Oregon Ducks Beat Cal, Mariota Has Most Passing Yards in Oregon History

The Oregon Ducks took to the road on Friday night to take on the California Golden Bears at the home of the San Francisco 49ers. It was the first college game played at Levi’s Stadium and it started out with some fireworks. The Cal Bears and Oregon Ducks played a high scoring first half with Jared Goff and the Golden Bears struck first when Rubinzer ran 12 yards to the endzone. Oregon would not take long to strike back.

Quarterback Marcus Mariota thew a pass to Dwayne Stanford for twenty-two yards. For the first quarter Mariota was six for seven for one-hundred yards and a touchdown. Mariota handed off to Running Back Royce Freeman who scored his first touchdown of the game. Freeman has twelve touchdowns on the season and has scored five touchdowns now in the last two games including tonight against Cal.

In the first quarter there was not much defense on either side of the ball. Oregon did get a stop and also a fumble recovery which led to an early second quarter. Kicker Aiden Schneider kicked his first career field goal twenty three yards to give Oregon a 17-14 lead.

After a three and out from Cal, Oregon would get the ball back and use a pass interference play on an incompletion to Dwayne Stanford, followed by a run from Byron Marshall to get to first and goal. On third and goal Pharoah Brown scored in the back of the endzone giving Oregon a 24-14 lead over Cal.The pass put Mariota at eighty-four touchdowns for his career giving him sole possession of sixth place on the Pac-12 All Time list.

Cal would have a drive that would end with an unsportsmanlike call on the Cal Bench followed by a punt from within their own fifteen yardline and a fifty-eight yard runback from Charles Nelson for a touchdown. Oregon put up twenty-four points in just over ten minutes of game time. Cal would get the ball back with over eight minutes left in the first half.

The Bears would work their way into Oregon territory and Jared Goff would hand the ball off to Anderson who would keep the Golden Bears in the game shrinking the Oregon lead to 31-21 until Royce Freeman fumbled and Cal recovered to score another touchdown before halftime giving the Ducks a 31-28 lead.

With just over three minutes left Mariota had a chance to restart some momentum for Oregon. On the drive Mariota would throw his first interception on the season when his pass was tipped by a DeForest Buckner to a Cal player in the endzone giving the ball to the Bears, but Oregon’s Defense shut down Cal giving Oregon the ball back with 1:21 left in the first half.

Dwayne Stanford would get his second touchdown of the game and give the Oregon Ducks back a ten point lead with forty-one seconds left in the first half. Oregon was six for eight on third down efficiency in the first half. Mark Helfrich’s team also had two turnovers in the first half after having just three in the last seven games before tonight. The Oregon Ducks would get the ball to start the second half.

Byron Marshall was quick to get the second half started with an Oregon touchdown on the first drive. Marshall crossed the one-hundred yard mark for the game on the touchdown and had four catches for the game. Each was for over thirty yards. After the score there was 13:25 left in the third quarter.
Cal would be forced into a fourth and long on their next drive and would fight to get some points on the board with a long field goal. Cal Kicker Langford would attempt a forty-seven yard field goal that was wide left and no good. Oregon would take over on their own thirty yard line.

Charles Nelson would be quick to pick up fourteen yards and at the end of the drive Royce Freeman found the endzone for his thirteenth score of the year being the first to break fifty points and taking a 52-28 lead on the Cal Bears.

Cal was quick to respond on the next drive making it 52-35 Oregon. The fourth quarter would begin with Oregon in a third down situation, going six for eight to that point, but fourth down would come calling and the Oregon Ducks would be forced to punt. Goff and Cal would go for it hold on fourth down on their next possession and Goff would complete it for six yards. Fourth down would again rear it’s ugly head on the drive and the Cal QB would not convert giving the ball back to Oregon.

Cal would hold the Oregon Ducks, but Special Teams would burn them again as Tony Washington would recover a fumble on the punt return and on the first play of the next series Mariota would find Pharoah Brown in the endzone for his second touchdown of the night making it 59-35.

Cal would score again making it 59-31, but ultimately Oregon would go on to win the game.

It was a good night for the Oregon Ducks Offensive Line as they gave Marcus Mariota protection and were lead blockers when they needed to be for Running Back Royce Freeman to gain valuable yardage on the night. Freeman had over one-hundred yards and two touchdowns. Tight End Pharoah Brown had two scores and Byron Marshall was used more as a receiver than a running back and had a successful night catching the ball for one-hundred thirty three yards and a touchdown.

Wide Receiver Dwayne Stanford also made his presence felt for the second week in a row with a two scores. Mariota was eighteen for thirty for three hundred twenty six yards and five touchdowns.