Oregon Needs More than Dylan Raiola's Best To Beat Northwestern

Fool me once shame on you, full me twice shame on me, full me three times, well you can't get fooled again.

I'm pretty sure that is how the saying goes, but regardless, head coach Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks are rolling out Dylan Raiola to start for the third time this season in what will actually be one of the toughest games of their season. 

Oregon's season has unraveled in many ways, and the main one has been at the quarterback position. When they lost Dante Moore against the USC Trojans thanks to a very dirty hit, it sent the season into a spiral.

They came out of that game specifically feeling great about backup quarterback Dylan Raiola, who came into that USC game and was absolutely dealing, which led Oregon to a win. 

Then, it came to the following performances. Raiola threw out a total stinker against UCLA, which led to a horrific loss. He got benched after that game, but then came in to be the savior against his former team, the Nebraska Cornhuskers. He did enough to earn the starting job back against Illinois in what was a must-win.

The Ducks came out and put together one of their worst performances of the season, losing to the Fighting Illini 21-10.

Raiola was hardly impressed in this game, and now the Ducks' season is all but wrapped up once the regular season is complete.

The Ducks are now in a really tough spot at the quarterback position because they have played all of their cards, and none of them came up right. Raiola has been a flop to this point; the third-string option, Brock Thomas, was decent at UCLA and really bad against Nebraska. 

Lanning and the staff don't trust what comes after Thomas, so the result is that against Northwestern, they are going back to Raiola for this game.

The Ducks have an opportunity to play spoiler this week and next week against the Ohio State Buckeyes, who will come into their game highly ranked. 

If the Ducks want to get it done, they are going to need more than solid quarterback play; they are going to need great quarterback play from Raiola. This team isn't good enough around the quarterback to make up for average quarterbacking.

They will need Raiola to be great against Northwestern on Saturday. Even then, they are still going to be fighting an uphill battle to get the job done.