Onto the next week.
Oregon may’ve solved its Stanford problem Saturday, however the road through the rest of the regular season hardly gets any smoother. With a road contest against a 20th-ranked Utah team that has only lost two games by a combined six points, it is clear that Marcus Mariota and the rest of Oregon have plenty of work left to do.
“Our prize for playing a good game against Stanford is having to play against another really good team,” offensive coordinator Scott Frost said Monday after practice. “(Their) guys all over the defense play very active and play really hard. I know our offense has a big challenge ahead of it.”
For Oregon, it’ll just be a matter of staying consistent. There’s no doubt that its 45-16 win against Stanford was cathartic in the grand scheme of things, yet the understanding that each game poses a new challenge is something that isn’t slipping the minds of the players and coaches.
In the latter weeks of the season last year, Oregon saw its Rose Bowl hopes dashed in an embarrassing 42-16 loss to Arizona and this year its serving as a lesson for how not to sprint to the finish line with three games remaining on its schedule.
“It kicked us in the butt a little bit,” Keanon Lowe, who returned from injury to catch two passes for 31 yards Saturday, said. “(We) started slipping on the little things day in day out, that was a wake up call. Looking back on it in retrospect that was good for our team and we learned a lot.”
Averaging 45.6 points per game, Oregon will head into Rice-Eccles Stadium Saturday playing another vaunted front seven that is ranking third in the Pac-12 in total defense. Led by Nate Orchard and Jared Norris, the Utes are allowing just 385 yards per game to its opponents. Orchard and Norris have also wreaked havoc in the backfield, combining for 127 tackles and 24.5 tackles for loss this season.
Which may be the perfect matchup for an Oregon rushing attack that continued its dominance against Stanford last week by gaining 267 yards on the ground.
“These guys play as hard as anyone we’ve played,” Frost, eluding to the physicality of the Utes’ front, said. “We’ve played against some of the most elite front sevens in the country in Stanford, Washington, UCLA and these guys are near the top of that list.”
Frost also received a valuable addition to the rushing attack last week with a healthy Thomas Tyner running for 63 yards and two touchdowns. On multiple occasions the sophomore running back who missed the game against Cal, ran at least according to Frost, like he was “being shot out of a cannon.”
“Thomas had his best game,” Frost said. “I think he’s learned the last couple weeks that he doesn’t have to be the jitterbug LaMichael James type. If he hits it down field and runs at his top speed, he’s strong enough to break the tackles. ”
Frost as well as the rest of the coaching staff will be hoping that the level of play will continue for Tyner and the rest of the team. With three games left, guys like Lowe and Ifo Ekpre-Olumu admitted that the idea of the whole run coming to an end as a senior is definitely present, but making the most of that seems to be the real concern.
“My games are numbered at this point,” Lowe said.  “I feel like I’ve been here a long time, so its pretty crazy that I only have one more in Autzen and a couple more in the regular season. I’ll definitely be looking to make the most of them.”
Follow Justin Wise on Twitter @JustinFWise