Is Oregon back? It’s Week 2, so we have no idea. But they were really, really good in the first half. The Ducks outscored Nebraska 42-14 and moved the ball with that pleasant ruthlessness (six touchdowns in eight first-half drives) of Chip Kelly’s heyday.

And then Oregon was really, really bad in the second half, and things looked very much like 2016. The offense went scoreless while the Ducks hemorrhaged the lead on defense, barely surviving with a 42-35 win.

Head coach Willie Taggart’s offense was very good at USF, and his staff seems to have taken to the talent Mark Helfrich left quite nicely. Quarterback Justin Herbert looked especially comfortable, throwing for 365 yards and three touchdowns, joined by an impressive freshman class of recruits.

The defense was not particularly good vs. Nebraska, the Ducks’ first FBS opponent. But if Oregon’s offense be as good as it’s been through three of four halves thus far, Jim Leavitt’s defense has time to improve gradually, especially if it keeps catching interceptions (six so far). Leavitt’s made for this kind of work. He managed the Colorado defense’s psyche through blowout after blowout during a much more substantial rehab. By comparison, Oregon is light work.

Oregon is probably not back yet, but Taggart just matched his win total for his first seasons at Western Kentucky and USF.

He’s developed a reputation as a steady builder, which contrasts with Oregon’s maximum-tempo brand:

On a bye three years ago, Taggart set aside his strict observance of smash-mouth, West Coast, power football. He embraced what he saw in his Floridian roster: raw athleticism, as fast as possible. “At first it was, well, let’s just run West Coast, but see how it looks in the ’gun,” Taggart said. “And then it got intriguing, because we started seeing all the options available that we didn’t have under center. And then we started running all the practice reps, Quinton in the ’gun, spread out, but with the shifts and motions. And it was like … wow.” It didn’t pay out overnight, but there was faith enough in the experiment to keep going. “I remember Coach Taggart coming back at the first meeting after Memphis and saying, ‘We’re close. We’re close. We just need the win.’ We went out the next week and beat Syracuse, and it took off,” Reaves said.

Back in February, around the same time as a National Signing Day embed at Oregon, I mentioned to Taggart that a slow first year would likely not be received as patiently in Eugene as it was in Tampa.

“Well yeah. It’s not like I was trying to go 2-10 those years. We’re definitely not trying here,” he joked back.

“Back” doesn’t really exist when you’re two games into a new era after a 4-8 season, but 2-0 certainly helps Taggart’s year-round campaign to rebuild Oregon’s recruiting brand in far-flung markets like Florida and Texas. Next, the Ducks travel to Wyoming and Arizona State before hosting Cal, three programs they can out-talent for a shot at 5-0.

From a distance, which is how much of Oregon’s potential talent sees the program, 5-0 is 5-0 is 5-0. Taggart can continue to generate buzz and reform the Oregon/Nike brand to his image. Then, a five-game stretch of Washington State, Stanford, UCLA, Utah, and Washington will sort out how good this team will be in the interim.

It’s worth noting Taggart took a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on Saturday, while trying to argue refs were missing cheap shots on Herbert.

Forget scheme or rosters - when the head coach is notching personal fouls, Oregon is altogether a different program than during Helfrich’s tenure.

Don't think we would have got this quote last year. Taggart on his penalty. pic.twitter.com/w8nXEb1YLr — Tyson Alger (@tysonalger) September 10, 2017