This time it was all Ducks, all day.
Oregon scored three touchdowns in the first nine minutes of Saturday’s road game against Washington State and never stopped the rest of the afternoon in Pullman, Wash., drubbing the Cougars 63-14 to stay perfect in the Pacific-10 Conference.
It was quite the contrast from Oregon’s loss to Boise State the previous weekend, when 19 fourth-quarter points weren’t enough to keep Oregon (4-1 overall, 2-0 Pac-10) from dropping out of the Associated Press rankings.
Running backs Jeremiah Johnson and LeGarrette Blount each scored three rushing touchdowns and wide receiver Jaison Williams caught two touchdowns in the most lopsided win in the series’ 86-game history. Williams’ 105 receiving yards on five catches gave him his 10th 100-yard receiving game of his Oregon career, the second most all-time.
“I thought it was a total team victory,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti said.
It was indeed; 62 players got to play in the game.
Back-to-back fumbles on the Cougars’ (1-4, 0-2) first two drives of the game left them in a quick 14-0 hole that they could never recover from. The Ducks turned each turnover into touchdowns by Johnson and Williams, respectively, before Blount added his first of the day to close the first quarter.
Blount finished with a game-high 98 yards on 15 carries and Johnson added 88 yards. Overall, Oregon exceeded its 300-yard per game rushing average by running for 346 yards of its 507 yards of total offense.
The Ducks entered ranking 101st in the nation in turnover margin, but forced four Cougars turnovers to none of their own.
“That was a huge step for us,” Bellotti said. “It probably took some of the heart out of Washington State.”
“We’re not a good enough football team to overcome those kinds of mistakes,” Washington State head coach Paul Wulff said. “When things start going bad it becomes more of a landslide for us right now.”
The Cougars scored on a nine yard pass from WSU quarterback Marshall Lobbestael, who made his first career start in the game, to Jeshua Anderson halfway through the second quarter, but even that was too little, too late. Twenty-one third quarter points brought the score to 56-7, more than the Ducks scored during last season’s game even with a quarter left.
Oregon now turns its attention to a USC team that was shown up on national television last Thursday in Corvallis, losing to Oregon State 27-21. Other than a knee injury to Terrell Turner, Bellotti said there were no injuries during the game.
“It was a good win to roll into USC next week,” said freshman quarterback Darron Thomas, who spelled starter Jeremiah Masoli midway through the third quarter.