If you’re anything like me, you watched the Big Ten Championship Game and shuddered every time Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson dropped back to pass.
Sure, running back Montee Ball is special in his own right, with his 38 (yes, 38) touchdowns and 1,700-plus rushing yards. But just about any rational observer would say that it was Wilson, and not Ball, who transformed this team into one of the nation’s best. Last year’s Rose Bowl team was formidable, but Scott Tolzien can only take you so far. Wilson is about 200 percent more explosive, and that’s what has me shuttering as I think about this matchup on Jan. 2 between Oregon and Wisconsin.
Save for the LSU game, Oregon’s pitfalls in recent years have all come against explosive, dual-threat quarterbacks. There was Cam Newton last year in the national championship game and Terrelle Pryor before him in the 2010 Rose Bowl. USC’s Matt Barkley, though certainly no threat to run, provided yet another exposure of Oregon’s inconsistent pass defense with a coolly efficient performance that Wilson is certainly capable of repeating. Ditto Kellen Moore and Andrew Luck two years ago.
Now, this is about the point when Chip Kelly would interrupt and say, “the past doesn’t matter. Our team is different now, and there’s no point in looking at what happened last year, or the year before.” Which is, of course, a perfectly fair point. The problem is that, if anything, this year’s Oregon team is even more vulnerable against prolific passing attacks.
The secondary, while vastly improved since the beginning of the year, is still ever-vulnerable. There is no veteran cornerback, like Talmadge Jackson III last year or Water Thurmond in 2009. (I’d count Anthony Gildon, but his health remains a question heading into Pasadena). The young guys — Terrance Mitchell, Troy Hill, Ifo Ekpre-Olomu — have shown flashes of brilliance (Mitchell in particular), but they’re still unpredictable at best. Eddie Pleasant and John Boyett provide some stability at the safety positions, but the onus ultimately falls on the cornerbacks to contain Wisconsin’s receivers and, in turn, Wilson.
And that prospect becomes even more unlikely when you look at what Wilson did in this, his one and only year at Wisconsin. He completed at least 70 percent of his passes in 10 of 13 games, and never fell below the 62.5 mark. That, in and of itself, is incredible. Then you see his interception total, and your jaw drops even further. Just three all year, and exactly 0 in 11 of his 13 games. The kid just doesn’t make mistakes, and that doesn’t bode well for an Oregon defense that feeds upon opponent miscues.
Saturday’s Big Ten Championship Game displayed just about everything you need to know about Wilson. When it mattered most, he was at his prolific best. There was the 36-yard pass to Jeff Duckworth on fourth and 6 in the final quarter to set up the game-winning touchdown (and damn near kill Gus Johnson). And then, on the next play, a perfectly thrown two-point conversion to Jacob Pedersen while under heavy duress. All with that bionic “I could do this in my sleep” look on his face that the best competitors often wear, from Derrick Rose to Andrew Luck and Kevin Garnett (OK, just kidding with that last one). That’s the look of a winner, the look we should all fear when we watch the Rose Bowl in a month.
I shudder to think of exactly what Wilson will pull out of his sleeve come Jan. 2, and somewhere, deep down, Chip Kelly probably will too as he starts watching game tape.