Thursday's Keys to Saturday: Oregon vs. New Mexico

The time has finally arrived college football fans, the season officially starts today. While most of us have to wait until Saturday, the games tonight will be enough to help pass the time.

This season, I will be doing a weekly breakdown of the keys to an Oregon Ducks victory. In the first week of the season, the Ducks welcome New Mexico to Autzen Stadium. Here are the top ten keys to Saturday's game.

Oregon's Crowd

Oregon's crowd is ruthless and has shown it can get under the skin of senior players. Unfortunatley for New Mexico, they will be starting B.R. Holbrook, who has only attempted 34 passes.

Once the Ducks crowd gets going they will be hard to quiet down. The only thing New Mexico can do to combat this is to score early.

New Mexico's Opening Season Issues

One of the worst stats a team can have is going four straight opening games without a touchdown and that is exactly what New Mexico has done the past four years.

If New Mexico wants to win this game, they need to keep this as a low scoring affair but also need to put a couple touchdowns on the board which they have failed to do the past four years.

Oregon's Experienced Offensive Line

Oregon returns its entire offensive line and that is a huge strength for the offense. In a game in which Darron Thomas will make his first start and LaMichael James is suspended, the offensive line will need to step up and create big holes for whoever is running the ball. They also will need to provide Thomas with time to get comfortable in the pocket.

First Score

The dangerous part about opening your season against a team that went 1-11 last year is the expectation that you should put up points at will against them.

With the offense that Oregon has, an early score will alleviate the pressure from the entire team. If New Mexico finds themselves putting up points first, it could really cause the crowd to die down and become quiet. 

New Mexico Lineback Carmen Messina

If there is a guy on New Mexico's defense that everyone seems to talk about its middle linebacker Carmen Messina. Messina is a guy that will go sideline to sideline and has the talent to make things difficult on the Ducks running game. If the offensive line doesn't get a hat on him, it could be a long day.

Oregon Receivers vs. New Mexico's Corners

Another area that New Mexico struggled last year was points against. New Mexico ranked 113th in points given up and had issues in their secondary.

This problem for New Mexico could be a blessing for Oregon, who is starting Darron Thomas for the first time.

Kicking Game

The Ducks will not have kicker Rob Beard for this game and are trying to preserve the redshirt on freshman kicker Alejandro Maldonado. With all that said, enter walk on Eric Solis.

Oregon will be looking to put up touchdowns and not lean on the Solis for long field goals.

Special Teams

During any football, you could look and say that one of the difference makers will be special teams. This game will be no different. The Ducks will be starting a walk on kicker and throughout summer practices, Kenjon Barner is the only Ducks who has had little issues fielding kicks. The issue with this is Barner will also be leaned on in the running game with starter, LaMichael James, suspended.

Ducks Defense

Last year, New Mexico ranked 113 in terms of points for. The Ducks return nine of eleven starters from last year and appear to have an extremely deep and fast defense.

The Ducks defense should be able to get after New Mexico quarterback, B.R. Holbrook, who only attempted 34 passes last year.

Darron Thomas

The most important and watched player on the field Saturday will be Oregon quarterback, Darron Thomas. Thomas will be starting his first game as Ducks QB and all fans are anxious to see how he will perform.

After a long offseason, Thomas was dubbed the starter last week but he knows he has redshirt senior, Nate Costa, waiting for his opportunity.

Early success by Thomas would give the entire team and crowd a lift.