The No. 11 Ducks (11-2, 3-1 BIG) steamrolled into Friday’s blockbuster against the No. 3 Penn State Nittany Lions (14-1, 4-0 BIG) — winning 11-straight and their first three conference matches. 

Penn State, boasting the home court advantage, handled the proficient Oregon offense with ease, as the Lions swept (25-19, 25-19, 25-17) to secure their sixth-straight win and fourth in conference play. 

The Nittany Lions’ ability to control the net and prevent Oregon’s explosive tandem of setter Cristin Cline and outside hitter Mimi Colyer proved key on Friday. Cline hit -.167 and Colyer fared the same with her -.130 night. 

If the method by which the offense flows cannot get going, so too is true about the Ducks.

The team offense suffered a similar fate, as Oregon hit .075 for the night, which was far from coach Ulmer’s usual standard. That percentage came as a consequence of the 25 attacking errors the Ducks were responsible for. 

The Nittany Lions pounced on that lack of offense and didn’t give Oregon any chance of solidifying any momentum offensively. Penn State used an electric middle of the first set to put itself ahead for the rest of the match. 

In fact, after the score was tied at nine in the first set, Oregon failed to get within five points of PSU for the rest of the way. 

Defensively, the Ducks allowed the Nittany Lions to hit .284 for the game, with outside hitter Jess Mruzik leading the way with her 16 kills and three blocks on .353 hitting. Her counterpart, Colyer, only managed two kills along with her negative hitting percentage. 

The Penn State effort was dominant and efficient, and the Nittany Lions made their first statement to the national crowd as the country’s No. 3 ranked squad. Oregon clearly still has some kinks to get out of the system as it regards playing in a much tougher conference. 

However, this is only the Ducks’ second loss of the season — with the first coming at the hands of the national No. 1 the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. This was always going to be one of the toughest conference opponents for the Ducks, and having this game away early in the season will help to speed up the process of a new team growing into its best self. 

Tests like this one don’t come often, and even though the Ducks failed, coach Ulmer and his squad have an opportunity to figure out its strengths and weaknesses against one of the nation’s best rosters.

Even in this wacky 2024 season filled with change across the board, the undefeated Ducks have still seen a great amount of consistency. 

This past weekend, Oregon handled one of its oldest former Pac-12 rivals, as the Ducks routed the UCLA Bruins 34-13 to mark their first victory as members of the Big Ten. This upcoming weekend, the Ducks will play their first Big Ten game in Autzen Stadium, but this contest still includes its fair share of familiarity.

That comes in the coaching battle between Oregon’s head coach Dan Lanning and Michigan State’s head coach Jonathan Smith, who coached the Oregon State Beavers up until this year. 

Smith served as the Beavers’ starting quarterback for three seasons from 1999-2001, after which he was named a graduate assistant in Corvallis. After winding his way through some of the nation’s most prestigious coaching staffs, Smith received his first head coaching position at his alma mater ahead of the 2018 season. 

After reviving the middling Beavers — highlighted by a 10-win season in 2022 capped off by a comeback victory against Lanning’s Ducks — Smith and the Spartans saw their opportunity to achieve a similar transformation. 

“I’ve always been very impressed with Jonathan, I just think that his teams are always playing really good football…they’re  always tough teams, and they can win in a variety of ways,” Lanning said to GoDucks last season before the Ducks’ game against Oregon State.

With Smith came his tough form of football, characterized by the 31-straight rushing attempts that led to the Beavers’ comeback against the Ducks. In that game, it was running back Damien Martinez taking the charge, and in place of Martinez, the Spartans enlist the talent of Kay’ron Lynch-Adams, a transfer from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. 

In the first five games of the season, Lynch-Adams carried the ball 58 times for 306 yards and a touchdown in a split backfield with Nate Carter, who carried 53 times for 234 yards and a touchdown of his own. 

Michigan State’s ground-game trio gets rounded out by Aidan Chiles, the starting quarterback, who has taken 33 carries for 86 yards and a team-leading three rushing touchdowns. 

“It’s certainly unique to [Smith’s teams], there’s not many people that play that same brand of football, and his teams are hard-nosed, tough kids,” Lanning said before the matchup against Oregon State in 2023. 

In their only two contests as head coaches, Lanning and Smith have split the series, and the home team took the victory each time. In 2022, the Beavers comeback and 268 yards on the ground led them to a 38-34 win. However, in 2023, the Ducks held Smith’s physical offense to just 68 rushing yards, forced OSU to pass and took an easy 31-7 victory. 

With this being the first contest between Oregon and MSU since 2018, the sense of similarity  to previous years ends with the head coaches. This season, the Spartans have endured blowouts from both sides in their five games up until this point, most recently enduring a 38-7 thrashing from No. 3 Ohio State.  

While the two coaches ended up at different ends of the Big Ten spectrum this season, one can never doubt an opponent who knows what to expect, especially one who’s been embroiled in Oregon’s most bitter rivalry. 

Each carries one win against the other into Friday night’s blockbuster, and each coach saw their game plan come to fruition en route to a resounding victory. Even with the Ducks and Spartans seemingly heading in separate directions, this specific point of intrigue may prove even more intriguing come gameday.