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The Willie Taggart era is off to a great start in Oregon. The Oregon Ducks ripped Southern Utah in its season opener and now hopes are high heading into the second week of the season. They will face much stiffer competition in the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Nebraska had trouble distancing itself from Arkansas State in its season opener and was happy to just escape with a win at the end of the day. It’s another ominous start to the Mike Riley era in Lincoln.
This matchup in Week 2 of the regular season will take place on Saturday, September 9, 2017,
at 4:30 p.m. ET at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon. This game will be broadcast on FOX.
College Football Opening Odds at BookMaker.eu
Nebraska +13.5
Oregon -13.5
Over/Under 73.5
Odds Analysis
The Ducks easily covered 39.5 points last week in their home opener. Southern Utah is a solid FCS team, but Oregon carved them up in the ground with 348 rushing yards and nine touchdowns on the ground. The game easily flew over the total as Taggart’s offensive philosophy continues to work no matter the conference.
Nebraska’s pass defense was tested by the Red Wolves last week. Arkansas State threw for 415 yards on the Cornhuskers defense and showed that the Blackshirts haven’t improved that much from last season. The Cornhuskers were only in front of the 14.5-point spread once in a game that easily went over 51.5 points.
Last Meeting
It was a back and forth struggle when these two sides met last year in Lincoln. Oregon jumped out to an early lead, but Nebraska kept clawing back and fighting with the Ducks. However, in the end, the combination of Tommy Armstrong Jr. and Jordan Westerkamp proved to be too much for Oregon’s defense.
This time around, Nebraska has a lot more questions on offense. Armstrong and Westerkamp are gone and only four starters return from last year’s unit. Tanner Lee was okay in the season opener, but is a Tulane transfer that wasn’t that good with the Green Wave. That tells you something about the dire quarterback situation in Lincoln.
Oregon’s defense is much better than it was last time too. The Brady Hoke experiment was a disaster and Taggart brought in Jim Leavitt from Colorado to run the defense. Leavitt is still tinkering with the unit, but he has more athletes than he did at Colorado and this unit will be harder to beat.
Coaching Angle
At Western Kentucky and South Florida, it took Taggart some time to get the program up and running. However, he walks into a much different situation at Oregon.
In his first year on the job at those two schools, Taggart knew it was all about rebuilding. The cupboard was bare when it came to talent and he knew he had to build everything from the ground up.
That’s not the case at Oregon. He has 17 returning starters from last year and a wealth of talent that just needs to be coached up. This offense has never had an issue scoring points and his spread option scheme isn’t too hard to implement considering this was already a spread team. He also has two fantastic running backs in Royce Freeman and Kani Benoit and can rely on them.
The one thing that is concerning on offense is the offensive line. There are four sophomores that are starters and there isn’t much talent behind those guys.
Free ATS Pick
Taggart’s teams have never shied away from covering spreads once they turned the corner. He was 12-3-1 ATS as a favorite over his last two years in South Florida and 7-5 ATS in his last two years at Western Kentucky.
The large spread may scare some people away, but Oregon is the right side. The Ducks have a lot more talent than the Cornhuskers do on both sides of the ball and that will be painfully obvious to Nebraska bettors once this game kicks off.
College Football Odds: Ducks 45, Cornhuskers 24
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