After Oregon thumped Southern Utah 77-21 in the 2017 season opener, the Ducks started a trend that would plague them in second halfs to come.
Oregon failed to score in the second half against Nebraska after putting up 42 points by halftime. Then the Ducks managed a mere 10 points in the second half in a win at Wyoming.
The inconsistency finally hurt Oregon when the Ducks lost 37-35 in Tempe, AZ to Arizona State. After scoring 126 total first-half points in the first three games, the Ducks had only 14 points at halftime and trailed by three. They scored 21 points in the second half but could not win. The tale of two halves for the Ducks’ season came back to bite them in their first loss of the year.
“I think any game where you go in and you don’t play like you want to, you look at what you’re doing well and what you’re not doing well and you try to correct it,” head coach Willie Taggart said. “You can’t say it was a fluke — every game’s different.”
The Ducks were positive after the win over Wyoming. They put up a third consecutive 42-point first half, they contained the highly-touted Cowboy quarterback Josh Allen and they didn’t struggle in the high altitude.
When the second half rolled around, it was the storyline of the season once again. The only points for the Ducks in the second half came off a Kani Benoit 4-yard rush in the fourth quarter.
Oregon didn’t have to worry about scoring in the second half because they shut down Allen’s offense. But for the offense, it wasn’t entirely impressive.
“It improved, you know. Certainly we moved the ball a little bit better,” offensive coordinator Mario Cristobal said about Oregon’s second-half offense. “Execution has still got to improve. We’ve got to keep doing everything we can to help our guys execute. … I think we’re on the right track. We need to demand more, confront and demand more from each other.”
When asked about staying steady throughout the game, running back Royce Freeman urged persistence.
“Just something we need to work on,” Freeman said ahead of the ASU game. “Putting a lot of points up in the first half — you can never complain about that — but we just want to be more consistent as the game plays out.”
When it comes to the scoring, Oregon has not been shy. Its lowest score of the year is still the 42-35 win over Nebraska where all 42 points came in the first two quarters.
After the loss in Tempe, there will be some tweaks to improve, but the plan doesn’t change much for the offense.
“A lot of people would be happy to score 49 points, so I’m not really worried about that,” running backs coach Donte Pimpleton said. “If we score 49 points every week, I think we’d be in good shape.”
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