3 takeaways from No. 8 Oregon football’s dramatic loss to No. 7 Washington

SEATTLE — Between a battle of undefeated opponents in No. 8 Oregon and No. 7 Washington, the Huskies came out on top, 36-33, in a back-and-forth affair that featured some fireworks in the final moments for the second straight season.

Here are three takeaways from the Ducks’ first loss of the season.

Talk about fourth downs all you want, the Ducks didn’t help themselves on third down either

Before each of Oregon’s failed fourth down conversions, the Ducks obviously also failed to convert on third down. But in all three instances, the third down plays were bigger missed opportunities than the ensuing forth down calls.

The first failed conversion at the end of the first half – a Bo Nix pass that was knocked away by a UW defender in the back of the end zone – was predated by a Nix throw at the feet of a wide-open Traeshon Holden on the perimeter.

Holden likely would’ve walked into the end zone, and put the Ducks ahead heading into the half, instead they trailed by four.

“We felt like that was an opportunity for us to score a touchdown, and obviously a touchdown changes the game,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “We’re not talking about it if we get a touchdown. That being said, the one before half, you can go back and say, ‘let’s take that field goal.’ That’s something I’m going to assess and evaluate for me. We checked to see if we liked the look, we liked the look before we ran the play. We had a timeout, we liked the look and we just didn’t execute.”

The second failed fourth down conversion featured a 3-yard run from Jordan James on third-and-6, a play call that likely wanted to make a fourth down attempt more manageable. Instead, Nix’s pass fell through the hands of Troy Franklin in tight coverage.

The last came on Oregon’s final drive, which featured several big third down conversions to run the clock. After converting their first two third downs of the drive, the Ducks faced third-and-2 and lost a yard on a James run.

“There was some confusion on the last play that was handed off,” Lanning said. “We actually had a check that didn’t get checked or executed properly. So didn’t get that mastered but I’ll certainly go back and evaluate myself, and it’s all about adapting. The game is about adapting and figuring out where you can be better.”

Oregon defense steps up in third and first half of fourth quarter, despite injury issues

The Huskies torched the Oregon defense for most of the first half, scoring on three of their five drives and moving the ball with relative ease.

Washington scored on its first drive of the second half to go up by 11 but was then stymied until its final drive on a short field.

The Ducks’ defense stiffened against the nation’s leading passing offense, forcing two straight three-and-outs and stuffing Washington on fourth-and-goal on the 1-yard-line on its next drive, giving Oregon all the momentum in the final moments.

That defense was a big reason the Ducks got back into the game and eventually led for the majority of the fourth quarter, even with cornerbacks Khyree Jackson and Jahlil Florence dealing with injuries.

“We just talked through some adjustments that we weren’t executing properly,” Lanning said. “We made a couple of different calls. Ultimately, they were connecting on some quick passing game. They were able to take advantage of us some in the run game. We changed some of our fits there at halftime and were able to handle them a little bit better with those adjustments and just didn’t finish it off there at the end.”

Before giving up the game-winning touchdown on a fade route to Rome Odunze, Oregon reserve defensive back Trikweze Bridges stepped into Florence’s normal role on the outside and flourished.

Bridges was a big reason why the Ducks halted the Huskies for the latter part of the third quarter and the first part of the fourth.

“There was a lot of guys that rolled in to our secondary today and I thought they battled,” Lanning said. “Some of those battles we want to have back. They made some phenomenal, contested catches, where that’s good coverage and their guy made the play. And then there were sometimes where we were able to break it up. At the end of the day, you want to have bodies on bodies for these guys to be able to break those up. They won more of those battles today.”

Ducks don’t have time to feel sorry for themselves

Though the last thing the Ducks wanted to do coming out of a bye week was lose to a rival, they hardly have time to dwell on the loss before they move on to their next opponent.

Oregon will host Washington State next week, which lost to Arizona but have proven to be a thorn in the Ducks’ side over the years. After that, Oregon heads to Salt Lake City to take on a ranked Utah team, and the Ducks still have tough teams to face with USC and Oregon State on its schedule.

“Our guys are hungry to get out there and get to perform again,” Lanning said. “We’re going to be playing a lot of top-25 opponents for the rest of the season. It’s the great thing about the schedule we have, we’re going to get tested. I think we’re going to learn a lot about our team throughout this week. I think we have phenomenal leadership on this team. We have guys that aren’t going to quit, they’re going to come to work and we’re going to go attack it.”

That opportunity will start for the Ducks next week, back on ABC at 12:30 p.m. in Eugene in another prime-time TV slot.

Lanning and the Duck players that spoke to media following the loss mentioned they still control their own destiny. Despite needing some losses from other teams along the way, if the Ducks win out, they certainly could find themselves back in the Pac-12 Championship Game in Las Vegas come December.

But it is still a long road, with Oregon officially now halfway through its regular season schedule.

“If take care of business on the rest of our wins, we absolutely control our destiny,” Lanning said. “If we win out, then we’re going to put ourselves in a situation to be able to play for exactly what we think we should play for.”

Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.