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Great article. Here are my three things learned. Lanning still has a gambling problem. Situational awareness and risk/ reward need much more scrutiny. Up 13-0 near mid field going for it again on 4th down and fail. Why? Just pin them back deep. Let the D keep dominating and get the ball back around mid field. Poor decisions like this could become huge momentum swings for no reason. OBD can ride the D. Watching the team squander scoring opportunities with sloppy red zone plays and 4th down gambles instead of taking points was made much less stressful by a defense that absolutely controlled the game. Finney is the man! The Ducks have the highest remaining ceiling and the lowest floor. If the O and D put together two complete games, the Ducks will be national champions. If domination doesn’t match the scoreboard like the TT first half or the first 3 quarters against PSU, they won’t survive. This teams history will be determined by their growth in the next seven days.

Thanks, funny things is by the time I saw the contest there were mostly high scores perdicted so I just went the other way.

Thanks, as that was very kind of you to look that up. We have a couple of people like HDuck who bring in great information for the benefit of us all, and I certainly want to encourage you and everyone to chip in like this; thanks again.

I found this to be pretty interesting for those interested on this topic.

RE: "Otherwise Cignetti would have the highest percentage, I believe." I think this depends on how you present Cignetti's coaching record. Cignetti is 25-2 at Indiana but he's has been a head coach a lot longer than Lanning. Previously, he's been a head coach at JMU (5 years w/ 52-9 record), Elon (2 years/14-9), and Indiana University Pennsylvania (5 years, 53-17). By my math his complete record as a head coach would be 144 - 37 with an very impressive winning percentage of 79.6%. However, Lanning as a first time head coach at Oregon is currently sits at 48-7 or 87.3% winning percentage.

I feel like the label "blue blood" should be stripped from a program if they haven't won a national championship in 20+ years...no college player on a roster would remember or even be alive in that era (not to mention anyone still working in those respective programs in that span).

If Indiana brings a similar aggressive rush from the edges then I hope WS makes an adjustment and have a TE help with blocking, particularly on the right side since Harkey was having a tough time against Davidson.

Nowadays it's going to be a rarity for a starting QB to stay more than 2 years (whether recruited from HS or plucked from the transfer portal). That makes it much more difficult to develop knowledge/consistency for an offense...particularly to the level it takes to win a CFP championship.

Today's OBD can win in a multitude of ways, certainly keeps predictions a very interesting challenge.

To stretch that even further, even though a lot of people denigrate the choice to allow access for G6 teams to get into the playoff I actually don't mind it. Every now and then there will be a very high performing mid-conference team like BSU last season or UCF (when Scott Frost ran it the first time) where those teams realistically could upset a P4 team in the first round and maybe even in a quarterfinal. That kind of stuff keeps the playoff interesting for me.

UCLA to Oregon. Georgia to Miami. Cal to Indiana. Ferris State to Ole Miss. The only surprising 'QB development program' is Georgia, with a mutually agreed-upon change at QB. The free market is going to produce incubator programs and development schools. And how long is a productive OC going to be in the same place to groom a QB? The need to develop your own QB is yesterday's CFB news.

The turmoil is exhausting. However, a wide-open CFB marketplace can lead to Indiana and Oregon in the Final 4 instead of Ohio State and Michigan, Ole Miss instead of Georgia and Alabama, and Miami instead of Notre Dame. 😁 This Final 4 is what an expanded PO was supposed to do, keep the fans of teams outside the traditional blue bloods engaged. Fewer folks watch on TV, that's ESPN's problem. PUT OUT THAT CIG!

I found the Cam Ward comparison laughable. As if Cam Ward is the epitome of a college quarterback who came out "NFL Ready". A guy named Bo Nix would have been a much better example for the writer to use, but his "homerism" wouldn't allow him to see beyond the Miami sports scene.

I’ve just gotta say that you all make ME look pretty smart and well informed among the group of guys I play poker with each week. Thank you all for that, and especially to Charles for the opportunity he gave us all.

I really really want Oregon and Lanning to win the Peach Bowl and get a shot at the Natty. I'm fighting the pessimism right now.

I think the term "blueblood" is just a warm blanket for a program like Nebraska. The B1G has two teams left in the CFP. It isn't Ohio State, Michigan, or Penn State. It's the second to worst program in winning percentage, and a former Pac Twelve school, in it's second ever season in the league. The SEC has one program remaining, and it's not Georgia, Alabama, Florida, LSU, or Tennessee. It's a program with the second smallest stadium in the league, located in a city you associate with a more prominent university in the UK. Hotty totty, it's the program you relate with the movie "The Blind Side", it's Ole Miss. This is the first year in the CFP era, that you won't have at least one of Alabama, Georgia, or Ohio State in the F4. We're eleven years into it.

My reaction is problem for who? Selfishly, I want us to attract/develop the best college QB that will lead us to be good enough to make the playoff. Mission accomplished. If he translates to the NFL, that’s cool, but I also really don’t care that much if he doesn’t. Really doesn’t keep me up at night seeing Marcus make a career out of being a backup, or Joey not becoming a hall of famer.

Joel Klatt: 'Everything' Oregon Coach Dan Lanning Criticized About CFP 'Is Right'FOX Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt, speaking in reaction to the quarterfinals games on the latest episode of "The Joel Klatt Show," wholly agreed with Lanning.

While I agree that Dante could use another year (although I would still advise him to enter the draft if he’s going to be a top 5 pick), I disagree with the author’s reasons. Dante is a very good game manager, which is even more important in the NFL than in college. He was almost certainly asked to protect the football against Texas Tech and take what the defense gave him. He is more than capable of making all the throws including into tight windows. Did the author not see the pass to our TE on a clutch play with the defender in his back pocket? Comparing him to Cam Ward? He’s the last QB I would want to be compared to. Sure he made spectacular plays and could put up points but he always seemed to turn the ball over, at the end of the game, in a crucial situation. Dante does not do that.

This isn't entirely new... College football is the unofficial lower league for the NFL and the NFL treats it as such. QB development doesn't really happen in the NFL anymore and instead they are looking for ready made talent. I remember ten years ago an article complaining about how many spread QBs are in college and how that didn't mesh with what the league was looking for. The reality is that CFB and the NFL are two different metas in terms of how the game is played. I don't think any college teams anymore have the talent to fully execute an NFL style of offense and defense because the talent required isn't condensed on any one roster. The NFL has ALL the athletic freaks from CFB and as a result the worst NFL team has more freakish athletic talent than even that 2022 Georgia team that was freaky good. Dante Moore is not ready by NFL standards to be a starting QB unless they want to develop him but that's not realistic. The Ducks are also not an NFL roster. It's one of the reasons why trying to predict the best NFL talent from college is so difficult and how players who seem good but not great in college may rise to NFL super stars. Anyways... Rant over.

Indiana is a unicorn as they have defied all established logic. They were given a gift in a game between either Alabama or Oklahoma as both are awful in different ways and they pulled Bama. I'm not sure if Simpson in the second half would have made a difference for the Bama offense because of how bad that offensive line is and their lack of run game but it didnt hurt to make sure it was a lopsided score. Oregon's offensive line needs to deflect that pass rush and establish a run game at around 4-5 yards per carry to win. Oddly enough in the previous game Davison was averaging about 5 yards per carry. I think in the second half against TT Lanning wanted to get the run game going more and focused more on it. Abandoning the run against Indiana was one of the things that lost that game. There were others but feeding Davison will be key.

The middle of the TT defensive line is where they were the weakest. The problem I think stemmed from Poncho having a bad day. The middle run blocking just wasn't there like it had been. The edges were always going to be difficult to attack as TT has fantastic edges. Bailey is a first round draft pick for sure. The run game never got in rhythm and there was never really a hot hand but Whittington wasn't the answer for sure as he seemed the least effective.

“The transfer portal opening today is my only worry for prep this upcoming week. I hope Tosh and Will can stay on the same page with Dan, keeping this squad locked in for their last two games of the year.” =============== I wonder if there is a bit less work for our coaches than there would be for other opponents since we’ve already faced Indiana once? I’m sure that the Oregon coaches looked back on that first game and thought what they would have done differently (e.g., stick with the ground game). Now they are going to have their opportunity. Coach Lanning, Stein and Tupoi were out coached by Indiana’s more experienced coaching staff last game, as they were in last year’s Rose Bowl game. Let’s hope they have the best games of their careers because Indiana might be the best team remaining in the playoffs.

The Athletic's ($ wall) Austin Mock's PO Mock predicts the chances of the Final Four winning it all: Indiana - 39% Oregon - 28% Miami - 18% Ole Miss - 15%

Will Indiana "...get too many pats on the back" and overlook the Ducks? Let's hope they do! It is hard to beat a team twice... Oregon Ducks On SIKirk Herbstreit Gives Unfiltered Take on Indiana vs. OregonThe Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl is set to be a rematch between the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers and the No. 5 Oregon Ducks, and ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit gave some of h