Oregon Prepares to Face Ohio State Quarterback C.J. Stroud in Huge Top-25 Clash

The Ducks will have their hands full this Saturday as they prepare to face off against the No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes on the road.

Oregon’s defense has a tough task this weekend in slowing down one of the most explosive offenses in the country. Ahead of their matchup, the college football world was able to watch freshman quarterback C.J. Stroud in his college debut against Minnesota. Stopping Stroud is a must for the Ducks, and they have ideas as to how they can do that.

It will be Stroud’s second career start, and his first start against a ranked opponent. Although he hasn’t had much experience so far, his high school stats were incredible.

At Rancho Cucamonga High School, he passed for 3,878 yards and 47 touchdowns in his senior year alone. Despite having just one game under his belt at the college level, he was a dominant leader throughout high school, earning MVP honors at the Elite 11 in 2019--a competition that pins top quarterbacks from across the country against one another to test a variety of skills that go into being a top-level passer.

Before joining Ohio State, Cristobal and his staff recruited the dual-threat quarterback heavily, with ties to Rancho Cucamonga High School such as Sean Dollars (before transferring to Mater Dei) and Jaylon Redd on the roster.

Stroud redshirted his freshman year behind NFL quarterback Justin Fields, who led the Buckeyes to a national championship appearance against Alabama a season ago. Stroud has high expectations to live up to as the starting quarterback at one of college football's most prestigious programs.

The Oregon staff gave an early evaluation of the Buckeyes' signal caller, starting with Head Coach Mario Cristobal.

"Poise, accuracy, can improvise, can make plays with his arm, with his feet," the Oregon head coach said of Stroud. "Complete understanding and command of an offense. He can make every throw. He’s really smart.“

In his week one matchup he threw for 294 yards and four touchdowns.

Despite finishing with a strong stat line, he was unable to find his footing in the first half, and the Buckeyes managed to score only 10 points across the first two quarters, with Stroud throwing for 56 yards in that time. 

The second half was a different story. 

Stroud absolutely exploded in the second half. He completed five passes that combined for 236 passing yards and four touchdowns. One of the touchdowns was a 20 yard pass off his back foot under pressure to Chris Olave, who then ran 18 yards for a score. 

He's shown that he has the ability to catch fire in an instant. The Buckeyes, who were down by four at half, ended up winning by two touchdowns.

Stroud will be able to rely heavily on his wide receivers, as he has two of the best in the nation. Both Olave and Garrett Wilson were fantastic options that Stroud used perfectly in his first game for OSU. Expect him to be turn to those playmakers for a majority of the game against Oregon.

Earlier this week Oregon Defensive Coordinator Tim DeRuyter shed some light on what makes the Ohio State offense so dangerous. 

“The biggest key that I think that they do a great job with is their play-action game,” he said. “They get the running game going and if you don’t have enough to stop that you gotta keep adding more guys--and that’s where they get their really explosive plays.“

Stopping the explosive passing attack starts up front for the Ducks.

"It presents a huge challenge and our guys are gonna have to be on point this week with their eyes--the physicality at the line so we can't let things break, so that we can play on the back end and try and contain these guys." DeRuyter said.

Out of the four touchdown passes Stroud had against Minnesota, three of them were off of play-action. Oregon will have to be careful to not commit to the run too strongly, otherwise they may be subject to the same fate as Minnesota in week 1. 

DeRuyter talked about what his defensive plan was to slow down and limit the amount of explosive plays that the Buckeyes offense can create.

“We’ve got to present different looks. We've got to pressure the quarterback--try to give him different looks.”

The Ducks showed they're capable of getting after the quarterback against Fresno State, bringing down Jake Haener four times, and they'll need to bring more of that pressure against the Buckeyes if they want to get Stroud off his game.

Oregon has three more days to prepare for one of the most explosive offenses in the country before they meet on the field Saturday. If they can contain C.J. Stroud, they have a chance to pull off the big upset. 

More from Ducks Digest

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