Pac-12 Championship 2014: Top Performers and Takeaways from Arizona vs. Oregon
Marcus Mariota and the Oregon Ducks are through to the inaugural College Football Playoff.
Friday's Pac-12 Championship Game against the Arizona Wildcats presented the Ducks with their final demon in need of an exorcism. Mariota and Co. defied late-season collapses against Stanford and others this year. The roster got healthy. Most of all, the team spent Friday night blowing away the only adversary to conquer the Ducks.
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All that remains now is to see where the Ducks will rank in the playoff itself. Alabama has a tougher schedule, but Oregon's performance Friday certainly raises the question of whether or not the Ducks might just steal the top rank.
Top Performers
Mariota has his Heisman moment.
The man was robbed of it earlier this year considering the dire situation Stanford finds itself in at the moment. But a win over the only team to beat the Ducks to claim a Pac-12 title and advance to the CFP certainly makes up for it.
Mariota was great from the opening snap, but he really turned heads in the second half. There, he managed to toss all of no interceptions on his way to a 25-of-38 line for 313 yards and two scores. Not bad, but things get more impressive—he also found room for 33 yards and three scores on the ground.
"This is a huge accomplishment for us," Mariota said, per ESPN.com. "Now we need to continue to improve and get better for whoever comes next."
As ESPN Stats & Info notes, Mariota is now among some notable company thanks to the performance:
Try not to forget about Mariota's cohort, though, running back Royce Freeman. The freshman entered the night with five 100-yard performances under his belt and erupted for 114 yards on just 21 opportunities against a defense that had held him to just 85 in the loss earlier this year.
In fact, freshmen were on fire Friday.
Wideout Darren Carrington rounds out the list of notable performances. The San Diego native was a secret weapon of sorts against a stingy Arizona defense. He had yet to record a 100-yard performance on the season and never had more than five receptions in a contest entering Friday.
By night's end, Carrington was Mariota's favorite target, catching seven passes for 126 yards and a touchdown.
For Oregon, the performance was just what the team needed. Experience shone through, as Arizona freshman quarterback Anu Solomon managed just 34 passing yards and freshman back Nick Wilson found 26 yards on the ground.
In a few years, those totals will be a thing of the past, but Friday night, it was all about the experienced Ducks.
Top Takeaways
What a resume these Ducks now tout.
Fox Sports' Stewart Mandel puts it into perspective:
It is not just that Oregon has beaten those teams, though.
Look, 491 total yards and 46 points against a perennially stout Michigan State defense is great. But it is how the Ducks responded to the adversity of the early-October loss to Arizona and got healthy in the process that makes this list of accomplishments so impressive.
Bleacher Report's Adam Kramer puts it best:
Friday was the culmination of a hard-fought season. A ranked UCLA team was no match in a 12-point Ducks win. Stanford wound up a 45-16 win. Utah, more Stanford than Stanford this year, was a ho-hum 51-27 victory. The Civil War was a 47-19 knee-slapper.
Things are now full circle. The Ducks encountered an offense that entered averaging nearly 35 points per game. The Oregon defense stiffened and held Arizona to a 3-of-15 mark on third downs and just 224 total yards to the Ducks' 627.
Speaking of offense, a hobbled offensive line that has undergone plenty of shuffling allowed Mariota to escape the contest without a sack against a strong defense that entered ranked 11th in the nation with 37.
When perceived weaknesses such as defense and line play are suddenly a highlight in a championship game for a team such as Oregon, it is time to muse the thought of that No. 1 rank.
Even if the Ducks do not get the bump, they happen to be the team nobody should want to play at the moment. If things remain in a holding pattern, Mariota and Co. would dance with TCU based on last week's rankings, but neither Florida State nor Alabama would have a serious advantage given Oregon's current form, either.
The biggest takeaway? Oregon is not only in championship form thanks to its offense, but weaknesses are now afterthoughts at the perfect time.
All that remains is for the Ducks to keep flying high and make up for the missteps of the past few seasons.
Statistics and info courtesy of ESPN unless otherwise specified.
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