Week 1 Grades

1st week of football is in the bag! Saw some good action, a couple of upsets. All in all it was good to watch some football. Going to give out some grades for the Top 25. I grade with just an old school A-F ranking and will give some brief explanations. (this week is just the top 2 as #17 TCU did not play) I've thrown a couple other teams in as well.

A - For the A's this week I'm going to go with the schools that went out of conference to compete with another top 25 and won. Kudos to the teams that have the guts to not schedule Southwest Puerto Rico Tech in their 1st outing.

Before the normal A's I'm going to go ahead and give Miami and Florida State an A. Great game to cap off opening weekend. I've always been partial to Miami so I'm glad they won but what a game. Had that last play ended in a touchdown I don't think I'd have been to sad about it.

OK State, Boise State, BYU and unfortunately Alabama. (I hate Alabama!)

I'm also going to give Vanderbilt an A. Best game I've seen them play. The young QB seems to be having some trouble with the quick reads but that will come with time. We'll find out a lot more about him next week against a solid LSU defense.



B - B's this week are going to schools that didn't face a top 25 team, but also didn't face a total cupcake. (I define a cupcake school this way - When I see them on the ticker and my 1st reaction is "huh, they have a football team?" They are a cupcake.

Utah, Penn State, Notre Dame, Cal, LSU and Ole Miss. (ever since my trip to Ole Miss last year I've been a closet fan. Great place to tailgate and a great group of fans. The welcomed the guy in the Ducks jersey with open arms and cold beers!)

Cincy also gets a B, good solid performance today from the Bearcats.

I'm going to give Navy and Northern Iowa B's for such a great games.



C - C's are given to schools who picked cupcake schools and dominated them.

Florida, Texas, USC, Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina and Georgia Tech.

I'm also giving out C's to the schools that lost their opener to a ranked school. (you will note the exception is Oregon, my beloved Ducks can only be found in the F category.)

Georgia, Oklahoma and Virginia Tech.



D - These are schools who scheduled a cupcake and almost messed it up!

Ohio State - although Navy is not a cupcake by definition, they run a 1950's style offense and almost took the game from OH ST. I would have LOVED to see that.

Iowa also almost lost, only a blocked field goal saved them from an F.





F - The lowest grade in the book goes to my beloved Ducks. I am also adding unranked Tennessee. Not the school, the fans! UT fans are terrible, the average UT fan thinks they have won the National Championship every year and that Peyton Manning is still the QB. But back to my Ducks, I do take a little bit of pride in the fact that we didn't play Western Kentucky (like UT). Oregon doesn't get any respect out here so they try to at least schedule some kind of tough out of conference schedule. So I'm glad we played a top 25 team. I wish we had showed up and actually played. That game was aweful. Then of course was the punch. Blount was suspended from play but allowed to finish school. He has already missed a practice and I doubt he will make it to graduation. Which is a shame. An inner city kid withno much of a chance gets one, and squanders it. Even without football he could have got something out of it and maybe he will. It just doesn't look like it.

The punch heard round the NCAA

Oh where to start.

I'm not going to put up a video of Blount punching out a Boise State player, I think it will get more air time than it deserves already. I'm not a big fan of trash talking unless it's with people I know because they all know that I'm not serious. I can dish it out and I can take it. Making comments before games like "we need to deliver an ass whooping" don't get you anywhere, then when you punch someone in the face after you loose and after you've made that quote it really doesn't make you look good at all.

Let's talk about the Boise State player 1st. He talked crap, pushed someone that didn't need to be pushed and got belted for it. Kind of got what he deserved in my opinion. He hopefully has learned his lesson.

Blount will hopefully now get what he deserves. I hope he gets booted from the team. I already hate short tempered athletes that seem to get away with things because they are talented. The punch itself probably wouldn't warrant a dismissal. A punch, then a fight with hs own team, going after the crowd, fighting with staff, all that I believe deserves something harsh. This isn't the 1st time Blount has 'acted up'. I hope Oregon is better than most and makes a complete example of him.



Now let's talk NCAA. It's going to continue to be a dangerous situation when you have a contact sport like football. After the game you have 100+ 18-22 year old kids who just played a violent high intensity game, some who won, some who lost. Now throw in all the 18-22 drunk fans, some of who are idiots. I don't care what school you go to, there are always some idiots. Last night I thought security did a good job of keeping those fans back. I thought Frost, assistant coach for Oregon, did a great job dragging Blount out of there. I'm glad this didn't turn into a Ron Artest.

Disaster for the Ducks

What an absolutely terrible game.

Let's issue some grades....

Chip Kelly - F, double F. Is there an infinity F? There is now.
That was NOT the Duck offense. Going into the 4th down by 2 scores and you completely abandon the run game? Except of course for the 4th down play when we could have put 3 points on the board. I hope this was 1 game jitters and not things to come. Some people are not meant to be head coaches. I was very unimpressed with his 1/2 time comments. Hell yes you should bring some fire and brimstone into that locker room. THAT TEAM WAS F-L-A-T FLAT! And, the play calling was ridiculously predictable. The dive on 4th and 1. The screen on 4th and long. My 4th grade flag football coach could have called defenses against the Ducks tonight.

Blue Turf - F-
It's just ugly and ridiculous.

Officiating - F
This is not to say I think the Ducks got hosed, it was just bad all around.

Camera Crew - F
We missed an extra point, a kick off, a couple plays. The local high school game had better camera men than this game.

Oregon played like absolute crap tonight and honestly in the 4th QTR I thought we were going to pull it out. Even at the 6 minute mark when Boise fumbled. It's like neither team wanted to win the game. A steaming pile of dog crap that was this game.

IIIIIIIIITTTTT'S Tiiiiiiiiimmmmeeeee!!!

Oh YES! College football starts tonight and I'm happy to say that my beloved Ducks are on their way to romp some Smurf tail! Saturday we will be invading Vandyville before watching the Dores light up the field for 16 or so points. :)

The Ducks have a pretty tough out of conference schedule this year. Going to Boise State (ranked 14th and 16th in the major polls) and playing host to Utah (18th and 19th). They also play host to Purdue. 3 of the 1st 4 games are against preseason top 25 teams.

Notable stat - No team (in the last 30 years or so) ranked outside the top 8 in the preseason has lost a game and still won the championship. Quite simply this means the Ducks, and the rest of the Pac 10 (minus USC) have to be perfect to even have a shot at the title. Meanwhile 3 SEC, 3 Big 12, 1 ACC and 1 Big 10 all have a chance to loose 1 game and still play for the title. So if you think preseason polls don't matter, you are sorely mistaken. I heard this stat on an ESPN blurb.


Positives - Oregon's QB, Jeremiah Masoli was phenominal over the last 4 games of last year. He started the year as the #5 QB and quickly became #1 through injuries and poor play from some younger guys. According to Chip Kelly Masoli understands the spread offense now better than Dennis Dixon ever did. If that proves to be true and not jsut preseason hype we shoudl be in for a high octane season. Blount also had a great year, he will be getting the lion share of carries and will have to pick up where he left off last year. The ofensive skill positions still have all the potential to put up big points fast. Over the past few years Oregon has had more "less than 2 minute scoring drives" than the other major college teams. The spread offense can put those points up quick.

Negatives and question marks - We graduated a lot of key players last year. to me the most notable is the offensive lineman, Max Unger. Offensive lineman are typically overlooked by the casual fan, Oregon's line will have to come out and prove themselves quick. There is a lot more to blocking than just picking your man and blocking him, especially in an offense like Oregon's. On the defensive side of the ball we're going to have to find inspirational leaders, Patrick Chung and Nick Reed were those guys last year. both drafted and in the NFL now, someone will have to step up. I'm looking to Spencer Paysinger, Walter Thurmond III and TJ Ward. If the line doesn't gel or we don't see some fire on the defensive side our optomistic year could become pretty rough pretty fast.

My dark horse - Every year you look for someone to just break out. This year I have 2. 1st - Casey Mathews. Casey's brother had a dominating year last year for USC, his father and uncle both played in the NFL. So the kid has plenty of people around him to keep him motivated and to seek advice from. All the Mathews clan have been known for being leaders on and off the field. I'm hoping he breaks out with a ridiculous year! On the offense I'm looking for Jamere Holland to step up and make a big impact. He's got a ton of speed and had a couple of flashes last year. The spots are open this year for him to become a key player. If just one of our wide recievers steps up and makes a big impact that could take a ton of pressure off Masoli and Blount and spread defenses so thin they will not be able to stop us.


Ducks VS Boise -

I really think that the 1st half of this game could be quite ugly. This is the 1st time the offensive line will play together. I'm hoping that they can gel quickly and get the ball moving but I believe we will see a slow start followed by a half time butt chewing and a 2nd 1/2 dominance. Very similar to the Holiday Bowl last year. This could be frustrating to watch for Duck fans. But I think in the end we will win by 10 points or so. With the late hits last year I look for this to be a hard hitting battle! Should be fun to watch.

Boise state - I have nothing against them, routed for them in all their underdog wins the past couple years. Just can't love you today! they should have a prety solid team but I think The Ducks will be fired up and ready to go for this game.

New Uni's and Preseason Rankings

The Ducks have had some big press conferences to release their newest version of uniforms. I've been a fan of the Ducks attempt to get more media exposure, I may not like every combination of colors they choose but any press is good press right?

They say preseason rankings don't mean that much, but it is true that the newspapers all select who they believe are the best teams out there and your strength of schedule is based on those influences, which can effect your BCS ranking. This year the Ducks are all over the place. Most preseason polls have them within a couple spots of #10. Which I think is pretty fair. Coming off a great season and a couple of standout performances by Jeremiah Masoli, if he can mirror the success of his last 5 games the Ducks will have a great chance to be in the hunt at the end of the year. Of course, you also have people like Phil Steele who has his top 40 out and the Ducks are not in it. You read that correct, Steele doesn't have the Ducks in the top 40! Talk about a lack of respect. He has at least 5 Pac-10 teams ahead of the Ducks this year. pfft!

Athlon gave a lot of respect to the Ducks and to Masoli in particular. They ranked the Ducks QB unit at 4th behind FL, OK and TX. If you'll remember last year the 3 QB's from those teams were all at the Heisman presentation hoping to win. Masoli outperformed all of them in the last 5 games of the season putting up better numbers than we've seen out of a Ducks team. Blount also saw some success in a limited role last year, we'll have to see what he's like in a starting role.

On the ???? side we will need a receiver to step up. Masoli cannot do it all. The defense is also a question mark. Patrick Chung is near impossible to replace as a player and a leader. We need a playmaker back there!

The Dojo

Here are a couple of pics of my dojo.

Fying in Style

Here's a glimpse of how the Ducks fly around the country.





And the take off.......





Yes, when football season is over I do get bored!