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This is a very condescending post. I’ll just leave it at that.

I’m with you on this. Scoring by the offense has been underwhelming. With nearly 300 yards rushing against Iowa, the Ducks should have scored more than 18 points. Some blame the weather in recent games, but Oregon has always played in rainy, cold weather so I don’t find that to be a compelling reason for averaging in the teens on offense. In fact, I checked the weather in Eugene around game time. It was 44 degrees. Had it been raining in Eugene, it would have been the same conditions as in Iowa City.

Not at All! We Need to be More PHYSICAL!

It wouldn’t be a permanent shift but playing to the 2025-26 team’s strengths to win football games and give Oregon its best chance to win a National Championship (albeit I don’t feel this year is our year). If a player is more concerned about their stats than winning, then I’m sure Coach Lanning will not shed a tear if that player decides to transfer, as that is not the culture he has built at Oregon.

I disagree that Whittington is Oregon’s best all around back but he had a heck of a game against Iowa. We can agree to disagree.

Still need to outscore teams to win. When you are trying to out physical a team, with a pro set running game, it will produce less points. Inferior teams will keep games closer, and things can go sideways. Sound familiar? Oregon has speed and size, and not many teams match up with us very well. Hence, our record in the BIG 10. The spread offense has led to much of that success. We have lost one regular season game in the last two seasons. Should we fire someone, and install some of you guys as a coach…lol

I really hope our early game play calling/ decision making vastly improves. An early midfield 4th and go for it stop spotted Indy an early 3 points and momentum out of nowhere. Another early 4th and go for it midfield stop helped Wisky stay in the game longer than they should have. A three passing attempts and out started a game in a near frozen car wash before we even found out the run game was near unstoppable against Iowa. All three bad starts were due to a riverboat gambling mentality against tough defensive minded teams where chess like strategy was required. Th Ducks have the horses to compete in these smash mouth battles and I wish they would act like it early on.

This monumental oac loss really deserves its own thread. Nothing makes me smile more than seeing that dump take another loss to a school they would hold their nose to. I want to see WSU win their leftover conference next year while oac goes winless. BETTER IDEA: oac goes FCS and goes .500 with a loss to Portland State.

At least the Committee, unlike AP voters, had Iowa ranked. The B1G is being dumped as a result of the 'Back-to-Back' champion Big Ten conference is better than the SEC!' recency bias. Try and find an article that doesn't trumpet the SEC as being deeper and better than the B1G. That notes how weak the SEC is at the bottom of the conference. I never bought into the Big Ten recency bias, and I expected this kind of pushback would be coming. But add in the vitriol in response to Tony Petitti's AQ PO format, and the criticism has become Hive Mind propaganda. The Texas loss to Florida was a good loss, right? The OT escapes by Texas from Kentucky and Mississippi State show how hard it is to win on the road in the SEC! Hmmmm. Yesterday - Kentucky 38, Florida 7. Georgia 41, Mississippi State 21. Yet, the two Texas escapes in OT will continue to be touted as terrific wins. In Nashville yesterday, a mediocre at best Auburn team took the great Diego and Vandy into OT. 2-loss Vanderbilt at No. 16 was ranked ahead of every B1G 2-loss team. I don't believe the sea-going Commodores would have won in rainy Kinnick last night. Texas at home gave up 31 points to this Vandy squad while escaping with a 34 to 31 win. What a great win! Is it any surprise that Sark is lobbying for 3-loss SEC teams to make the PO? I support Petitti's PO plan. In a 16-team PO model, four B1G teams with play-in games to determine teams three and four deserve to be in the field. I saw nothing out of the ACC and the B12 yesterday that convinces me that these two conferences should have more than two teams in a 16-team PO field. A one-loss BYU should not be ranked above 1-loss Oregon. Tuesday night. Will a one-loss Texas Tech, with the loss to unranked ASU, remain ahead of one-loss OBD, with the loss coming against the committee's 2nd-ranked team? A PO field sponsored by SEC broadcast partner ESPN that is a Bowl Extrazaganza and not a true PO that has the better teams playing on their home field, makes more sense than Petitti's plan? I don't think so. Make the Gophers Grovel! Beat the Fleck out of Minnesota.

We need to exploit the receivers we’ve brought in by spreading the offense. If we want ti identify mostly as a running team with occasional passing attack, guys will jump into the portal. There are a number of sexy teams out there using the spread effectively as recruiting tool.

Yes, yes they can.

Whittington is our go-to back. Beyond that, he can block, catch the ball and get YAC, and is the best RB at protecting the ball. There is depth in the WR and TE rooms. I say rely on it

Iowa’s two big passing plays were due to poor coverage (LB), blown assignment (safeties) and lack of a pass rush. Oregon’s corners were money, as always, and had at least one bogus PI called against them. The DL, particularly the DTs came to play and answered the call (just like the Penn State game) - perhaps they just need to be questioned to play their best. I was shocked that Oregon only had four in the box on that 4th and goal. It was apparent to everyone in the stadium and watching on TV that Iowa was going to call a QB run on that play. Why not have a sure tackling LB or safety as a spy, instead of a DE? The clock management at the end of the half and final drive left a lot to be desired and hopefully will be worked on this week. For example, the offense took roughly a minute (half the clock) to pick up that first, first-down and then they completed at least one pass in the middle of the field, short of the first down marker. There was no sense of urgency. Luckily the offense hit a few passes down the field, including that absolute dime by Moore, to set up the go ahead FG.

Davison was one of the names mentioned as being a bit dinged up before the game. He was going to play but I think they were going to try and limit him a bit. Though I LOVED the two runningback packages as Davison and Hill on the field together make a great combo... It was the combo on the field that scored the only Duck touchdown yesterday.

I think what happened was that Dante was exposed in terms of his receiver target preferences. His 1A and 1B Dak and Sadiq were out and then 2 Bryant goes out and he just looked a bit uncomfortable in terms of who throw to. Johnson stepped up big at tight end and he'll be deadly for years to come. McClellan is growing into a big threat but he a had a big time drop on third and long that should have been a clutch first down. Benson, probably 2b or 3, was quiet for most of the game until he wasn't and made some big time plays. I think Dante is going to have to work with this receivers a bit more and build some more trust outside of 1a and 1b. Probably didn't help matters that the first series was three incomplete passes. 1 was Dante's fault, 1 was Whittington's fault and 1 was kinda a mix of both sides where the ball placement wasn't great but the receiver could have still got it. Then wrap it up with an end zone interception and... Yeah the passing game has some work to do without Dak and Sadiq. Also... Do we move Whittington to receiver? https://fishduck.com/2024/10/should-noah-whittington-switch-to-receiver/

I’m a big believer in playing to your strengths. As you mentioned, our running game is clearly the strength of our offense this year (with a young QB who is still learning to read defenses and adjust pass protection) and we have a solid defense, overall. I would base our entire offense off the running game and then use play action to attack the defense down the field, once the opponent’s safeties start cheating up (maybe 20 passes max a game). Kyle Shannahan is a master at this and Will Stein could pick up some things studying the Niners’ offense and how he sets up a defense. I also favor using Davison more heavily, especially early in games, as he has the ability to wear down a defense opening up the gashing and explosive runs later in the game.

HUH? 🤢🤮

Agreed. I think there were still times in the second half when Iowa was respecting Dante's arm which gave a little more space in the box.

I agree with everything you wrote. Lanning played the hand dealt to him marvelously. I certainly said we had to Make Gronowski and their receivers beat us. While they almost did beat us that way, they only got 100 yards on the ground, due to our bias to stop the run. Noah Whittington took this game over at one point in the second half. It was his best game in a Ducks uniform of his career.

That's a function of their style of play. Against good teams it turns it into a whoever gets the ball last coin flip. Their style is gimmicky in its own way.

To win in the Playoffs....we need a balanced attack, IMHO. Effective passing downfield will make it easier to open holes for the offensive line with one starter down...

I don't think it's really debatable at this point. We have gone against some of the best rushing defenses in the country in conditions they knew we would be running the ball and still averaged 6-7 yards a carry. Nobody does that. It isn't necessarily the James, Barner, DAT style from a decade ago, but it works against everyone. The big question is how to maximize that against our opponents the remainder of the year. Just because we can play Iowa ball doesn't mean we should. Playing that style 4 quarters every game is only good for convincing yourself you can hang with anybody, not actually consistently winning. We can certainly use it at the end of games when first downs become more important than touchdowns. We can use it to retain leads and shorten games. We can certainly use it in place of bubble screens. We can use it to set up play action pass to keep the pass rush honest and create more space behind the LBs. I think in short we need to go to a more pro style offense. A little spread is okay to keep defenses honest, but the rule should be to run it down their throats and pass it over their heads. Maybe not as clever or cute or entertaining as we'd like, but we have to play to our strengths.

A Gopher, Badger, and Beaver walk into a Duck pond. Does any walk out on their own power? Quack the rodents.

Oregon Ducks open as three-score favorites over Minnesota Golden Gophers It was a sloppy, rainy game that saw multiple turnovers and offensive mishaps, but in the end Oregon still got the win. They faced one of the better teams in the country in Iowa, but they will have a bit of a reprieve this week against the Minnesota Golden Gophers .

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