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No. 2 Oregon goes into its bye week after surviving a scare against Washington State. Certainly the Ducks are glad to have escaped Pullman with a win, but it was very close to being very different, which would have made this bye week very sour. But they got the win and improved to 4-0. Though it’s a perfect record, this team is far from perfect and this week, they will try to get a few steps closer to that benchmark. Here are some areas in which the Ducks must improve before they continue their march toward a Pac-12 title. 1. The offensive line must protect Marcus Mariota better A true freshman at left tackle isn’t exactly a comforting feeling for anyone. Nor is the idea of a former walk-on at right tackle. Nor is the idea of three guys who could play offensive tackle sitting together with braces on their legs, watching these younger guys struggle so mightily. OK, so there are a lot of non-comforting feelings. No matter how much that hurts, it probably doesn’t hurt quite as much as Mariota did after being sacked seven times against Washington State. What is the answer? I’d imagine the Ducks are hoping that Jake Fisher will be healthy enough to play against Arizona next Thursday, and that would relieve some of the stress on at least one side of the line. But, as a whole, this group needs to improve fast. It can’t allow Mariota to be hit seven times. In the perfect world, it can’t allow Mariota to be hit at all. 2. Stop giving up so many big plays The defense has done well in making in game adjustments this season, but it has been a little too porous a little too often. Already this season, the defense has given up 68 plays of 10-plus yards. To put that in perspective, there are 116 teams that have allowed fewer. TCU leads the country allowing just 16 plays of 10-plus yards. Stanford (19) and Oregon State (25) are both in the top 10. Of those 68 plays, 21 went for 20-plus yards. That, once again, puts Oregon outside of the top 100 nationally in that category. There are definitely times when statistics don’t say too much, and yes, you can say this isn’t too important because Oregon is 4-0. But the Washington State game and the first half of the Michigan State game (heck, the first quarter of the Wyoming game) would have been much, much different if the defense didn’t allow quite so many big plays. 2b. Be better against the pass Sixty five percent of opposing quarterback completions have resulted in a first down or a touchdown against Oregon. Again, that’s very, very bad (like No. 113 in the country bad). The average completion against Oregon goes for 11.6 yards. And this isn’t one of those situations where you can say, "Well, teams aren’t completing that many passes against us so who cares if 65 percent of them go for a first down or touchdown?" because you would be wrong. Teams are completing 27 passes per game against Oregon. There are only five teams in the country that have more passes completed against them per game -- BYU, Nevada, Bowling Green, Cal and Indiana. 3. Keep using as many people as possible in the offensive attack The more the Ducks have four different names show up under the running statistics and eight different names show up under the receiving statistics, the more opposing defensive coordinators are going to shake in their boots. Royce Freeman is leading the way for the Ducks right now with five rushing touchdowns on 48 carries and Thomas Tyner and Byron Marshall have both accounted for one rushing touchdown on 40 carries and 21 carries, respectively. In the pass game, Devon Allen, Keanon Lowe and Marshall have all accounted for at least three receptions per game, and Pharaoh Brown and Darren Carrington both have nine catches this season. It seems really, really basic to say the problem of abundance is a good one to have. But the Ducks need to keep playing this up, especially given the offensive line problems. If opponents know that every single skill position on the field is one that can burn a defense and make them pay, then maybe they won’t throw the kitchen sink at the offensive line? And if they still do, Oregon fans can be grateful they have a quarterback as smart as Mariota who knows how to get the ball to his arsenal of weapons.
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