The 42-34 win over Mississippi State last week was a case of Oregon’s best and worst.
The good: A 28-0 lead after one quarter and more than 500 yards of offense. The team’s two quarterbacks — sophomore Kellen Clemens and senior Jason Fife — combined to pass for more than 300 yards. And to top it off, the Oregon running game barely missed 200 yards rushing.
The bad: The Bulldogs came within eight points of tying the game in the waning moments of the contest, and Mississippi State had more than 400 yards of total offense.
“We made some plays and the offense put some points on the board,” senior linebacker Kevin Mitchell said. “On defense we had a lot of three-and-outs, but there were times where we had them third-and-10, third-and-15. We ended up blowing a 28-point lead. If you want to be successful, you can’t do that.”
Lessons have been learned: The Ducks now square off Saturday at 12:30 p.m. against Nevada (1-0) in the first game of the season at Autzen Stadium.
While the Ducks are sitting at 1-0 this season, a symbolic 1-1 sits in their minds. Sophomore Haloti Ngata will miss at least the first month of the season after suffering damage to his anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in last week’s game.
And the 345-pound defensive lineman will be sorely missed.
“We’ve talked about it all along where somebody gets hurt, we’d like to look at it as an opportunity instead of a loss,” head coach Mike Bellotti said. “For us, Haloti obviously is a big part of our plan and I feel very badly for him.”
Senior Junior Siavii and junior Robby Valenzuela are now expected to step into Ngata’s shoes.
“They’re all solid defensive linemen,” junior Igor Olshansky said. “Losing Haloti kills our depth at defensive line, but Robby and Junior are more than capable of picking up the slack.”
Olshansky, who played defensive tackle last season, opened the Mississippi State game at defensive end. However, by the second half, he had moved back to tackle.
Olshansky said he expects Nevada to have the same type of game plan that the Bulldogs brought to the table. With the Wolf Pack throwing into the fire an inexperienced sophomore quarterback, Jeff Rowe, the Nevada running game is expected to take full opportunity of Oregon’s depleted line.
That means Chance Kretschmer, who ran for 170 yards in the Wolf Pack’s 24-23 victory over Southern Utah to start the season, will get a large portion of the team’s carries. He had 26 last week.
“Basically, we’ve got to do our own jobs within the defense and as long as everyone does their own job, we should be okay,” Mitchell said.
As almost an afterthought to Ngata’s injury, Oregon fans should expect to see both Clemens and Fife behind center against Nevada, and again, a train of running backs slicing through holes and sweeps.
It’s not as though the Duck offense didn’t prompt its fair share of accolades, anyway.
Clemens was 14 of 21 for 247 yards and three touchdown strikes, while Fife was 8 of 8 for 111 yards and one score.

Bellotti has not hinted who will get more playing time against Nevada. He showed against Mississippi State that he is not afraid to rotate the two even if one has a hotter hand.
The running game, meanwhile, racked up 198 yards against the Bulldogs and Junior Ryan Shaw led the way offensively, having ran for 84 yards in 16 carries last week.
“We were just all fresh, ready to go,” he said. “Whenever one of us got tired, somebody was there to step up.”
With the Michigan game looming — Sept. 20, to be exact — the Ducks are entering the Nevada contest with the thoughts of a must-win this week. With a strong showing against the Wolf Pack, the Ducks could gather momentum next week against Arizona, then focus on the biggest non-conference game at Autzen in 20 years.
But they can’t look past the Wolf Pack. After all, it is just the second game of the season.
Last week, “We made enough mistakes for the season and we made enough mistakes to learn from,” Mitchell said. “We went over it, learned from them, and now it’s just time to move on.”