Sunday Notebook: Aggressive To The End, Rebounding Quickly And More

EUGENE, Ore. — Less than a minute remained Saturday night in Autzen Stadium, and the Ducks were two yards away from clinching an emphatic, if harrowing, victory over Stanford.

Oregon led by three, and the Cardinal had just one timeout left. Take a knee twice, then punt, and the UO football team would leave Stanford time for two or three plays before time expired. Mario Cristobal chose instead to rely on a rushing attack that had netted 15 yards on the previous two plays.

"We're going to be aggressive," the UO head coach said. "In our eyes, when our offensive line is playing like it did against them, and knocking people off the ball, you trust your guys to get it done."

True, he acknowledged as well, "a lot of things can go a lot of different ways. And it's easy to second-guess after."

What ensued was disastrous. Redshirt freshman CJ Verdell, who was enjoying a breakout night, was close to the first-down marker, tried to fight for extra yards and was stripped of the ball. Stanford recovered, drove to a game-tying field goal as regulation ended, then scored in overtime to win, 38-31.

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Over and over in his postgame press conference, Cristobal was asked about the play call on Oregon's final snap in regulation. Over and over again, Cristobal reiterated his faith in the Ducks' rushing attack, which averaged 4.6 yards per carry Saturday night, when sacks are excluded from the UO rushing totals.

"We felt pretty good about the run game," Cristobal said. "We needed one more to get a first down and win the game. And we'd been pretty good with that."

So much can go wrong on a punt, from an errant snap to a blocked kick to an explosive return. Better, the Ducks believed, to put the ball in the hands of Verdell, and run him behind a left side of the offensive line manned by massive tackle Penei Sewell and burly guard Shane Lemieux, with help from two tight ends.

But the one thing the Ducks could least afford — a fumble — happened. And what had been a breakout game for Verdell was marred inexorably.

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"You can imagine, it's a really tough deal for him," Cristobal said. "I love CJ and our players like my very own sons. And I told him that in the locker room. Yes, he's going to beat himself up. Competitors will do that, especially in moments like this, and with how hard he ran the ball.

"He made a mistake; the ball got away from his body, when it didn't have to. But no one's going to point a finger at him. The whole locker room's going to love him up, and we're going to have to build up his confidence again, because he's a really good football player, and we stick by our players."

Nothing could assuage Oregon's anguish at losing Saturday's game. Not the virtuoso performance from quarterback Justin Herbert. Not the fact the Ducks were a play away from taking a 31-7 lead in the second half, against the No. 7 team in the country.

And not the fact that Cristobal's desire to put a new stamp on the program — one reading, in all capital letters, PHYSICALITY — passed its first major test against the Pac-12's most physical program of the last decade.

In the short term, none of that resulted in an Oregon victory Saturday. In the long term, though, they all bode well for the future of this season for the Ducks, and beyond.

"Today was a real good test of physicality," Lemieux said after the Ducks rushed 49 times for 178 yards, with three touchdowns. "I feel like we won up front; obviously it wasn't enough to win the game."

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The UO defense also showed some encouraging signs. None was bigger than a stop on fourth-and-one in the fourth quarter, when the Ducks were clinging to a 24-21 lead and Stanford was driving in UO territory.

Both teams loaded up the box, with everyone in the stadium knowing the Cardinal would run between the tackles. Oregon senior defensive end Jalen Jelks, playing outside linebacker to give the Ducks more size in the front seven, came off the edge to slow up Stanford's Cameron Scarlett in the backfield, and Drayton Carlberg and Nick Pickett stacked up Scarlett at the line to force a turnover on downs.

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The Ducks would parlay that into a touchdown, and a 31-21 lead with less than 5 minutes to play. At that moment, it seemed Oregon was going to survive the wild circumstances that fueled Stanford's comeback, and that the stop on fourth down would be the play of the game — and a defining moment for the program as it looked to enact Cristobal's demand for more physicality.

"We got that, but it wasn't enough to win, though," sophomore nose guard Jordon Scott said. "So it really doesn't matter."

Scott, Jelks, Carlberg and the rest of the UO front seven are playing the run about as well as any defense in the country.

After holding 2017 Heisman Trophy finalist Bryce Love of Stanford to 89 yards on 19 carries, the Ducks are allowing just 75.5 rushing yards per game through four weeks of the season. That's fewer than all but three other FBS teams: Michigan State, San Diego State and Air Force.

Only the Spartans and Aztecs are allowing fewer yards per carry than the 2.13 the Ducks are allowing so far this season.

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"Obviously if we could limit Love, that would help us a lot," Carlberg said. "We made them one-dimensional as far as the run game. But there's two dimensions as part of the defense. And we as a defense as a whole didn't get it done."

Stanford's big receivers and tight ends continue to pose problems for the Ducks. Each of the Cardinal's last two touchdowns Saturday was essentially a jump ball to a big receiver matched up against a smaller defender; over the last two seasons combined, Stanford is 40-of-54 passing for 583 yards and seven touchdowns against Oregon.

"Those are big guys with a lot of length, and a lot of range, and they got us," Cristobal said. "We've got to continue finding ways to help alleviate that for some of our corners. We played a lot of man coverage, which is part of stopping the run. And they got us on a few plays."

To a man Saturday night, the Ducks and their coach spoke in the postgame press conference about quickly rallying themselves back from the loss to Stanford.

"It could be very difficult and devastating; certainly we all feel it," Cristobal said. "But there's no one feeling sorry for us over in California. We're going to have to immediately get back to work at this. The sun's gonna come up tomorrow, we have things we have to clean up, and we have a really good team that's undefeated — with an extra week to prepare for us — that's waiting for us in Berkeley."

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Indeed, California was resting up on a bye week while the Ducks were slugging it out with the Cardinal. The Golden Bears opened their season with a win over North Carolina, went on the road to beat a ranked Brigham Young, then moved to 3-0 against Idaho State before the bye week.

On Sunday, California entered The Associated Press top 25 poll at No. 24. Oregon moved up a spot, to No. 19, despite its loss.

"I feel like we have an outstanding team who knows how to rebound," junior receiver Dillon Mitchell said. "Most definitely, we have guys who can do the job. That's not even a question. I already know everybody's going to come to work tomorrow and start preparing for Cal."

Mitchell had a performance for the record books Saturday, catching 14 passes for 239 yards.

The 14 receptions were second-most in UO history, behind Samie Parker's 16 in the 2003 Sun Bowl against Minnesota. Only Tony Hartley has had more single-game receiving yards for the Ducks, 242 against Washington in 1998.

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Five of Mitchell's receptions went for 20 yards or longer. That gave him seven explosion plays of 20 yards or more this season, tied for the Pac-12 lead.

"I feel I can be one of the best receivers in the country," Mitchell said. "I'm not satisfied with my play, most definitely. I'm looking to come back much harder next week."

The first domino to fall in Stanford's comeback Saturday came late in the third quarter.

Receiver Jaylon Redd took a handoff around left end, and headed for the front corner of the end zone. He crossed the goal line by striking the pylon with his foot — by rule, making Redd out of bounds with the ball spotted where he possessed it at the time, at the 1-yard line.

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A bad break, sure. But the Ducks had a trump card to play — onto the field with the offense came not only dependable goal-line running back Cyrus Habibi-Likio, but also defensive linemen Scott and Austin Faoliu. The two D tackles set up behind the offensive and in front of Habibi-Likio, a formation with which the offense bludgeoned the scout-team defense in practice all week.

But the handoff from Herbert to Habibi-Likio wasn't completed; the ball came off the running back's hip, and Herbert jumped on it at the 10-yard line. Two plays later, Herbert couldn't handle a high snap, and Stanford ended up with a scoop-and-score fumble return of 80 yards.

Oregon's special teams had a markedly different look Saturday.

Finally healthy after missing the first three games, sophomore Adam Stack made his debut as UO placekicker and made a 38-yard field goal that put Oregon up 24-7 just before halftime. Stack was the Ducks' punter as a true freshman in 2017.

Freshman Tom Snee handled all three punts by the Ducks against the Cardinal, averaging 33.3 yards on three attempts. He'd shared the job with Blake Maimone in the nonconference season.