Weekend Recap: Ducks Jump to #5

Paulson fights for extra yards

Ducks come up big 48-13 @ Tennessee
Saturday's game was a bit stressful for Duck fans. Coming into Neyland with rookie Darron Thomas playing against a crowd of 102,000 on a wet field, we wondered how the offense would play. They started off slow, typical Ducks offense, while Tennesee thrashed our defense from the ground and the air.  It was a little embarrassing to watch Tennessee RB Tauren Poole dominate us for the first quarter, but when lightning struck, it was in the Duck's favor. After the 30 minute lightning delay, play resumed and the time off appeared to slow Tennessee's momentum and the Ducks finally turned on the burners. The second half featured the Ducks going on a 35-0 run, shutting out UT for the rest of the game.  Remene Alston and LMJ added a touchdown a piece (LMJ's being a career high 72 yard touchdown), while Lavasier Tuinei and David Paulson chipped in touchdowns as well.

The big question coming into the game was how Darron Thomas was going to be able to handle the crowd noise. Verdict: No problem. He struggled a little bit early but once he got into his grove, he landed 17 passes into receivers' hands for 202 yards, 2 TD's, and was sacked just once. DT commented on the crowd noise, stating that Neyland was "rocking, I was screaming a lot, screaming plays to offensive linemen," he says. "Once you quieted the crowd, it was easy to play here." (Portland Tribune). He looked poised in the pocket and most of his passes were on the money. He still needs to work on getting his passes higher though, as many of them found their way to the ground or at receivers knees. But I'm just nit-picking. Hopefully the Ducks will continue to dominate against Portland next week!

Random Thoughts: I thought Chip Kelly said that he viewed Barner and LMJ as running backs 1a and 1b? This was a big question coming into the game, with Barner doing so well last week and LMJ being, well, LMJ. James got 16 carries to Barner's 7. I know that it worked out well for James, given that he finished with 134 yards. But take away his 72 yard TD and he's left with 62 yards on 15 carries, dropping his average from 8.4 to 4.1 yards per carry, cutting it in half. Just a little fast fact. I'm curious to see how this pans out in the future.  

Dixon dropping back

In other news, former Oregon Ducks quarterback Dennis Dixon made his second start in the NFL for the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday. I was fortunate enough to be at Heinz Field for the game to see him play. He went 18/26 for 236 yards, with one interception for 81.6 passer rating. He played better than I expected, but the Steelers kept him on a short leash and didn't let him roam too far out of the pocket. He completed a nice deep pass to Mike Logan that set up a TD and was doing well at reading the defense. He made one mistake though, which was the interception. Aside from that, he had some low passes but nothing horrible, and I look forward to watching him play more! Keep repping the O buddy!

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