Oregon Ducks @ USC Trojans

Here it is, the date we all circled on the calendar.   USC has not helped us out by being undefeated and slotted just above us in the BCS polls as everyone predicted.  Matt Barkley does not appear to be on the way to the Heisman trophy that he came back to win.   What is left is an extremely talented team with nothing to play for but bragging rights and a trip to the Pac Championship.   In other words, about where we were last year when this game happened.  Unfortunately for us that game did not go our way and just may have cost us the NC game.   Who knows if Bama still would have snuck in with a 1 loss Duck team chomping for another shot at LSU.

Chip is surely reminding the Ducks about the pitfalls of last year and reminding everyone to Win The Day!

I really feel like we are going to roll on USC and put a beating on them.   This would be great because it would "prove" our #2 ranking in the human polls and give us some SOS to start climbing in the BCS polls.  (If you haven't noticed, KSU and ND have closed the points gap in those human polls.  We need a big win over a big team, USC may be all we got.)


Here's what I want to see in on our road to victory.

1 -  Again I'm going to stick with Defense.   I just watched some highlight videos of the WA, AZ and AZ ST game.   We have some damn playmakers on D baby!  Ifo, Avery, Kiko and Bo are all back there making some big plays.   Our D-Line going into the season was going to be our big sneaky killer.....But someone forgot to tell the backfield because it has been pick-6 city back there.    I'd like to see a game where we beat USC by 21 with our offense.   Kick in another 2 TD's by the D and win by 35.

2 -  More Defense!   You know USC will be fired up this weekend.   We need to get pressure on Matt Barkley, this pressure will come from our many blitz packages but we will also need our D-Line to know Matt on his can a few times. I have read that Dion Jordan was practicing with a brace on his shoulder, good news for us!   He is not the only one on defense with the ability to make plays.   Taylor Hart has been playing his butt off.   I would like to see someone, anyone, just explode and get a couple of sacks. 

3 - Will our offense be tested????   I'm sick of hearing  "well this week Arizona is coming to town, they will test the Ducks!"   Sixty minutes later "Arizona is terrible, when will the Ducks play someone?"    "Washington's D will test them......Nah, they suck too."   AZ ST???   Sucks!    Pretty well known fact that every team in the Pac 12 sucks.   Yeah yeah yeah.   Maybe our offense clicking on USC's D will earn us just a touch of respect?   Nope, they will suck come Sunday.

4 - Kenjon Barner. Admittedly I haven't ever been a huge fan of his. I'm mean, he's my running back so I love him and all, but he never seemed to have that same fire and gritty toughness that LMJ had. These last couple weeks he has really changed my mind. I think he's running a little tougher, looking to finish and running with a bit of nastiness that I LOVE to see. Keep it up KB!



I encourage you to watch the full video for all the Duck action, but if you want to see what I'm talking about with KB click forward to the 3:40 mark.  Last year and early this year I think Barner takes a step out of bounds on this play.  This year he finishes the run and puts the defender down. 

5 - Colt Lyerla.   I know I know, we have sooo many weapons and all of them can't get the ball all the time.   But being a former TE I do think that is an under utilized position in the Ducks O.  Who didn't like seeing all our quick WR's running slants while David Paulson snuck behind everyone for a 50 yard TD.   Colt has done it and if we feed him he will continue to do it. 

6 - Big plays.  DAT?  Addison?  Marcus?   KB?    Don't much mind who, I want to put a fork in USC early and put an absolute beating on them on their home field.   Game on FOX that is not at 11pm!   Put everyone on notice and beat the crap out of USC!

The USC Game - Are we that good?

Unfortunately, despite winning 70-14, it was a rough week for the Ducks. We seem to be in a fight we can do nothing about. It appears as though Alabama will go undefeated and on to the national championship game. That leaves 3 other undefeated teams: Notre Dame, Kansas State and the Oregon Ducks. What we can't control is that USC and the Beavers both lost which will diminish our strength of schedule.

This year the Ducks haven't "seemed" to face much competition. Everything has come so easy that we are making teams look bad. But is it possible that these teams are good, we are just that good?

Let's take a look at a couple of games.

Ducks 49 Arizona 0
A complete domination of the Wildcats. Arizona has been able to beat OK ST, Washington and #9 USC this year. They lost to the Beavs and to Stanford by 3 and 6 points.

Ducks 52 Washington 21
Another game in which we completely shut down the Husky's. Washington handled Stanford and Oregon State, both Top 10 teams at the time. They played USC tight, ultimately losing by 10 points.

Ducks 43 Arizona State 23
More importantly in this game, the Ducks spotted AZ ST a TD 1 minute into the game and then the Ducks put up 43 in about 22 minutes of game time. With the starters in that game looked like men against boys. UCLA put up 45 on the AZ ST defense but it took them every second of 60 minutes to do so.

Even when looking at our game against Colorado, we were up 56-0 at the halfway mark. USC also blew them out, but it was 33-6 at the halfway point. Matt Barkley was still slinging the ball around in the 3rd QTR. We had our back up in during the 2nd QTR.

In a year where the question "who is #2" is being thrown around and we seem to be on the outside of that conversation.....A 40 point blow out over USC may be something that opens up some eyes. This will be a prime time game against an opponent everyone knows. The Trojans haven't done us any favors this year losing 2 games, but make no mistake, they have talent at every level at every position. We need to be on our game and I hope we run through them just like everyone else. I think we are capable of doing that.

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Today's game = Colorado

Another week for the Ducks, it is extremely hard to focus on this week against one of the worst teams in the division when a road trip USC looms 8 days in the future. Luckily, I'm a fan and I can do that. If any of the coaches or players are doing that it could spell some trouble. Not trouble in terms of loosing a game, trouble in a close game, bad mistakes and injuries. Chip Kelly's "WIN THE DAY" theme has proven itself time and time again. He constantly reminds us that he does not care who we play, we treat everyone the same. With the way our team shows up for lower end competition I have no reason to doubt we will not overlook the Buffs.

I expect this will be a pretty short day for the key players. If our starting QB didn't see 1 play in the 2nd half against AZ ST, he may be on the sidelines in the 2nd QTR today.

Here's what i want to see.

1 - No injuries. Obviously never want to see injuries, it just stings especially bad when it is against a team like this.

2 - Bennett has seen plenty of action this year, but in mop up duty he doesn't seem to get to run the full offense at full speed. No matter what the score I'd like to see Bennett get the chance to open up at full pace. There's no denying that Bennett has looked pretty shaky in his time, often trying to do too much. He had a great game last year against Colorado, I look for him to do the same this year.

3 - DAT - Let's get him into some space. He's had a couple quite games. I think we've seen some teams decide that DAT is the one they are going to take out. Fair enough, Kenjon and Marcus have stepped up nicely. DAT will get back on track this week, he has far too much speed for anyone on Colorado to hang with. If he touches the ball 7 times he may score on 4 of them.

4 - I'd like to see the defense have a completely dominant game where the rushing yards are close to 0. It would just be fun. :) I heard a stat this week on ESPN - The Ducks are only behind Alabama and LSU in yards per play when the game is within 28 points. Meaning the Ducks starting D and even the rotation we send in are pretty darn good. Those 3rd string guys who are seeing 2nd half action still have some work to do.

5 - Since I'm not a player, I'm a fan......Let's make quick work of Colorado, get some good rest, a week that goes by fast and beat the hell out of USC,


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Style Points

We are now into the BCS season. Love it or hate it everyone will be talking style points for the next couple weeks until there are only 2 undefeateds left.
The Ducks may have lost the style points battle this weekend. With 10 minutes left in the 2nd QTR the Ducks had a 43-7 lead in what appeared to be an absolute joke of a game. Looked like we could potentially put up 80 points. While that is a crappy move by all standards....we should have done it.
As I watch the crawl go by it sticks out like a sore thumb:
#2 Florida over RANKED S. Carolina 44 - 11
#3 Oregon over unranked AZ ST 43 - 21
#4 KSU over RANKED W Virginia 55 - 14 (with time left)
I don't care how dominant we were in the first 20 minutes of that game, the above information is what everyone is looking at right now. We had the closest game and the worst competition. People don't go and look at the box score, there are probably a good amount of people that don't even realize our starting QB didn't take 1 snap in the 2nd half.
With a 45-7 lead and only 2 minutes left in the 3rd Colin Klein was still in the game, scoring the TD that put them up 52-7. Jeff Driskel from FL threw a TD with 14 seconds left in the 3rd. Granted the FL game was still relatively close. They added another TD in the 4th to get the lead to over 30 points. In my opinion both W. Virginia and S. Carolina were pretty overrated, Carolina made their name whooping a GA team that is struggling with Kentucky. The perception is that the SEC is soooo much better, that will continue to work against us.
Do not be surprised at all if Oregon slips another position in the BCS poll this week. I predict they will either be #4 or the gap will be closed a good amount. I also predict that we lose our #2 spot in the human polls.
If AZ ST could have crept up just a tad from their #26 spot to #25 at least they would have been ranked. Most people don't notice the difference between #26 and #70, your just NOT ranked.
Because of the perceptions in college football the Ducks are probably going to have to be the lone undefeated team. Or we are going to need to get some style points. The bulk of our schedule is coming up, we have USC, STAN and OR ST all ranked. We need them to stay ranked and we need to crush them. USC may be our best friend when they take on Notre Dame, we will need them to win that game.
And, the Ducks must win out if they want the BCS Championship. A 1 loss Duck team does not make it, no way.

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Thursday Night in the Desert - Week 8 VS AZ ST

I'm glad we are on Thursday night this week, a full two weeks without my Ducks and I just don't know if I would have made it. It is now getting real, the first BCS standings came out and as predicted an SEC team has hopped over the Ducks to take the coveted #2 spot. No worries, the SEC is like Duncan McCloud, there can be only one! In this case only one = undefeated SEC teams at the end of the year. I think Florida will lose this week to S Carolina. But that's just me.

AZ ST comes in with a 5-1 record, their only loss was a close one to Mizzou. Their defense has been stingy and they've scored 37+ in four of their games. Most impressive win was probably over a Utah team, 37-7 is a much better performance than USC (38-28). I don't like playing the common opponent card but it is fun for people to speculate so there you have it.

This is a good prime time game for the Ducks to shine, maybe even light up a solid team just to spite those pollsters. It is a shame but you almost wish Chip wouldn't take the pedal off when playing teams like Washington. Living down here in the south I hear "oh, LSU beat Wash 41-3, they scored 21 on your puny D." The headline from the LSU game - "LSU piles up 242 rushing yards...." (insert gawdy announcer voice and thunder sound here) Meanwhile, the Ducks ran for 299 and threw for more yards. Again with the common opponent. It is an SEC go to move.

What do we need - A win. Preferably another big win. K State is only .003 behind us, and Notre Dame is behind them. A little slip against an unranked team will hurt the Ducks more than a Notre Dame, you know people are chomping at the bit to allow them into a title game.

What would I like to see? Here we go...

1 - I want to see the offense hitting on all cylinders, early and consistent. Hard to believe that I'm griping about consistency on an offense that is putting up over 50 per game. But there you have it. Part of me hopes that Chip has just been testing some new things, I've really missed the jet sweep, and the back to back to back read options.

2 - I would like to see a game where Marcus Mari-O-tah breaks out. It's a prime time game with no other college ball on. His running has been solid, he's made good decisions to extend plays for the most part. But what about keeping a read option and taking it about 70 yards? That's what I want to see.

3 - I don't know who you take "touches" from, but I'd love to see DAT and Colt both with more than they have been getting. 5-7 for Colt and 15+ for DAT. I think Chip needs to find away to run about 150 plays a game to satisfy my desire to see each one of our superstars with the ball 10 times a game. :)

4 - D-fense! I love our defense. What more could we ask from them? Solid run D? Solid pass D? Big plays? Points on the board? Shut down on 3rd down? Check, check, check, check aaaand check! Looking good. They are playing well at all levels, I look for that to continue. A shut out would be nice. :)

5 - Nah, scratch that. No 5. I've been asking for a break out WR all season, I just don't know that it is going to happen at this point. Mariotah seems content to get everyone involved, and to the credit of that TEAM of WR's they are all delivering. Sure we've had a few drops here and there, but the WR's are playing solid. So I think I'll stick with four "wants" this week and not bug the WR's.




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The 1st BCS Standings tonight

This year is shaping out to be quite nice for the Ducks. Since we have a whole week off let's talk about a National Championship game and what it takes for us to get there.

Quite simply put - The Oregon Ducks need to win every single game. A one loss Duck team doesn't make it to the title unless pretty much every team out there loses twice. If the Ducks were to drop a game they would more than likely slide down to #9 or so, right in front of Florida State. Then you'd need LSU, S Carolina, Florida to all have two losses. We'd probably need USC to lose again, preferably to us in the Pac Championship. Notre Dame, OK and KSU would all need a loss or two. All of those things probably wont happen, so let's just keep winning!

Let's take a glance around the country. I believe that a one loss SEC team makes the championship game this year. Pretty hard to argue that they wouldn't deserve it. I don't subscribe to the "every team in the SEC would win every other conference" that we hear from the homers, but they are the best league, and they play well in the big games. This year I think BAMA is a pretty clear favorite at this point. I predict that S Carolina will knock off Florida making BAMA the lone undefeated team (unless you count MS ST).

Notre Dame is really the only team who concerns me at this point, the pollsters LOVE Notre Dame, so if they continue to win I could envision them leap frogging the Ducks. Wouldn't agree with it, but it really wouldn't surprise me.

That leaves KS ST. A good team but I don't think they will run the table. Even if they do I think the Ducks getting passed USC twice, getting passed Stanford and AZ ST will prove enough to prevent KS ST from passing us.


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Week 6 - The Recap

Admittedly I was worried about this game, 8 in a row over a team in the PAC 12 is pretty solid. You have to figure at some point a team will play better than expected, or a Duck team will show up flat. Not last night, the Ducks easily made it 9 in a row. I talk a lot about being a spoiled Duck fan, at 7 minutes into the 1st QTR the game is tight, WA has a turnover and forced us to punt. Just 6 minutes later we're up by 21.

Let's start with the defense, still shutting down the opposing teams and now making the big plays we need to make. Washington ran 78 plays and totaled 353 yards. I thought the D actually let up just a tad in the 2nd half, the Husky's ended with about 4.5 yards a carry, that number was lower at halftime. I like where the D is playing. Great stuff, as young as they are they still seem to get a bit better every time. I really think that D line can continue to grow and become a dominant force.

I still haven't seen Marcus get tested. This may be the biggest question mark of the season. He's thrown some picks and made some bad decisions here and there, always bouncing back brilliantly. I have this underlying fear that it will be USC who plays a tight game with us the whole way, maybe we're down at times, they've hit Marcus on a number of occasions. I mean really rattled him, maybe even dinged him up. Will he remain as cool as he has seemed all year? I believe he will but I need to see it.

I thought the receivers had a solid game, I remember a drop very early that would have resulted in a 1st down. Nice to see Marcus lean on his TE's a little. Colt had 3 receptions, 2 for TD's. I also loved the long pass to Colt. One thing missing this year is the deep ball. Missing that play action pass that resulted in Paulson, or Maehl, or Tuinie streaking down the field 30+ yards. We will need that play in the stretch to come.

Can I gripe for a second? I know we have a ton of talent and we just won the game by 30+. Mission accomplished. But I really don't like that we only see DAT with the ball 11 times. To me what is more troubling than 11 touches is the fact that we aren't getting him into space. I'm not saying never run him up the middle, that RoseBowl record run was a straight up the middle play. Where is that "jet" sweep where he lines up as a wide out and motions across the formation getting up to speed before the ball is even snapped? Can I see that a time or two?

Gripe over, we're exactly half way through the regular season, we're ranked #2 in the country, we're 6-0 and despite losing Carson York and John Boyett we seem to not be lacking leadership on the team. Those 2 guys, my heart goes out to them. GREAT players and GREAT people. I've said this before but Boyett has been one of my favorites all time at Oregon, I really enjoy his style of play, his attitude and his work ethic. York is an O lineman so they don't always get the love but again, great attitude and fantastic work ethic.

Quickly to wrap up, Kenjon had another just solid effort. Byron Marshall seems to get better every time we see him. Funny to me that Byron was a top recruit in the country but doesn't seem to get attention because 2013 recruit Tyner is tearing the record books to shreds in his senior year. That may be the best 1-2 punch we've ever had. AND, Marcus still has 3 years left. Future looks bright.

Here's to a week off and a road game to AZ ST!


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Week 6 - The Washington Huskies!

It has been a loooong time since the Huskies have beat the Ducks. That in itself is enough to make me nervous because as my dad always said "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while." At a high level, no matter how good you are it is hard to maintain a streak. The Huskies in their hay day didn't hold a streak this long over the Ducks.

This year I'm a little frustrated with the Huskies because they really laid an egg down at LSU. They looked flat and the SEC vs PAC battle certainly went to the SEC on that night. Then they bounce back and knock of Stanford who just knocked off USC. The "Pac 1" argument down here in the south started up again. "The team LSU beat by 38 pts just beat the team that beat USC!" That leaves Oregon.

Here's some things I'll be looking for this week.

1 - Once again I'm going D 1st. We looked unbeatable on D against Arizona and solid against Wazzu. But the Huskies will be a better challenge even though their offense has been struggling. The Ducks have been beefing up to compete with the SEC, here's your big chance, LSU completely shut down the Huskies. We should too. LSU held WA to 1 yard a carry and 4.4 yards an attempt in the passing game. Shut them down. Our offense operates so quick the Huskies will get more attempts and carries, but I'd like to see that type of effort.

2 - Easily the best defense we've seen coming up this week. They are much improved. This will be a big test for Marcus. Our QB has done very well this year but he has looked a tad rattled under pressure at times. Against Wazzu I'll point to the 7 yard sack he took when everyone in the state of Oregon (except for the 2 Beaver fans) was screaming "get rid of it". It was so obvious, the camera zoomed in on Chip Kelly who you could see was saying "just relax". My guess would be that the Huskies will look to scheme against our zone read and force Marcus to pass, then blitz him and try to dirty him up early. This is a big test for Marcus, he needs to keep that cool and hit his targets. Hey Marcus - lean on the tight ends.

3 - The receivers need to step up. A couple of drops against this defense when they are bringing pressure on a young QB will shut down drives and add to the pressure. DAT, Kenjon and Bralon are capable of turning a 5 yard pass into an 80 yard touchdown. In the last 2 games that has been missing. Someone needs to make a play out of nothing in this game and help out the young QB. The TE's I want Marcus to lean on need to make those tough catches over the middle and pick up 1st downs.

4 - They teased me with a heavy dose of Colt against AZ then pulled him back against Wazzu. I don't really care if it is in the run game or in the pass game but good God, let him have the ball a few times. Barner said the other day that when Colt started running the ball they found out pretty quick that people HATE tackling him. Put that burden on the WA linebackers and safeties.

5 - Washington is a good team, they've been getting better each year and this is probably their best team in a while. I really feel like we need to beat them down like we did Arizona. The Huskies are coming off a big win over a top team in the conference. A big win for us shows us where we are.


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