There’s a blueprint that’s starting to be reenacted almost every week from Oregon’s opponents.

After both Stanford and Arizona established a rushing attack and controlled the clock for the majority of the game, every team the Ducks have faced have ran the ball at an alarming rate. Even a team like Wyoming for instance, which Oregon’s blue-chip recruits clearly overmatch on paper, rushed the ball 41 times for 155 yards.

In addition, its lead back Shaun Wick averaged over seven yards per carry.

However, the chance of Oregon facing 10 rushes from Washington State seems like a stretch. Last year in Autzen Stadium, Connor Halliday tossed an unimaginable 89 passes in the game while the Cougars gained two yards on the ground during a 62-38 defeat.

Ironically enough, with all the weaknesses up front that the Ducks may be perceived to have, Washington State isn’t preparing to expose anything along those lines. At least that’s the way the script has gone at a yearly rate under WSU Football Head Coach Mike Leach.

With an air-raid offense and a quarterback who is as formidable as you can get, the explosiveness and the potential is always there when Washington State takes the field. Yet, the type of attack they use won’t expose any of Oregon’s deficiencies, and Halliday’s current interception rate of one to every 24 passes only helps.

If it’s one thing that has been a staple for this Ducks team despite the turnover from year-to-year, it has been the defensive backs group. Already with four interceptions as a group this year, guys like Ifo Ekpre-Olomu and Erick Dargan may be some of the best defensive backs Washington State faces in the Pac-12.

And I haven’t even got to the offense, which is a bit of a forgone conclusion as far as what Marcus Mariota and Co. brings to the table. Especially considering that the Cougars have given up an average of 28.7 points to Rutgers, Nevada, and Portland State, it could be a win for the team just to see Mariota on the field during the fourth quarter.

With all that said, it’s not as if this game represents a cakewalk in any form. Like Wyoming showed last week during the first quarter, there’s plenty of talent in college football and the idea that Washington State can challenge Oregon in certain ways is not far-fetched at all.