The Oregon Ducks (3-2) enter Saturday’s home game against the Washington Cougars seeking to regain the respect in the FBS it lost two weeks ago.

The Ducks remain unranked despite a 41-24 rebound victory over Colorado last Saturday. They were ousted from the AP Top 25 poll the week prior, following a 62-20 loss to then-No. 18 Utah, their worst home loss since 1977.

Jeff Lockie and Taylor Alie were swapped in and out at quarterback throughout the game against Colorado. Oregon’s gameplan was to minimize the damage its backup quarterbacks could do by leaning heavily on the running game. Lockie and Alie combined to complete 12-of-20 passes for 137 yards, a touchdown and interception. On the other hand, Oregon’s rushing attack gained more than 300 yards. Vernon Adams Jr. watched from the sidelines as he continued to nurse his broken finger.

Washington State (2-2) played its most complete game of the year last week in a losing effort to Cal (5-0). The Cougars dominated the first half on both sides of the ball, but special teams victimized them in the second. The Golden Bears sniffed out a fake punt and later surprised Washington State with an onside kick, which Cal recovered. On the ensuing drive, Jared Goff tossed his fourth touchdown pass to give Cal its first lead of the game, 34-28, the eventual final score.

Match-ups to watch: 

Oregon running backs vs. Washington State front seven

Last week the Ducks fed Royce Freeman 27 times, which he translated into 163 yards and two touchdowns. They also let loose freshman Taj Griffin, who exploded for 110 yards and a touchdown on just 11 carries, bringing his season average to 9.4 yards per carry. Due to their lack of confidence at quarterback, the Ducks will more than likely rely on their young tailbacks to pound the rock once again.

Washington State offense vs. Oregon secondary

The Ducks secondary held its own last week against Sefo Liufau, who completed 25 of 42 attempts for 231 yards, a touchdown and interception. It was the Oregon defensive backs’ stingiest game of the season, and it came a week after Travis Wilson shredded them for 227 yards and 4 touchdowns. Washington State under head coach Mike Leach is the most-pass heavy offense the Ducks have faced. Washington State runs pass plays on nearly 70 percent of its snaps, and 84 percent of its offensive production comes through the air.

Players to watch:

Vernon Adams Jr. / Jeff Lockie / Taylor Alie

Adams said in practice this week he won’t play until he’s 100 percent, even though he started against Utah — although he was pulled after a quarter and a half — and No. 5 Michigan State a week after he suffered the injury. Even if the Ducks deploy Adams, a good chance exists that Lockie and/or Alie sees the field as well.

Darren Carrington

Carrington could return to action after missing the entire season thus far due to a failed drug test before the 2015 College Football Playoff national championship game. Carrington was also issued a citation for an open container violation on Sept. 26. When asked whether he’d be available Saturday, offensive coordinator Scott Frost said “I have no idea.”

DeForest Buckner

Buckner terrorized Colorado’s offensive line last week. He’ll need to apply pressure to Luke Falk early and often for the Ducks to have a fighting chance at slowing down Washington State’s aerial attack.

Luke Falk

Falk has already thrown for 1,459 yards, 10 touchdowns and two interceptions through four games. Washington State averages 51.3 pass attempts per game and may not even bother testing Oregon’s front seven; the Ducks young cornerbacks are far more exploitable.

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Oregon returned to practice Monday, having survived a comeback bid from Colorado in Boulder on Saturday. While Vernon Adams Jr. was sidelined with a broken finger, Jeff Lockie and Taylor Alie shared reps at quarterback.

Lockie made the start, but was swapped for Alie after his third drive, which resulted in a Royce Freeman touchdown after two plays. Alie then lasted four drives before Jeff Lockie reentered to run the last two drives of the first half. The coaching staff continued to substitute them throughout the second half.

“We went into that game knowing we were going to play those two guys,” offensive coordinator Scott Frost said after Monday’s practice. “The calls kind of varied depending on who was in there, and we stuck with whoever we thought gave us the best chance on that drive.”

Frost said the coaches decision to switch quarterbacks after Alie led the team on a scoring drive was unintentional.

“I think that’s just the way it worked out,” Frost said. “We started off thinking Jeff was going to take two series, then Taylor was going to go in, and that’s what happened. We just kind of rotated from there.”

Neither Lockie nor Alie separated himself from the other, but the tandem got the job done nonetheless. Adams’s back-ups combined to complete 12-of-20 passes for 137 yards. Alie threw the lone touchdown pass, a 43-yard strike to Jalen Brown. Lockie threw the lone interception in the end zone.

Adams said he was particularly pleased with Alie’s performance.

“He said he wasn’t nervous at all, and you saw it,” Adams Jr said. “He went out there and did his thing, made his right reads, got us the touchdown to put it away—and that was huge—and had some good runs. I was very happy for him, and proud of the way he played.”

Adams expressed how tough it is to watch from the sidelines during his senior season. He stressed, however, “I’ve got to be 100 percent before I can go out there.”

A month has passed since Adams broke his index finger. Since then, he’s started against No. 5 Michigan State, sat out against Georgia State, started against No. 18 Utah, and sat out against Colorado.

The coaching staff appears to be playing Adams against tougher opponents and reserving him against the not-so-tough. With Washington State on the horizon this Saturday, whether the Ducks think they can defeat the Cougars without Adams remains unclear.

“I don’t know who one, two and three (on the depth chart) are right now,” Frost said. “We’ll have to find out as the week progresses.”

Alie said the quarterback situation was the same during practice today as it was last week: He and Lockie rotated in, and Adams got some reps as well.

Alie said it’s tough to get into a rhythm when he’s being swapped in and out.

“Definitely early on it’s pretty hard to feel the flow of the game,” Alie said.

Lockie said the quarterback carousel is “not ideal,” and he’s “not sure” what the situation will be moving forward.

No one is.

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– Chris Seisay, Oregon’s most experienced cornerback, will be out for the foreseeable future, DuckTerritory.com reported Thursday. Seisay underwent surgery Tuesday after he missed the last two games. He was seen on the sidelines wearing a boot on his foot.

– Oregon football started open tryouts Monday and four players made the cut. The walk-ons include running back Langston Stuckey, offensive lineman Mike Miller, linebacker Blake Rugraff, and wide receiver Jhet Janis, a javelin thrower on the Oregon track team.

– True freshman wide receiver Malik Lovette has moved to defense and could play this season. The Ducks planned to redshirt him this season, but Helfrich said the coaching staff is in a “constant argument” over whether to burn him midway through the season.

– Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota is the NFL Rookie of the Month, the NFL announced Thursday. In three starts, Mariota has completed 61 of 97 passes for 833 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions. His 109.2 passer rating is the eighth best by a quarterback in his first three starts in NFL history.

– Oregon men’s golf is coming into the 2015-16 season with sky high expectations. The season is also bring plenty of pressure to live up to them.

– Where is home field/court advantage greatest in Oregon athletics? The Emerald explores.

Oregon is not only a feared opponent in athletics; its venues are also some of the most formidable to play in. Here’s a look at what home field advantage means for Ducks sports teams:

Autzen Stadium

Since 2002, the Oregon football team’s average margin of victory has been just over 15 points per game. Oregon’s victory margin at home doubles its victory margin on the road. Head coach Mark Helfrich attributes the disparity to the atmosphere of Autzen Stadium, which Stack.com ranked the fourth loudest stadium in college football, based on noise levels measured in decibels.

“Our fans have been awesome,” Helfrich said. “Traditionally, teams will perform better at home, but our home atmosphere is unbelievable.”

Papé Field

Before the new Papé Field opened in 2012, the Oregon women’s soccer team played at the old Papé Field, where the Football Performance Center is now. In the seven seasons prior to the move, the Ducks fared worse at home than away. They scored more goals per game and allowed fewer goals per game on the road.

The Ducks have drastically improved since they started playing on the new Papé Field turf, as opposed to the old Papé Field grass. At home, they now average a victory margin of .24 goals, whereas before they averaged a loss by .22 goals. The defense has fared better, allowing nearly 40 percent fewer goals on the new field. On the road, however, they now score nearly 65 percent fewer goals, possibly because they are no longer accustomed to playing on grass.

PK Park

The Oregon baseball program was reinstated in 2009 after a 26-year absence due to budget issues. Following its reinstatement came the new PK Park, which has shown to be one of the more pitcher-friendly parks in college baseball. The friendliness of a given ballpark to pitchers and hitters can be measured simply by dividing the average runs scored by both teams in that ballpark by the average runs scored by both teams in that team’s road games.

Since 2009, the Ducks have played 218 games at PK Park and 218 on the road. In those home games, the Ducks and their opponents have scored a combined average of 8.33 runs per game. On the road, however, they’ve averaged a combined 9.47 runs per game. The resulting park factor, .879, tells that teams average about 88 percent as many runs at PK Park as they do at other ballparks, ergo, PK Park is quite pitcher-friendly. By comparison, only three out of 30 MLB ballparks have lower park factors in 2015, and they’re all on the west coast: Safeco Field (Mariners), Angel Stadium of Anaheim (Angels) and AT&T Park (Giants).

Matthew Knight Arena

Since the college basketball arena opened in January 2011, the Oregon men’s and women’s basketball teams have had mixed results. On average, the men score and allow slightly fewer points per game at Matthew Knight Arena than they did at McArthur Court. On the other hand, the women score and allow significantly more at Matthew Knight Arena.

In general, the men’s team appears to have improved while the women’s team appears to have regressed since the stadium transition. On average, the men fared worse in road games during the McArthur Court era than they have in the Matt Knight Arena era. The women used to average wins (average score of both teams resulted in Oregon victory) at home, but now they average losses both at home and on the road.

A reasonable explanation for this phenomenon is the men’s team has benefited more from recruiting than the women’s team since the opening of the new facility. In fact, the recruiting budget for men’s basketball increased by 141 percent from fiscal year 2010 to 2012, while the recruiting budget for women’s basketball decreased by 11 percent.

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Since the Oregon baseball program was reinstated in 2009, the Ducks have qualified for an NCAA Regional tournament five times, including each of the past four seasons. Only once have they advanced to a Super Regional, and never have they reached the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

Last year, the Ducks failed to live up to expectations.

They started the season 13-2 then dropped 13 of their next 18 games, and found themselves struggling to stay afloat in the Pac-12. They managed to win six of their last seven conference series, including the regular season finale against No. 2 UCLA. Although they squeaked into the playoffs, they were eliminated by Iowa after two losses in three games.

“I held myself accountable for a group last year that we felt didn’t achieve its potential,” manager George Horton said at the beginning of fall practice. “We were very encouraged this time last year. Something got in the way of that. We need to play better, coach better — subtle little things here and there we need to do better.”

Now the Ducks have their work cut out for them.

Their two best hitters, Mitchell Tolman and Scott Heineman, and two best bullpen arms, Garrett Cleavinger and Josh Graham, were selected in the first 11 rounds of the 2015 MLB Draft. Pitcher Conor Harber was also drafted in the 16th round. All five juniors elected to forego their senior seasons with Oregon and sign with their respective MLB teams.

The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted starting pitcher Cole Irvin in the 32nd round, but the 6-foot-3, 182-pound left-hander turned down the offer and returned to Oregon. His draft stock fell after his disappointing return from Tommy John surgery, which caused him to redshirt the 2014 season. Restricted by a pitch count limitation, Irvin won just two games last year, as opposed to 12 during his 2013 first-team freshman All-American season.

The velocity on his fastball took a hit during his recovery last season, but Irvin said his arm now feels “100 percent.”

“I’m currently coming back from a long toss program,” Irvin said. “I’m full-blown and ready to go. I’m in all the drills in practice and not skipping a beat. Getting an entire fall behind me is going to be huge for me for this next season.”

Matt Krook, who redshirted last season to rehabilitate his arm from Tommy John surgery, will join Irvin in what pitching coach Dean Stiles described as a potentially “formidable” starting rotation. Krook was also named a first-team freshman All-American for maintaining a 1.79 ERA and striking out 60 batters in 45 innings in 2014. His season was cut short when he left the game against Washington in the third inning due to a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing arm.

Krook, who the Miami Marlins chose in the first round of the 2013 MLB Draft, played in a summer league with junior shortstop Mark Karaviotis for the past few months. Karaviotis said the 6-foot-3, 205-pound left-hander was, like Irvin, limited by a pitch count regimen during his recovery.

“He dominated pretty much all summer,” Karaviotis said of Krook. “His rehab process is going really well.”

Stiles said Krook has shown no decrease in velocity during his bullpen sessions thus far.

6-foot-6, 235-pound left-hander David Peterson will likely join Krook and Irvin in what Horton described as possibly “the most special rotation I’ve ever had.”

“It has a chance to be our best rotation ever, which is saying a lot,” Horton said. “It also has a chance to be one of the best ever in college baseball. That’s up to them. Potential is one thing and having that come to fruition [is another.]”

18 freshmen and junior college transfers have joined the roster this fall. Karaviotis said the newcomers have done a good job grasping the program just four or five days into the year.

The Ducks begin the 2016 season on Feb. 19 with a road series at San Diego State.

“The journey to Omaha starts right now,” Karaviotis said.

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