Outland Trophy Matchup: Auburn vs. Oregon

August 30, 2019 by Courtesy FWAA

NOTE: CollegeFootballPoll.com's Dave Congrove is a nominating member for the Outland Trophy.

We open our Outland Trophy package here at one of the games that will bring an exciting opening Saturday to a close. And just like each season’s first-weekend primetime games, much is riding on the outcome. We’re starting our Watch List series off with a bang too – this game features a season-high six members of the Outland Trophy Watch List on the rosters.

Oregon enters the game as one of only eight Power 5 teams to start the 2019 season on a three-game win streak or better. Can the Oregon offensive front – regarded as one of the nation’s best and deepest coming into the season – help the Ducks punch through and win a first-week featured matchup where in recent seasons other ranked Pac-12 teams have failed in the same position? Or will Auburn win the rematch of the 2011 BCS Championship Game and get a jump-start on keeping pace with its higher-ranked in-state rival to start the season?

Up front for the Ducks is a wall of returning starters that have combined for 113 starts, perhaps tops among them senior right tackle Calvin Throckmorton (Bellevue, Wash.), a three-year letterman and the only returning member of the FWAA All-America team. In ad-dition to the Outland Trophy Watch List, Throckmorton has taken up residence on all the major preseason All-America lists this fall. He is considered the top overall offensive lineman in the Pac-12 and has certainly proven to be the most versatile. His combined 38 starts have come at four different positions (29 at his current right tackle spot), and he played three different positions (left tackle, center and right guard) in two games last year. He has allowed just one sack over his last 2,289 offensive snaps, including 1,105 in pass protection, according to Pro Football Focus.

And jinx alert – he hasn’t committed a penalty in his last 1,133 snaps played covering 15 games.

Oregon’s four members on the Outland Trophy Watch List is tied with Michigan for tops in the nation. On the left side of the Ducks’ line is senior Shane Lemieux (Yakima, Wash.), another preseason All-American, with 38 consecutive starts. Oregon has been one of the decade’s dominant rushing teams. Since 2010, Oregon is third in the nation with 347 rushing touchdowns and is the top non-option team (Navy is first with 383, Georgia Tech second with 357) for scoring with its ground game. Which brings up a game statistic to watch: Auburn allowed only nine rushing touchdowns last season, tied for fifth-fewest allowed nationally.

Together with senior center Jake Hanson (Eureka, Calif.), the Ducks’ line helped sophomores Travis Dye and CJ Verdell combine for more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage in 2018 with nine combined 100-yard games. That duo makes Oregon one of just seven FBS schools to have two 700-plus-yard running backs returning this season, and one of just two (Oklahoma) in the Power 5. It is that consis-tency up front – Hanson, Lemieux and Throckmorton have a combined 113 starts – that has provided such success.

The stalwarts on offense aren’t the only Outland hopefuls. Nose guard Jordan Scott (Largo, Fla.) is back following a second-team All-Pac-12 season in 2018, and he is on the Bronko Nagurski Trophy Watch List for the nation’s top defensive player as well. Saturday will be his 25th consecutive start.

For Auburn, the defensive attention surrounds tackle Derrick Brown (Sugar Hill, Ga.), another plug in the Tigers’ front who is on all the major preseason All-America teams as well as the Nagurski Trophy Watch List. Brown had 10.5 tackles-for-loss last season and helped an Auburn defense hold Washington to only 103 rushing yards in a similar opening-week matchup in Atlanta last year. Brown is one of five current Auburn players to have totaled more than 100 career tackles.

Senior left tackle Prince Tega Wanogho (Delta State, Nigeria) starts along a similarly-experienced Tigers offensive line. Auburn’s 99 combined career starts along the line are 10th among FBS schools entering the season. Oregon is the leader with 153 combined starts.

ONE OTHER MATCHUP OF NOTE:

Houston at Oklahoma, Sunday, 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC: Most eyes in this game will be on new OU starting quarterback Jalen Hurts, the much-accomplished and highly-heralded graduate transfer from Alabama. We invite you instead to look in front of Hurts instead, to sophomore center Creed Humphrey (Shawnee, Okla.), a preseason all-conference player who is back to guide what has been one of the nation’s top offenses in recent seasons.

On the other side, it’s Houston’s first game under new head coach Dana Holgorsen, an offensive-minded leader who has an all-conference quarter-back to work with in D’Eric King. Outland Watch List member and senior tackle Josh Jones (Richmond, Texas) is another bring spot on the offense, leading the way with 36 career starts, having stepped into the left tackle role in the 2016 opener and never looking back.