball in due time. As we do every week, let’s identify players who saw their stocks go up, and a few who might have seen a slight dip against UCLA:

Oregon Ducks Player of the Game: WR Troy Franklin

With 132 yards and 2 TD, it’s no question that Troy Franklin is our Ducks Wire Player of the Game.

If the pundits didn’t consider Oregon Ducks wide receiver Troy Franklin a star before today, the sophomore put an end to that debate with a monster game over UCLA.

It seemed as if every time Franklin touched the ball, it was either for a huge touchdown or an important first down. Oregon bludgeoned the Bruins to the tune of 45-30, and Franklin had a big hand in that.

He wound up with eight receptions for 132 yards and two touchdowns. Franklin’s 49-yard touchdown set the tone in the second quarter after the two teams traded scores. It was a perfect post pattern, and quarterback Bo Nix threw the perfect ball for Franklin to run under.

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But even that catch wasn’t his best.

That came on a second-and-17 play. The 6-foot-3, 178-pounder used every inch he had, and then some, to haul in a pass on the left sideline that looked like was already past him when Franklin snatched the ball out of the air. It’s a play that is bound to be on more than a few highlight reels.

His second touchdown came just before halftime on a 2-yard out route with just six seconds to go. Franklin made it 31-13 at the break and put UCLA on its heels for the entire second half.

He has 35 catches on the season for 561 yards (80 ypg) and five touchdowns.

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Instant reaction: Oregon showed it’s ready for the lights of Vegas

Oregon emerged as the Pac-12 favorite with a near-flawless performance against No. 10 UCLA.

The Oregon Ducks football team still has five conference games to go, but after their 45-30 victory over No. 10 UCLA, no one can argue they are the prohibitive favorites to be one of the two teams in the Pac-12 title game in Las Vegas.

Three of those five games are on the road, but unless a major upset occurs, one would think the Ducks will take care of business at Colorado and California with an always-tough rivalry game in Corvallis against the Beavers.

The two home games certainly won’t be easy wins as Washington and Utah are still scheduled to come into Autzen Stadium. But if the Ducks can control those games like they did today, they’ll control their own destiny.

Oregon’s offense threw the kitchen sink at the Bruins and nearly everything they tried worked. The Ducks had big plays to receiver Troy Franklin and Bo Nix was masterful at throwing the ball going 21-of-27 for 278 yards, five touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

The Duck senior transfer quarterback also burned the Bruins with his legs by converting two fourth downs on a key scoring drive in the third quarter to make it 38-16. Even after UCLA scored a touchdown, the Oregon offense never wavered. Nix hit Bucky Irving on a fourth-and-four for a backbreaking 37-yard touchdown and a 45-23 lead.

Oregon’s defense, while not spectacular, made sure UCLA needed to work for every yard it got. The Ducks were concerned about explosion plays, but they limited the Bruins’ big-play capabilities. They also held the Bruins to field goals instead of touchdowns on two drives. Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson became more frustrated as the game went along.

Head coach Dan Lanning even threw a little Chip Kelly at Chip Kelly with a gutsy onside kick and recovery in the second quarter. They turned a 10-10 tie into a 24-10 lead without DTR even touching the ball. From then on the Ducks announced to UCLA and the conference that they mean business.

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Social Media Buzz: Duck fans react to No. 9 Oregon’s blowout win over No. 10 UCLA

Oregon dismantled UCLA on a Saturday. It was the statement victory that the Ducks needed to get back on the national radar.

If you felt the vibe and energy on Saturday morning at the set of ESPN’s College GameDay, you might have seen this coming. I’m not sure there was anything that UCLA could have done to stop it.

The No. 9 Oregon Ducks were on a mission on Saturday afternoon, running roughshod over the No. 10 UCLA Bruins in route to a 45-30 victory. It was the game of the day in college football, and the Ducks delivered.

It’s been a long road to haul since losing to the Georgia Bulldogs 49-3 in the opening week of the season, but the Ducks have stormed back with force and established themselves as one of the best teams in the nation. It was a statement made with force against Chip Kelly and the Bruins, and one that will have reverberations in the Pac-12 conference, and potentially the College Football Playoff picture.

Saturday was a celebration for Oregon fans, and they took to Twitter to party. Here are some of the best reactions on Twitter:

Social Media Buzz: Oregon fans react to Troy Franklin’s circus sideline catch

Anytime Troy Franklin does something impressive, fans go wild on Twitter. You can only guess what happened after his sideline circus-catch vs. UCLA.

Troy Franklin is certainly becoming a star.

He already had a 49-yard catch for a touchdown on a perfect strike from Bo Nix, plus another short TD catch to put the Ducks up 31-13 going into the half. Things are going just the way Oregon would have drawn it up.

But what they don’t draw up is Franklin’s circus catch along the left sideline where the ball was passed him as he reached up and snagged it out of the air for the 21-yard reception and the first down.

As you would guess, Oregon fans went wild. Here are some of the best reactions: