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Utah vs Oregon 2015: Utes’ defense vs Ducks’ offense tale of the tape

By Jack Crosby

Nov 8, 2014; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Oregon Ducks place kicker Aidan Schneider (41) kicks a field goal as quarterback Taylor Alie (12) holds during the first half against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 8, 2014; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Oregon Ducks place kicker Aidan Schneider (41) kicks a field goal as quarterback Taylor Alie (12) holds during the first half against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports /
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A quick look at the amazing match up that we’re going to see on Saturday night between the Oregon Ducks offense and the Utah Utes defense

Oregon
Oregon /

Week Four of the college football season brings us some exciting action in the Pac-12. However, most eyes will be on the contest featuring the UCLA Bruins taking on the Arizona Wildcats. This is a match up that does carry a lot of weight in the race to win the conference, but there seems to be another game that folks are forgetting about — that being the Utah Utes taking on the Oregon Ducks.

This Saturday night in the hostile environment of Autzen Stadium, the undefeated Utes will roll into said hostile environment and try to take down the defending Pac-12 Champions and keep their conference title hopes alive. Coming into this one at 3-0 on the season, this is one of the more important games for this Utes program since they joined the conference in 2011.

Of course, as it goes for everyone who lines up against Oregon on the field, the story here is the Utes’ defense against the Ducks’ offense.

Through three games on the season thus far, head coach Kyle Whittingham has once again put a ferocious defensive unit on the field. They started the season by holding down Michigan for most of the game; then they followed that up by surrendering just 14 points to a pretty good Utah State defense; and finally, last weekend, they gave up just 24 to Fresno State. As you can see in the graphic above, this Utes defensive corps is only giving up an average of 18.3 points per game thus far. You can argue the level of competition, but that’s still a pretty impressive stat.

On defense, this Utah unit will not hesitate to stop you dead in your tracks.

In typical Oregon fashion, as you can also see above, they’re coming in just absolutely blowing the doors off of everyone with their offensive attack. Averaging 50 points per game, they’ve barely missed a beat with the loss of Marcus Mariota and the insertion of transfer Vernon Adams on offense. As a matter of fact, they didn’t even miss a beat last weekend against Georgia State, a game in which Adams sat out with an injured finger. In the absence of their starting quarterback, the Ducks scored 61 points with Jeff Lockie under center. It also helped that sophomore running back Royce Freeman rushed for 101 yards on just 10 carries with a score.

Speaking of Freeman, this is where the match up will get very interesting on Saturday night.

There’s not a doubt in anyone’s mind that the second-year Ducks star is one of the best backs in the game. However, he’s going up against one of the more ferocious defensive lines not only in the Pac-12, but in the entire nation as a whole. Can this Utes front line be able to contain Freeman for most of this one, especially in Autzen Stadium? This is one of the questions that should be weighing on your mind heading into Saturday.

Nonetheless, this has the makings of becoming one of the best games this entire weekend, just for the match up between these two units.

Last season the Utes defense held Oregon scoreless in the first quarter until the wheels then eventually fell off. This year, on Saturday night, can they put the complete four-quarter effort in to pull off the upset and continue their quest of that Pac-12 title?

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