By Morris Phillips

Among the things the Oregon Ducks couldn’t control coming into Friday’s Pac-12 Championship Game was one pretty big thing: their opponent, No. 7 Arizona was talented, and brimming with confidence thanks to two impressive upset wins over the Pac-12 North champs with an eye on making it three straight.

So head coach Mark Helfrich simply asked his Ducks to trust the process, make sure they were in the right spots defensively, and rely on the fact that they were healthier and better equipped to take down their nemesis from the Pac-12 South than they were the previous two meetings.

And sure enough, just as Helfrich asked, the Ducks trusted, and the Wildcats were cooked.

“Well, they played well, we didn’t,” a downcast Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said. “Outcoached us, outplayed us, did a nice job,”

“Tonight was a good example of us playing a complete game as a team,” Helfrich said.

What qualified as complete for Helfrich was pretty darn impressive. The Ducks’ place in the four-team national championship picture was assured with the win, but this was even better than that. In blowing away Arizona 51-13, the Ducks played near flawlessly in the first half, leading 23-0 at the break and quickly increasing that advantage to 30-0 at the start of the third quarter. Two statistical numbers were eye-popping in the first 30 minutes.

The Wildcats couldn’t string together even two positive plays and wilted. They finished the half with—take a seat and a deep breath—25 yards total offense.

And the Ducks kept the pressure on, running 57 offensive snaps, none of them eye-popping, but everyone plenty effective.

In a meeting of two teams highly dependent on pace and rhythm, Oregon got their engines revved first this time and took it from there. Arizona’s defense, which initially seemed more than capable, holding Oregon to a pair of first quarter field goals when they threatened to do much more, eventually gave in. Arizona’s offense, unable to hold the ball for any length of time, offered no help.

“The defense had to go back out there,” Rodriguez explained. “We know (Oregon’s) an up-tempo team. So our guys are in pretty good shape. But still when you’re having to go out that many times—57 snaps or whatever it was in the first half—with that type of offense, they’re going to get theirs.”

Helfrich said his guys were “tight offensively” early, which explains the two field goals, a rarity for one the nation’s highest scoring teams. But with Marcus Mariota healthy and patient, the tide turned quickly. Mariota ran for a pair of scores to cap two, lightning-fast scoring drives that were sandwiched by Aidan Schneider’s three field goals. Freshman running back Royce Freeman posted 100 yards rushing before the break, and Charles Nelson, one of the Ducks’ fleet of speedy game breakers, kept the defense on their heels with his 73-yard catch and run. Three plays later, Mariota had the second of his rushing touchdowns in Oregon’s 20-0 lead with 1:35 remaining before halftime.

Did we mention Mariota was workman-like and spectacular occasionally, befitting his stature as one of the nation’s best player?

Helfrich did afterwards, causing the quarterback to blush a bit. “If this guy isn’t what the Heisman’s about, I’m in the wrong profession,” Helfrich said while sitting next to Mariota at the post-game interview table. “If you want your son or daughter to emulate someone, pick this guy.”

Or pick this team.