Long Time Fan With High Hopes

I sit here on the eve of the 2014 Ducks football season and I'm very hopeful. The other day Joey Harrington said something like - The Oregon Ducks are one of a handful of teams that have a legitimate shot of running the table and winning it all. They have to play the games, you have to stay healthy, you have to 'show up' and sometimes you even need a lucky bounce or two. But they have a legitimate shot and that's all you can hope for. - It say well with me. Over the last twenty years, even more so the last six we've come to have high expectations for our Ducks. We've been very close to winning the whole thing. I think this team is better than all those teams. Just for comparison I thought we'd look at our current team vs the 2010 team that ran the table and came up a field goal short on the last play of the game.

First and easily the most important is Quarterback
Darron Thomas VS Marcus Mariota
Absolutely no contest. I love Darron, probably brought us the most magical season we've seen. Marcus is arguably the best QB in the country and an early favorite to win the heisman. Barring anything crazy he should be a top 3 pick in the NFL draft next year. Complete dual threat. Darron ran well but lacked any kind of top end speed. Marcus passes smooth and rarely makes mistakes. Find a QB in college with 60+ TD's and I'll show you one with 30 picks. Marcus has 10.

The second group I'm going to look at is the Wide Receiver group
Maehl, Tuinei and Huff VS Stanford, D Allen and Lowe
Obviously the new bunch is untested. Lowe is solid, great blocker and good possession receiver. You'll never hear me say a bad word about Maehl and Huff. The thing I like about the new group is that we have true WR's with burning speed. Huff could stretch the field no doubt. But Allen is literally a National Champion sprinter. I thought Stanford showed great things in his freshman campaign, he was able to learn last year since he had to redshirt. I'm not going to sit here and say this group is better, that remains to be seen. But I'm excited to see these guys, specifically in week 2. If Mich State puts up a good front and bottles up our run game we can turn Mariota loose with his new toys.

Running Backs, let's talk about em
LMJ and Barner VS Marshall, Tyner and Freeman
Let's put it this way, the new group hasn't lost any speed. In fact Tyner is faster. But the 2010 group averaged 182.5 pounds. The new group 218. 36 pounds heavier and the same speed or faster. Boom! LMJ carried the load that year with Barner coming in for relief. This year we have a 1,2 and 3 punch. Not feeling it? Switch. Tired? Switch. Every possession, switch.

The BIG BOYS
In 2010 three of our starters were 290 or under. This year we have one guy at 290, he's the smallest. We also have two clearly headed for the NFL. Grasu may be a first rounder and Fisher should make it somewhere. Grasu and Fisher have also been starting for a while. Both played in the game after the NC game when we went to LSU.

Overall I believe our offense is quite a bit better. We need to prove that against Stanford and Michigan State. Not and easy task. Not that those are the only tough games, just the ones everyone is curious about. UCLA and Washington should be tough this year and you can't overlook OR ST or Arizona.


Defensively is where we need things to get back to the swagger of the 2010 season. Don't know if everyone remembers because our focus is always on the offense but back in 2010 we didn't give up points in the 2nd half. We played quite a few close 1st half games and then just crushed people in the 2nd half. Teams looked exhausted. This is probably where teams have started to catch up to us. We've forced teams to up their conditioning. Changed the game. Remember how many "cramps" teams had that year. We haven't seen that in a while.

D Line
2010 = 261, 270, 272 and 232 The weight of our starters.
2014 = 290, 310, 290 and 250 hehehehe

Many people after the NC game said "where's the beef." Chip set out on increasing the size of the lines and here we are. Over 100 pounds bigger on the D line this year. If we can get these guys to realize their potential this could be a special group.

Linebackers
The size is about the same, Hardrick is a little bigger than the 2010 group, Malone a little smaller. Casey Matthews was a special player. One of those guys born to play LB. A student of the game who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. It would be great if one of our new guys could become that person. Our new group is solid, but they need to become playmakers.

Last but certainly not least the D Backs
Cliff Harris was an exciting playmaker with top end speed. Ifo is a first rounder in the making, a true shut down corner. If I had to choose just one to watch it would probably be Cliff, he was the reason we beat CAL that year. If I had to choose just one to play for me it would be Ifo. Troy Hill vs Talmadge Jackson III is interesting. I'd have to lean toward Hill. But not by much. At the safety position we had another special player. John Boyett is one of my favorite Ducks of all time. Dargan tends to play like him, balls to the wall and a heavy hitter. Dargan has a lot of work to do to get up in the conversation with Boyett. We've heard a lot about Robinson, certainly his size brings something we haven't seen in our DB core, at 6 ft 4 he's a full 5 inches taller than the tallest in 2010. Hopefully that will translate to a couple more interceptions and a few more batted balls!

One of the great things about college football is you always have new players that have to prove themselves. You always have a few unproven things. Will our WR's pan out? Not sure. I think they will. I'm excited for this season.



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