When the Oregon Ducks head out east to Columbus to play the Ohio State Buckeyes, it will be a de facto College Football Playoff elimination game. Oregon may have three losses, but if the Ducks beat Ohio State and win out, they still have a shot at playing in the conference title game. If they were to win that game, they’d make the playoff. Meanwhile, an Ohio State loss would knock the Buckeyes to three total losses and two in conference, but they wouldn’t have the head-to-head over Oregon or USC if either/both won out. Therefore, their path to Indianapolis would be essentially nonexistent.
Ahead of the season, we expected enormous stakes in this game, but we didn’t expect a battle of backup quarterbacks, which is exactly what we have this Saturday in Columbus. Obviously, Oregon has the experience advantage being that Dylan Raiola was a two-year starter at Nebraska, while Luke Fahey is merely a freshman, but given all we know about Raiola, it’s hard to trust him against a Matt Patricia defense – even if that stop-unit looked shaky at USC last week. Raiola will test defenses deep, but he can also be a turnover machine, throwing passes into ill-advised windows or suffering from an abundance of fumbles. Further, he’s not the most consistent quarterback, which shows in Oregon’s advanced numbers over the last month and a half. The Ducks are 97th in PPA per play, 100th in success rate and 102nd in points per scoring opportunity outside of garbage time since Week 4.
On the other side of the ball, Oregon’s defensive front is a step up in class from what the Buckeyes saw last week at USC, and the Trojans had their way with Ohio State’s front in that contest. Fahey was pressured on 18 of his dropbacks, and while he only took two sacks, he was running for his life half the time. He has Jeremiah Smith at his disposal, but I’m not sold on his ability to consistently get him the ball, and I’m worried about OSU’s run game considering the Ducks are top-20 in rush success allowed and top-25 in standard downs PPA allowed since the end of September.
With so much inconsistency and uncertainty under center on both sides, going up against better defensive opponents than they saw last week, I expect points to be at a premium in this one.
Oregon vs Ohio State prediction: Under 46.5 (-110) at the time of publishing. Playable to 45.
