{"id":34525,"date":"2014-07-21T16:00:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T21:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=34525"},"modified":"2014-07-21T15:12:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T20:12:42","slug":"2014-oregon-ducks-team-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/2014-oregon-ducks-team-preview-34525\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Oregon Ducks Team Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oregon Ducks<\/strong>
\n Head Coach:\u00a0 Mark Helfrich<\/strong>
\n 2013-14 Record:\u00a0 11-2, 7-2 Pac-12 Conference<\/strong>
\n 2013-14 Bowl Result:\u00a0 30-7 win over Texas in Alamo Bowl<\/strong>
\n Odds to Win National Championship: +742<\/strong><\/p>\n

Returning Starters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Offense:\u00a0 8, Defense:\u00a0 5<\/p>\n

Offense<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Oregon Ducks are one of the top contenders to land one of four spots in the 2014-15 college football playoff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With an entire offensive line returning intact, and a two-time All-Pac-12 Conference quarterback leading the unit, Oregon\u2019s offense should be able to put up video game-type numbers up on the scoreboard once again.\u00a0 Junior signal-caller Marcus Mariota led the conference in passing efficiency last year and has thrown for 6,342 yards and 63 touchdowns in two seasons at Eugene.<\/p>\n

The Ducks have plenty of weapons surrounding Mariota, including running backs Byron Marshall and Thomas Tyner, who combined to rush for 1,753 yards and 23 touchdowns a season ago.<\/p>\n

Due to the dual-threat ability of Mariota and a talented backfield, Oregon should be able to survive offensively until some weapons emerge on the perimeter, especially since Keanon Lowe is the only returning wide receiver with more than five receptions in 2013.<\/p>\n

Defense<\/strong><\/p>\n

The secondary is one of the best groups nationally with two-time All-Pac12 senior cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu returning to campus, as the group allowed opponents to throw for just 204.5 yards per game last year.<\/p>\n

Senior defensive end Tony Washington has been known to force opposing quarterbacks into making bad decisions, which is evident in the stop unit forcing 29 turnovers in 2013.\u00a0 \u00a0 He\u2019s capable of improving upon his 60 tackles and 7.5 sacks during his junior campaign.<\/p>\n

Schedule<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that the Ducks will be tested in Week 2 against the Michigan State Spartans, which makes it important to check out the college football odds page for that high-profile matchup.<\/p>\n

Oregon will likely enter its biggest game of the season on the road against UCLA with a perfect 5-0 record, but the visitor is 1-6 SU in the last seven meetings in that series since 2006.<\/p>\n

College football handicappers need to be prepared to get involved in the futures market if this team survives that test in Pasadena, as realistically the only formidable threat left on its schedule is hosting the Stanford Cardinal on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fans in Eugene were a bit concerned about life after Chip Kelly, but Helfrich proved that the offense could score at will with him moving from coordinator to head coach.<\/p>\n

Oregon is 26-2 SU in conference home games the last six years\u2014a powerful statistic that\u2019ll likely be boosted by a perfect 7-0 mark at Autzen Stadium in 2014.<\/p>\n

Make sure to become a long term subscriber for the best college football picks anywhere for the upcoming 2014-15 NCAA football season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oregon Ducks Head Coach:\u00a0 Mark Helfrich 2013-14 Record:\u00a0 11-2, 7-2 Pac-12 Conference 2013-14 Bowl Result:\u00a0 30-7 win over Texas in Alamo Bowl Odds to Win National Championship: +742 Returning Starters Offense:\u00a0 8, Defense:\u00a0 5 Offense With an entire offensive line returning intact, and a two-time All-Pac-12 Conference quarterback leading the unit, Oregon\u2019s offense should be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":23960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3242,8379,8381,7106,457,5263,8380],"class_list":["post-34525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-autzen-stadium","tag-byron-marshall","tag-ifo-ekpre-olomu","tag-marcus-mariota","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-pac-12-conference","tag-thomas-tyner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34526,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34525\/revisions\/34526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}