Oregon Ducks offense is unsustainable due to glaring and crucial area of concern

There's plenty of discourse happening surrounding the Oregon offense, and for good reason. Most of the time, through two games, the offense has looked broken, unorganized, and dysfunctional, while at other the obvious potential for this to be one of the best attacks in the country is clear.

The interior offensive line continues to be a question that's growing by the day. Following their Week 2 win over Boise State, which was largely helped along by two special teams touchdowns, there was plenty to talk about in regards to the offensive line.

Head coach Dan Lanning was very open about taking a hard look at the offensive line going forward.

"Ever since I've been here, we've rotated on the offensive line. When we had players that were able to do that, you know, JPJ [ Jackson Powers-Johnson ] was rotating early on, you know, his first year. Last year we had Poncho [Laloulu] rotating in. So that's not uncommon for us to get, you know, the best guys in the lineup and keep guys fresh. We'll watch the film and evaluate who the best five, or six, or seven, whoever that might be, that can play winning football for us," Lanning said after the game.

"Evaluating" the offensive line multiple weeks into the season isn't a great look for a team with national championship aspirations.

The offensive line has allowed seven sacks through two games, two more than they did the entirety of each of the last two seasons. The play calling might already be influenced by this reality.

Watching the game, the scheme seems predicated on either running the ball or getting the ball out of Dillon Gabriel's hand as quickly as possible. There have been several issues when trying to get plays to develop down the field – Lanning openly said that the first sack of last week's game was because Gabriel was holding the ball too long. An offensive line struggling to communicate with a quarterback that isn't feeling pressure and is holding the ball is not a good recipe for success.

Let's make some sense of this chart.

Air yards are how much the ball travels in the air on a pass attempt.

Tez Johnson is leading the team in target share at 22.06%, and has a total of 4.5 air yards on 15 targets. That brings his average depth of target (ADOT) to 0.3 yards. That's a screaming issue.

After Johnson, Evan Stewart has the second-highest target share at 17.65%, and he accounts for more air yards than Johnson, wide receiver Traeshon Holden, and tight end Terrance Ferguson combined. You can even add Kenyon Sadiq, an explosive tight end into the fold, and Stewart is still only five air yards behind that group.

According to PFF, Gabriel has thrown a screen pass on 22.5% of his pass attempts. 55 out of his 71 pass attempts, 77.5%, have been either behind the line of scrimmage (20 attempts) or nine yards or less from the line of scrimmage (35). That is baffling.

The play calls have either been this short quick-hitting game, run the ball, or throw a YOLO ball down the field to Evan Stewart, which finally worked one time in the second game.

On Evan Stewart's deep touchdown reception, Oregon brought Patrick Herbert in to act as a blocking tight end, while keeping their running back in for protection as well.

On Traeshon Holden's catch and run on the slant that he took for a touchdown, they had seven guys on the line of the scrimmage in pass protection, including – you guessed it – a tight end (Terrance Ferguson) and a running back (Noah Whittington).

In order to dial anything up down the field, Oregon clearly feels that their base protection isn't up to the task. This is wildly concerning.

Yes, those two plays worked, but the more the offense feels they have to have seven-man protections to push the ball down the field, the less route options they will have. Oregon having to dial up max protection against University of Idaho and Boise State raises a significant red flag for when this offensive line has to battle University of Michigan, Ohio State, and, well, basically anyone else.

Lanning and company have their work cut out for them to get this offensive line carousel under control.

Related: Latest AP Poll has Oregon continuing to fall out of College Football Playoff contention despite winning

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