Oregon football: Huge second quarter leads Ducks to win

3. Oregon can beat Washington in two weeks

The good news for Oregon is that they’re 4-1, they’ll probably be ranked in the top 15 next week, and they just got a big road win after a tough divisional loss. On top of that, their star quarterback is playing well, their defense is putting it all together, and they get a week off now to recover and look ahead to their biggest game of the season.

The bad news is that Oregon has to play their biggest game of the season in two weeks when Washington comes to town. The Huskies are also 4-1, and just got done kicking BYU into submission for three hours on the way to a 35-7 win. They’re a top ten team, led by a senior quarterback, and one of the best defenses in the entire country. They seem to be hitting their stride, and they’re easily the favorite in the Pac-12 right now.

Oregon has the chance to make a statement and basically take control of their destiny in the Pac-12. If Oregon can upset Washington at home, that will give them the tie-break over them, and put them in a bunch better spot for the Pac-12 race, as the number two team behind Stanford. They will need Stanford to lose twice in conference play, but at this point that seems very possible.

None of this happens if Oregon doesn’t win that game though. They’ll have to put on their best performance of the season, and they’ll have to do it for all 60 minutes, unlike what happened against Stanford last week.