Oregon Ducks’ three keys to victory over Indiana in CFP Semifinals

We are down to the final four teams after a long, grueling college football season. The Oregon Ducks advanced to this stage for the first time in over a decade and they have some extra motivation to keep the train rolling.

They are going to be sharing the field with the Indiana Hoosiers, who handed the Ducks their only loss of the season back in October. For a team as proud as Oregon, there’s no way they will accept losing to the same team twice in the same season.

Each team has improved since that game nearly three months ago, so this matchup has the potential to be even better. The Ducks could have won if it wasn’t for a few key plays down the stretch, so they know they aren’t far off.

Here is everything they need to do on Friday in order to get redemption on the Hoosiers and get back to the National Championship game.

Flush It

After an emotional loss to a team as good as Indiana, it’s tough not to let it linger on your mind. However, the Ducks can’t focus on what went wrong in the last game — they need to allocate all their attention towards correcting the mistakes and improving upon what worked last week against the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

The easiest way to make mental mistakes is be reliving the past instead of impacting the present. We learned last time that you pay double for mistake against this Hoosiers team, so Oregon needs to do everything possible to avoid them.

Turn up the Heat

As talented as Fernando Mendoza is, he is fairly limited as an athlete. He thrives in rhythm passing from the pocket, which means the Ducks could be able to throw him off his game if they can generate a consistent pass rush.

They were able to bring down Red Raiders quarterback Behren Morton four times last week, so we know this defensive line is more than capable of living in the backfield. They will need a repeat performance on Friday because they only got to Mendoza once back in October.

The Hoosiers are beatable, but it is going to require the defense to force a handful of negative plays.

Prove it

Dante Moore has been rising up the quarterback ranks all season long, with some believing he could be the first one selected if he were to enter the NFL Draft. While there is no indication of what he will do, what better way to improve your stock than by being the main reason for knocking off the No. 1 team in the nation?

The young star threw a backbreaking interception during the first meeting with Indiana that essentially ended the game. Given everything we’ve heard about Moore’s character, I would suspect that he’s itching to make up for putting his team in jeopardy.

Will Stein should have a bunch of passing plays dialed up and put the game in his offensive leader’s hands.

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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Oregon’s 3 keys to victory against Indiana football in Peach Bowl