Season Opener - Two Weeks Away

The Ducks are back in just over two weeks! Finally!

We open with the Coyotes of South Dakota. In all reality this game should not pose any threat on any level. But still you play the games one at a time and we should have a level of expectation at every position. A sloppy game, even if it is 50-0, will still bring thoughts of disappointments last year. The word out of fall camp is that no corners are being cut, everyone is "present" on all plays. We need to see perfect excecution.

Here's what I want out of this game.

1 - No injuries. For us this is a glorified scrimmage. For them the old "this is their Super Bowl" cliche applies. Any chance to pick off Mariota, get a big sack, cause a fumble, KO a player for the Ducks? They all want a small piece. A story to tell after football is done. We need to play hard every play.

2 - I've been hearing out of camp that DeForrest is "unblockable". Let's see it. If they run, I want it blown up. If the pass, I want a sack. We have a new D-Coordinator and we've been hearing a new attitide. Like him or not Allioti brought us a lot of bend but don't break football over the years. (I did like him by the way!) I wanted to punch the commentators through the TV last year during the Beavers game when they kept insisting our master plan was to let them all the way to the red zone AND THEN shut them down. UGH!

Last year against Nicholls State they had a good drive against us in the first quarter. In my mind that simply cannot happen against our starters. Until we get past our two deep I don't think they should get more than two first downs.

3 - On offense we shouldn't see much more than a quarter and a half out of our starters. In those six drives that will all take under two minutes I want to see damn near perfection. I want to see this focus we've been hearing about, the attention to detail.

In South Dakota we are playing a team that lost by 49 points to North Dakota State. We should be bigger, faster and stronger. We should be better at every single position on the field. Honestly our team should want to win each battle at each position on each play.

I'm not concerned with seeing any one stat or set of stats on offense. When we run I want gaping holes. When we pass I want wide open receivers. I want to see a LASER focus on winning every second of this game.

I also cannot wait to see Royce Freeman. His name seems to come up a ton. NFL.com stated that Oregon had the best 1-2 punch in the country at running back. What if the 3rd guy was better than the 1-2? A tad early to say that but we have some young guys looking to crack into a playing role this year. I'm excited to see the first depth chart and also to find out who's redshirting.


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