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!

Best conference in 2008....

OK, I'm going to regret this and never hear the end of it but if you know me or read my blog you know that I am honest 100% of the time. I have to pick the best conference and you know I'm going to hate this.

#1 - Head to toe the best conference in 2008 was the SEC. Truth be told I almost always think it is the SEC. What I don't buy into is that the SEC is SOOOOOOOOO much better that everyone else shouldn't even play. The SEC fans make is so hard to give them any credit.

1 - Preseason every year the SEC has 4-5 teams in the top 10. At the end of the year they do not. That is a fact! The SEC gets BCS bnus points for beating themselves up. Case in point this year = Tennessee. Preseason rank #16 in the AP and coaches poll. Real rank = THEY SUCKED!!!!!

I tell you, every year the SEC ranks High and the other conferences catch them. Nesides that FL was a GREAT team, yes, GREAT. Alabama, dispite a coach who is a LOSER, did great job. Did I mention that Nick Saban is a LOSER. Nick Saban is a LOSER.. The bowl game shoudl have confirmed that. His kids played as he asked them too.... Cheap shots that a LOSER resorts to.

(please GOD, let me meet Nick Saban in a cage or ring or dark alley. To anyone listnenig...if you can make this happen...this is not a joke. I will fight Nick Saban in a cage, ring, dark alley or at a football practice. I HATE him that much. I will fight him!!!!!!

#2 - The Big 12 - Dispite a dismal bowl showing and as much as it pains me to say it, the Big 12 had an outstanding year. TX, OK, OK ST and yes even MO had great years. There bolw performance closed the gap between them and the PAC 10 but they still had an outstandin year.

#3 - PAC 10 - Yes, it would be easy for me as a Duck fan to point out all the strengths of the Pac 10. But we had a lackluster year at best. Although I do think that USC deserved a title shot they did not take care of business and go undefeated as they should have. Thier loss to OR ST was thier demise! I love OR (and you know this) but they only discovered Masoli a couple games into the season and he only showed how good he could be late in the season. Pray for 2009!!!!! Masoli, in the last 4 games was better than Tebow, Straford and all the others. Doubt me????? Look at the last 4-5 games. Masoli had more rushing yards, more pts per down and led in virtually every category you can base a Heisman off of. YES, he WAS thatg good. Look it up.

Does it really matter who ranked #4-#10??????? The big 1-0 got clobbered again!!!! Utah showed us how inept our system really is. I don't care who you route for, if you like college football you MUST agreee that UTAH should have played for the National Championship.

Utah fans. I feel your pain. Unfortuantaely you will never play for a National Championship as long as we have no playoff. If I were in charge your great season would have not gone to waste. You would have had your shot. And I think it would have been a good one.

Oregon Ducks dominate in the Holiday Bowl

I've been waiting to talk about this for there to be some highlight videos up on youtube. The quality is not great but here we go....

The 1st half was very slow. Oregon either 1-forgot they were a run team Or 2 - wanted to give Oklahoma State a false sense of security. Either way it was frustrating the hell out of me.

Basically 1 highlight from the 1st half. Jeremiah Johnson with a Holiday Bowl record run right here.



The second half brought some big big highlights. Masoli running over people, watch te end of this run.



But he didn't just run over one guy, here's another.



Zac Robinson, QB of Oklahoma State needs some advice from Masoli. He doesn't quite run over our guys....



Blount seals the deal with this effort!!

Utah over Alabama

WOW! Utah has a legitimate claim to the National Championship. Undefeated and a good quality thumping of Alabama. Those kids deserve the right to play for it all. They were robbed, and so were the fans!

Utah jumped right out to a 21 point lead and dominated this game. Alabama started to crawl back into it and got to witin 4 but Utah would not be kept down.

Florida beat Alabama 31 to 10 (took the lead and won in the 4th quarter). Had 358 total yards, 142 rush and 216 passing. Thier defense held AL to 323 total yards, 136 on the ground and 187 in the air.

Utah beat Alabama 31-17 and had the lead all night and was dominate for most of the game. The offense had 361, 336 in the air and 25 on the ground. They held AL to 208 total yards, 177 in the air and 31 on the ground. All stats just a little bit better than FL. If you watched the game Utah looked much much more in control than did Florida when they played Alabama.

The injury of one of Alabama's lineman really showed as Utah was able to rack up sack after sack. Alabama gave up only 17 sacks in this season. Utah had 8 tonight.


I really don't like Nick Saban, you rarely hear good things about him. He's a cry baby and he allows his team to act like he does. Late in the game there was a lot of late pushing and shoving by an upset Alabama team. Come on Nick, you got beat, teach your kids to loose with class and be better than you are.

USC Makes it a perfect 5-0 in 2008/09 Bowls

USC beats Penn State in big fashion, the score, like last year against Illinois was a lot closer than the game looked. Penn State was dominated in this game.

As I've said before the Pac 10 had a rough year and it could have been worse being the underdog in 3 of their games but they came out on top. Great bowl season when you can come out and win all your games. The Pac 10 haters will have a million excuses as to how this proves nothing and how if USC was in the SEC they would not have won a game. I saw a couple comments on ESPN that said how tough the MAC was???? That had to be some kind of joke.

In my personal opinion the SEC was the best conference top to bottom this year. The Big 12 and the Pac 10 right behind them. Truth is that most years the SEC is the best, I don't dispute that. They have a lot of solid teams and a lot of tradition down here. I'm happy to be a Vandy season ticket holder and watch some very talented football teams every year. Where my SEC friends loose me is that they seem to think that the SEC is sooooo much better that Mississippi State would win every other conference in college football. That, is ridiculous. The Big 12 looked good this year, better than the Pac 10. But the last couple of bowl games will show us who has what.

Give credit where credit is due. The Pac 10 had a great bowl season.