Virginia Football Game Preview: Oregon

By: Kris Wright |
The Virginia football team faces Oregon for just the second time.
Quin Blanding and Virginia hope to pull off an upset at Oregon. ~ Quin Blanding

The Virginia football team has not won a road game since 2012, a game that featured Mike London as UVA’s head coach and Tom O’Brien as NC State’s head coach. A lot has changed since then obviously.

Stopping the travel woes in the first road game of the Bronco Mendenhall era will not be easy. The Ducks are 40-7 in regular season non-conference games since 2000 and 19-3 in home games under current coach Mark Helfrich. Oregon is a handful no matter who you are. Throw in a 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time start, a cross-country flight, and the fact that this is game two of a rebuilding project and the hill gets steeper to borrow a turn of phrase from Coach Mendenhall.

The trips west have not been kind so far to UVA. The Cavaliers are 4-14 in games played west of the Mississippi River, including a 34-16 loss at UCLA last season. Will the contest with Oregon end up closer than that? Get ready for the game with the weekly preview.

Virginia Football Essentials

Hoo Facts

  • This is only the second meeting between the programs. Virginia trails the series with Oregon 0-1 after the Ducks won 59-10 in 2013. UVA is 0-6 against the Pac-12 in its history, the only ‘Power 5’ conference with an unblemished record against the Hoos.
  • This is the third of four straight years that UVA will play a game west of the Mississippi River. The Cavaliers played at BYU in 2014 and UCLA in 2015. This trip to Oregon is followed by a game at Boise State in 2017.
  • Virginia has only played one game farther away than Oregon – the 2000 O’ahu Bowl in Hawaii.
  • Bronco Mendenhall is searching for his first win at Virginia, but he has 99 career wins that all came at BYU. One of those wins came in the 2006 Las Vegas Bowl against Oregon.
  • UVA quarterback Kurt Benkert completed 26 of 34 passes for 264 yards and 3 touchdowns in his first college start last week. The completions and touchdowns tied Mike Groh for the most in a UVA QB’s first career start and the 264 yards ranked third in a debut.
  • The Cavaliers did not have a penalty last week, the first time since 2006 a UVA team went without a flag.

Duck Facts

  • Virginia is the first ACC team to ever play at Autzen Stadium.
  • Oregon has played only one other regular season game against an ACC opponent – that came on the trip to Scott Stadium in 2013. In fact, the Ducks have only played three other games against ACC opponents in general and they are 1-2 in those games. They won the 2015 Rose Bowl game against Florida State, but fell to Wake Forest in 1992 and 2002 bowl games.
  • The Ducks have thrown at least one touchdown pass in 82 straight games dating back to September 4, 2010.
  • Oregon is second in the country in non-offensive touchdowns since 2010 with 36.

3 Hoos To Watch

Receiver Olamide Zaccheaus. After sitting out the first half of the opener for a violation of team rules, Zaccheaus still grabbed 5 receptions for a team-high 75 yards last week. He had a touchdown catch too. One of the fastest players on the team, he can help stretch defenses as an inside receiver working the seams. He had 261 receiving yards as a true freshman a year ago. After not returning kicks last week, he’s back on the depth chart there this week. Zaccheaus made the preseason watch list for the Paul Hornung Award, the national honor given to the most versatile player. Of note, Oregon receiver Charles Nelson is also on that list. He’s fifth all-time at Oregon in kick return yards, has played receiver and safety, and is the new holder on extra point attempts – he scored on a pair of 2-point conversions last week.

Outside linebacker Jordan Mack. The true freshman started at one of the 3-4 OLB spots against Richmond, making him the first true freshman to start at linebacker in a season opener since Ahmad Brooks in 2003. Mack ended up with 3 tackles against the Spiders. He played safety and receiver in high school in Georgia. Protecting the edges is a must against Oregon so Mack has a tall order in just his second career game.

Defensive end Andrew Brown. The highly regarded recruit is looking for new opportunities with a new coaching staff and he made the most of his start last week. Brown recorded a career-high 7 tackles against Richmond despite seeing double teams for a lot of the afternoon. Those 7 tackles in one game surpassed his season tackles in each of his first two years at UVA. “I was impressed with a lot of the things that Andrew Brown did as well, once he got settled in,” Mendenhall said this week. “The first quarter was wild eyed and not as assignment sound, but still productive in making plays but not within necessarily the scope of assignment or technique, and as the game went, that became more methodical and systematic and consistent which happened with a number of the players.”

3 Ducks To Watch

Running back Royce Freeman. The high-scoring Ducks use the run heavily in their spread scheme. Freeman is the current star in the running back spot having already reached fourth all-time at Oregon with 37 career rushing touchdowns. He rushed for 3,288 yards in his first three years, the most of any RB from any ‘Power 5’ conference. With 17 career 100-yard rushing games, he’s currently 27th all-time in Pac-12 career rushing history.

Receiver Devon Allen. The junior is just now getting up to football speed after qualifying for the Olympics in Rio. Just the fourth active college football player to ever qualify for the Summer Olympics, he placed fifth in the 100-meter hurdles in Rio. He’s a good football player too. He has 50 career receptions and scored 7 receiving touchdowns in 2014, which led the team that year. The Ducks spread the wealth so Allen, the aforementioned Nelson, and Darren Carrington (TD catches in eight of his last 10 games) are all big threats.

Linebacker Troy Dye. The freshman put together an impressive debut against UC Davis. He tallied 11 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, and 1 blocked field goal. He’s the first Duck freshman with double-digit tackles in his first career game since 1996. Dye, who earned the Pac-12’s Defensive Player of the Week honor after week one, plays the strong side for the Ducks.

3 Things To Watch

Run defense and tackling. Virginia surrendered 187 rushing yards on 4.6 yards per carry against Richmond and had some issues finishing off tackles during the game. The Ducks run at a whole different level so a repeat performance would spell doom. Oregon has produced a 1,000-yard rusher for nine straight seasons, the longest streak in the nation. Keep an eye on read option and misdirection plays because when the Spiders did anything with deception, it tripped up the Cavaliers on defense.

Guard blocking. On the flip side, UVA struggled to run the football in week one. The Cavaliers produced 38 rushing yards on 1.8 yards per attempt, a number that was worse if you took out the last drive of the game when Richmond was conceding rushing attempts to burn clock. On the other drives in the game, the Hoos had 16 carries for 3 yards – .18 yards per carry! One of the trouble spots in the opener came at the guard positions where Jake Fieler and Jack McDonald saw most of the action. Penetration near those gaps disrupted a lot of the running room against Richmond.

Special teams. Oregon has a clear advantage on paper in a lot of areas … and that includes special teams. While UVA is concerned with the consistent range for Dylan Sims, Oregon junior kicker Aidan Schneider is a 91.9% kicker in his career (34/37). Plus, kickoff specialist Matt Wogan ranked 13th nationally in touchback percentage in 2015 – he put 6 of 9 kicks in the end zone for touchbacks against UC Davis last week. Wogan might want to test the Hoos on returns, however, because they averaged just 17.3 yards per return in the opener on 7 returns. That’s an area where the Ducks have an edge too. Charles Nelson has 1,447 career kickoff return yards and he averaged 25.8 yards per return a year ago.