Chapter 1: The Setting
Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (12-1)
Bad Guys: Oregon Ducks (12-1)
Where: Hard Rock Stadium | Miami Gardens, Florida
When: Thursday, January 1st @ 11:00 am
TV & Streaming: ESPN
Radio: The Varsity Network
The Line: Oregon -2.5
Game Notes: Texas Tech | Oregon
Weather Report: Sunny, High 70 Low 49
Chapter 2: The Cast
QB Dante Moore (6-3/206): Moore sort of does it all for Oregon, a terrific passer and okay runner. It’s his arm that is dangerous. Moore throws for about 234 yards a game, completing 72% of his passes for 9 yards an attempt with 28 touchdowns and just 8 interceptions.
RB Noah Whittington (5-8/203): Whittington gets the bulk of the carries, 116 for 798 yards and 6 touchdowns, about 73 yards per game and 6.88 yards per attempt. That’s pretty darn healthy. He averages about 1.5 receptions a game, so not heavily involved, but enough to cause issues. Jordon Davison (6-0/236) is right behind him in terms of production, 98 attempts for 625 yards, about 48 yards a game, 6.38 per attempt and a whopping 13 touchdowns. Davison is obviously the goal-line back here.
TE Kenyon Sadiq (6-3/245): Sadiq is a fantastic tight end and likely high draft pick. He caught 42 passes for 509 yards, 42 yards a game and about 12 per reception with 8 touchdowns. The thing that’s a big issue for Oregon is that they have a lot of injured receivers who also happened to be pretty talented, led by true freshman Dakorien Moore (5-11/195) from Duncanville who has 29 receptions for 448 yards and 15 yards per reception with 3 touchdowns. Also banged up is Gary Bryant, Jr. (5-11/191) who has 25 receptions, 12 yards a catch and 4 touchdowns, and Malik Benson (6-1/195) who averages nearly 18 yards a reception, 36 catches for 645 yards and 6 touchdowns.
DE Matayo Uiagalelei (6-5/272) and DE Teitum Tuioti (6-3/263): These two edges are absolute loads and highly talented pass rush specialists. Uiagalelei has 30 tackles, 8.5 tackles for a loss with 5 sacks, 4 passes broken up, 6 quarterback hurries and a forced fumble. Tuioti is slightly more productive, 60 tackles, 14 tackles for a loss, 7.5 sacks, 5 passes broken up, and 8 quarterback hurries with 2 forced fumbles. Oregon basically has their own version of David Bailey and Romello Height.
DT A’Mauri Washington (6-3/330): Washington is obviously a load and is a terrific run defender, 31 tackles, with 4.5 tackles for a loss along with 1.5 sacks, 7 passes broken up and 5 quarterback hurries. He anchors that defense in the middle. Sheridan Wilson will have his hands full, but it’s not anything that he hasn’t seen with Lee Hunter and AJ Holmes going against him every day.
LB Bryce Boettcher (6-2/232): Boettcher is a hometown kid who is primarily a very good run defender and you can expect o hear his name quite a bit. He’s got 113 tackles, 4.5 tackles for a loss, a sack, an interception, 5 passes broken up and 5 quarterback hurries to go along with a forced fumble.
SS Dillon Thieneman (6-0/205): Thieneman is extremely high-end strong safety, adept at getting to the quarterback from this spot as well as being a strong tackler and does really well in coverage who has 74 tackles, 2 interceptions, 2.5 tackles for a loss, a sack, and 6 passes broken up.
Chapter 3: The Conflict
A Stout Offensive Line: When Joey McGuire made the comment that the Ducks remind him of Oregon, I think a lot of it is in the offensive line. I did some maths and according to CFB Depth Charts the Utes averaged 13.5 overall, 12.9 in run blocking and 14.8 in pass blocking. Oregon was just a bit better in every category, 13.9 overall, 13.5 in run blocking and 15.7 in pass blocking. The strongest of the Oregon group is center Iapani Laloulu (6-2/329), Dave Iuli (6-3/332) at right guard and and Emmanuel Pregnon (6-5/318) at left guard. They are very good up front and in the middle, but the edges are where Texas Tech might have an advantage.
A Test for the Secondary: It’s not just Dakorien Moore who can stretch the field, but former Crimson Tide Malik Benson is pretty good, former USC Trojan Gary Braynt, Jr. and former Aggie Evan Stewart can all play. I think that Oregon will be able to send receivers in waves and the chess battle is going to be how many players Texas Tech will need to send to get to Dante Moore on a regular basis. Moore is great at the quick pass and allowing Oregon to get deep is what they want, pound the run and then hit things deep.
Oregon Pass Defense is Underrated: I don’t think that the Oregon pass defense gets the credit that they maybe deserve. Their biggest standout layer is Thieneman, but Brandon Finney, Jr. (6-2/203), Jadon Canady (5-11/185), and Theran Johnson (5-11/195) are all solid cornerbacks, maybe not spectacular. Canady is probably the best, so maybe that will be an issue for Coy Eakin a bit.
Be the Team You’ve Been: I feel that those of us who have been here know exactly what this team is. I have been concerned about the ability of the offensive line to protect Behren Morton, the receivers to get open, and the cornerbacks to cover deep. But this team is also tremendous at running the ball, have been able to pass incredibly efficiently, a defense that absolutely terrific at stopping the run, a tight end that’s an incredibly tough cover, and a linebacking corps that may be second to none. Be that team and everything should work itself out.
Video Notes: The James Madison defense looks pretty overwhelmed the very first play . . . and that touchdown is a thing of beauty, terrific catch, laid out perfectly by Moore . . . conversely, the JM offense looks pretty good initially, able to seal the edge decently, the quick pass is nice and could see Texas Tech picking away like they tend to do until they want to go over the top . . . the diamond formation with 3 running backs is an interesting way to get that running back in space and 1-on-1 to reate a really big play . . . Moore being able to use the fake to give himself enough room for that touchdown is why the Ducks run the ball . . . the Oregon defense is definitely going to bite on everything and they appear to be pretty aggressive . . . the JMU defense cannot set the edge and that right tackle for Oregon is huge, I’ll be interested to see how he handles the speed of Height . . . Moore does throw an incredibly pretty ball and that double-move for the corner touchdown is a nice move . . . all of these yards that JMU is able to gain is on the Oregon 1st team defense, I think I thought that the JMU offense was gaining all of those yards in the 2nd half . . . again, an absolutely beauty to #4 for Oregon, that cornerback could never catch up and that ball was out so quick . . . JMU having to settle for field goals is not something that Texas Tech can afford to do . . . Moore just has all sorts of time to complete passes and that #4 again with a huge play, I’m sure Texas Tech will watch him . . . that blocked punt was ridiculous, that JMU punter seemed to run into the Oregon defender . . . at that point I’d think that the game was statistically over . . . the 2nd interception that Moore throws is a lazy throw . . . the Oregon secondary may not play real great technique . . . one thing that is true is that the Oregon offensive line blocked up JMU nicely for pretty much the entire game . . . giving JMU credit, they played until the last whistle and I think Oregon had issues covering the JMU tight end . . .
Chapter 4: The Charts & Graphs
Uniforms:
Stats: The Texas Tech offense certainly is not as good as the Oregon offense. That’s probably the biggest worry. They don’t allow disruptive plays and are a top 5 running team that is incredibly efficient and doesn’t create negative drives. Texas Tech is a good running team, but not as efficient as maybe you’d like them to be. They have been clutch at converting 3rd downs, especially lately. Defensively, Oregon is going to allow the yards, but they have been in almost all other respects great. The Texas Tech defense is decently ahead of Oregon in most respects.
BCF tends to see things the same way that Beta Rank is seeing things. Kelly Ford tends see things similarly except a much worse special teams rating. CFB Depth sees things as as Oregon being a bit better from a depth perspective, the obvious thing here is that special teams is in favor of Texas Tech. SP+ sees things similarly in that Texas Tech is slightly better, but has special teams as being in favor of Oregon by a decent margin.
CFB Graphs tends to favor Texas Tech by a decent amount and I’m a bit surprised at this, especially the low-scoring nature of the prediction. That RROE is essentially rushing expectancy and Texas Tech may have an advantage there, Oregon doesn’t run when maybe they should and vice versa on the defensive side of things. We’ll see.
Chapter 5: The Conclusion
It’s interesting how that line keeps creeping up favoring Oregon. Started at Oregon -1.5 and now it’s Oregon -2.5. The public bets are split 50/50 between Oregon and Texas Tech. Like a lot of you, we haven’t been in a situation where Texas Tech hasn’t been favored and I’ve typically felt that the spread has been too rich, taking Texas Tech straight up and the opponent against the spread. I think that Texas Tech’s defense is a bit better than the Oregon offense and I think the Texas Tech offense is on par with the Oregon defense. The special teams appears to point towards Texas Tech. That’s a slight edge in my mind.