Thirty seconds after a 63-yard catch and run touchdown from wideout Jaylon Redd, junior safety Bennett Williams gave the Oregon offense a short field by way of a diving interception on the Arizona 25-yard line.
Just a minute-and-a-half into its first conference bout of the year, Oregon found itself with a 10-0 lead over the Wildcats. And, after all too many ebbs and flows, the Ducks went on to win 41-19 on Saturday in Autzen.
But the interception in the early moments was just one of many pivotal plays from the secondary on Saturday. While the Oregon run defense struggled to contain the Wildcats’ ground game, the secondary flourished in key moments, hauling in five interceptions on Saturday.
“Those plays are huge for us, and we have a lot of playmakers on this defense,” Williams said.
The secondary struck again by way of a Mykael Wright toe-tapping interception in the back of the endzone to nullify a potential Wildcats scoring drive.
The play marked Wright’s second interception as a Duck and his first since 2019, but the small sum is a testament to his ability to stick to receivers on the perimeter.
By halftime, the Wildcats mustered a surprising 229 yards of offense — an especially remarkable number given a first-time starter under center in Jordan McCloud. Even with high-skill plays from the secondary, the Oregon defense as a whole seemed at times to stoop to the level of its opponent.
Aside from a costly slip up by way of a miscommunication between safety Jordan Happle and cornerback DJ James, the vast majority of the Arizona damage was delivered in the ground game and on short passes underneath. When the Wildcats went deep, the Ducks made them pay.
At the half, the difference in the game lay in the Ducks ability to create timely turnovers in the secondary, and that remained true through the rest of the evening.
At the tail end of a 68-yard drive, the Wildcats knocked at the door on the first possession of the second half. But the Oregon secondary proved dangerous in the red zone once again as Verone McKinley III intercepted the ball on the two-yard line to suffocate the Wildcats’ scoring attempt.
With the turnover, McKinley III became the first Oregon player of all time to have an interception in three consecutive games.
“Verone McKinley [III] continues to be a dominant player back there,” Cristobal said.
As the offense sputtered and subsequently struggled to create momentum, the defensive play felt less and less sustainable. In the final minutes of the third quarter, Arizona doubled Oregon in time of possession, and it was beginning to show.
“Sometimes you just can’t get stuff going,” Oregon center Alex Forsyth said of the Ducks’ mid-game offensive struggles.
The defense, even in secondary, began to break rather than merely bend. The Ducks gave up large chunks of yardage on the ground and through the air. By the fourth quarter, Arizona added 109 more yards to an already far-too-large game total.
But, as had been the case all night, the secondary was resilient.
Trailing 34-19, the Wildcats crept into Oregon territory for a final gasp at closing the Oregon lead. But, as McCloud delivered a ball to the right side, Williams read the play, closed on the ball and high pointed it mid-air, breaking multiple tackles en route to a 68-yard touchdown return.
“I saw the endzone and felt like it was taking me forever to get there,” Williams said.
Williams is in the midst of a breakout year with three picks in four games. He’s been a force in the run game as well.
With 46 seconds remaining, the Ducks added one last interception from Nate Heaukulani, placing an exclamation point on an explosive performance from the secondary.
The defense — imperfect as it was — made big plays when the offense couldn’t. It bent, and bent, and bent, but didn’t break.
