A date against No. 11 TCU in the 2016 Valero Alamo Bowl looked to be the perfect consolation prize for Oregon’s season when it was announced in early December. Both the Horned Frogs and 15th ranked Ducks were preseason favorites to contend for the College Football Playoff.
However, injuries appear to be the reason why they are meeting in a bowl game without the lure or national energy that the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl will certainly provide on New Year’s Eve.
While the Ducks are haunted by Vernon Adams’s broken index finger in the first half of the season — in which Oregon crawled its way to a 3-3 record — TCU seemed to suffer a never ending slate of injuries on the defensive side of the ball. And once those injuries carried over to the offense, with both quarterback Trevone Boykin and his top wide receiver, Josh Docston, going down, the Horned Frogs couldn’t withstand the damage. After starting 7-0, they lost two of their final five games.
Yet, as fate would have it, both teams seem to be as healthy as they have been all season now. Boykin, who was injured against Kansas and sidelined against Oklahoma, will be fully healthy, according to TCU head coach Gary Patterson. Doctson will not play. Adams, as Ducks fans already know, has put on a show every time he stepped on the field while guiding Oregon to a six-game winning streak to close the season.
The equation equals what on the surface appears to be one of the more intriguing matchups of this bowl season, and a narrative that both teams are undoubtedly aware of.
“A lot of people had this game as a semifinal game in the playoffs earlier on in the season, so being able to finish off the year against a team like TCU, it’s going to be a really fun one,” Deforest Buckner told reporters when the Ducks arrived in San Antonio Dec. 26, according to CSN Northwest.
TCU’s coach, Patterson, echoed a similar sentiment when his team arrived Monday.
Patterson said he felt Oregon was a “top 10 team” while also mentioning that he was happy to see this game in between the College Football Playoff semifinal and the National Championship.
“I love that it’s Jan. 2,” said Patterson. “Playoffs are done and you got this great bowl game with two teams that are high powered on both sides of the ball.”
Patterson speaking with media now. pic.twitter.com/48vBMFo7LW
— Tyson Alger (@tysonalger) December 28, 2015
But the lack of a high powered motor on the defense, specifically the secondary, is another reason why the Ducks are not playing in a New Year’s Six Bowl. With a largely inexperienced group in the secondary, the Ducks allowed over 300 yards passing per game this year .
They’ll face their toughest test yet this Saturday against Boykin, who totaled 4,187 total yards and 40 touchdowns in 11 games this season. And if those stats aren’t enough to make you weary, Oklahoma cornerback Zach Sanchez said Boykin was the “best athlete we’ve ever seen” when asked to compare the TCU quarterback to Heisman trophy finalist Deshaun Watson.
TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin scans the field in the Horned Frogs’ game against Baylor. (Kelsey Ritchie/ TCU 360)
Oregon has improved in spurts throughout the latter half of the season, though. Arrion Springs and Tyree Robinson have become formidable defensive backs, and Chris Seisay will return from an injury that kept him out the majority of the year.
“I think this game is going to be important to see if we’ve improved over the course of the year because they’re going to exploit us in every way they can,” Oregon defensive backs coach John Neal told the Register Guard.
If Neal’s group can keep Boykin at least somewhat slowed that could be the difference, because no team has shown the ability to stop Adams since his return from injury in October, a period in which the Ducks offense averaged 44.8 points per game.
Mark Helfrich or wide receivers coach Matt Lubick will call plays on game day, filling the void that former offensive coordinator Scott Frost left when he became head coach at UCF. Helfrich conceded earlier this month that it shouldn’t create a problem, as “they do everything collaboratively anyway.”
Like Oregon, TCU has started numerous players on the defensive side of the ball who had yet to make a start in their college career before 2015 due to injuries. The notorious 4-2-5 scheme Patterson runs, in his eyes, was more like the “4-7” earlier in the year because of the amount of turnover each position face. ESPN reported that the Horned Frogs started 20 different defenders just in the first seven games.
But, while TCU has certainly had its struggles on that side of the ball — it gave up 52 points to Texas Tech and 45 to Kansas State — the unit has been considerably dominant coming out of the half. As TCU sports information director Mark Cohen tweeted this week, the Frogs are giving up just 7.4 points per game in their last eight games.
In the 2nd half and OTs of its last 8 games, the @TCUFootball defense has allowed a total of just 59 points (7.4 per game).
— Mark Cohen (@TCUSID) December 27, 2015
So while the matchup will not break any ratings records, Oregon’s bout against TCU has all the ingredients to be a back-and-forth tilt between two of the more high-powered offenses in college football.
Follow Justin Wise on Twitter @JustinFWise