Winning The Turnover Battle Will Tell The Story of Oregon vs. Northwestern

Oregon and Northwestern have a chance to be the best football game of the day on this week's eight-game college football slate. This matchup certainly has a ton of intrigue in it, as the Oregon Ducks are fighting for pride while Northwestern has been one of the upstart programs this season, and they are fighting for a potential playoff berth.

If it feels like this matchup hasn't happened often, it is because it hasn't. This will be the very first time in the history of these two programs that Northwestern will travel out west and play a football game in Eugene. 

Furthermore, this will be just the third time that these two programs have ever played each other. The first matchup was a random one in 1974, before last year's battle on Lake Michigan. 

It's a rare matchup between two programs on two totally different paths. It is going to be an awesome competition between two proud teams that will all boil down to one category: the turnover battle.

This one aspect of the football game will absolutely be the difference.

Oregon is ranked 128th in the entire country out of 137 possible spots in giveaways per game, as they are averaging 2.0 every week. Meanwhile, in that same category, the Wildcats are tied for 6th in the country, giving the ball away just .5 times per game. 

On the other side of the ball, Northwestern is averaging 1.7 takeaways per contest while the Ducks are forcing 1.3 turnovers per game. That is weighted heavily by the three-turnover game against UCLA.

This right here will be the story of the football game.

The way that Northwestern likes to play is by owning the time of possession by keeping the football on the ground. The result of this is a game that is significantly shortened. There will not be a lot of possessions for the Ducks to try to make something happen.

So, the approach that they need to take is to value each possession in a major way. They will only have so many possessions all game long, and each one of them needs to end in a kick: an extra point, a field goal, or a punt.

Any other type of turnover in this football game will spell trouble because it will either directly take points off the board for the Ducks or directly add points to the board for the Wildcats.

There is no reason to believe that the Ducks aren't taking this football game seriously, but this one needs their full attention, full stop. 

Oregon needs to be at their best today, and even then, it might not be enough. It starts with protecting the football, and that is on the backs of quarterback Dylan Raiola and the rest of the offense to make sure this is taken care of.