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I also noticed the QB under center and thought that was rather interesting. I wonder if that will become a regular part of play calling over the season.

Tri-focals might help...

Maybe I could get excited about this, but it's hard to for me to get excited about something so high that I can't even see it.

"If your good enough, you're old enough."

Some interesting Week 1 results based on 247 Sports 2025 Composite Roster rankings. Four of the top-10 ranked teams, No. 2 Alabama, No. 4 Texas, No. 7 Clemson, and No. 9 Notre Dame, lost in Week 1. Texas and Clemson lost to the higher-ranked No. 3 Ohio State and No. 6 LSU, Notre Dame lost to No. 15 Miami, and Bama lost to No. 19 FSU. No. 26 UCLA (?) lost to No. 44 Utah, and No. 57 Northwestern lost to No. 68 Tulane. UCLA plays the highest-ranked G5 team, No. 51 UNLV, in Vegas this Saturday. No. 42 Iowa is the underdog, +2.5, on the road at No. 71 Iowa State this Saturday - Fox Big Noon game, 9 AM Pacific and 11 AM in Ames, Iowa No. 49 Oklahoma State rides into Eugene to play No. 5 OBD on Saturday. CBS 12:30 Pacific. In his final season, Gary Danielson pays a visit to Autzen. Lasso the Cowboys!

Hughes single carry came in the Ducks first possession of the third quarter. Oregon was leading 38-6. None of us know if Hughes was offered an opportunity to be a "feature back" prior to his transfer. But, from a season planning perspective, seeing so many guys get reps (78 participated I believe) and get some game experience does have value. A lot of RBs touched the ball. Which I would rather see in a game like this one that being on the field with in-experience in a tight game due to sudden injuries of "feature backs." It may also add value in recruiting to have so many guys get reps.

Maybe he thought Bryant was gonna make the 1st guy, who was late coming over, miss, so blocking the second guy was clearing the path for the touchdown. One of those cases where the player ends up being right even though it wasn't how the coach drew it up. Don't get me wrong; against Penn State I definitely want Moore to block the first guy in that exact situation.

The ND true freshman QB started getting more comfortable later in the game and the offense started to open up a bit. I recall us with MC as head coach beating OSU when they had a true freshman QB in the first game of the season...Not sure we would have beat them later in the season even if MC didn't have one foot out the door.

I'm just a simple design engineer worrying about space. Moving the ball past the point it's snapped requires some kind of path somewhere. Putting 22 people in a space the size of a classroom and trying to move the ball forward 5 to 10 feet is a pretty tall ask. Like you guys are saying, if perfectly executed and the defense guesses wrong it will work 100% of the time. So if it is a true coin flip (based on the defense' guess) and you have 3 downs to pull it off then odds are it will work. And it definitely sets up well for a sequence play of the outside blocker releasing into the flat for a pass. Just don't run it on 4th and 1 in a frenzy and I won't complain anymore.

Keep On Piling On the Fools Paradise Index. 🤪 Scarlet and GameESPN's SEC bias reaches preposterous proportions after Oh...Despite Ohio State taking down Texas in the first game of the season, this ESPN analytic still has a clear SEC bias.

One error that I found in the article. Notre Dame has a bye this week and hosts Texas A&M in Week 3. IMO, the ND conservative play calling last night played right into Mario's ground it out game plan.

Gotta love it!

I just read over on Yahoo Sport's Misery index (Dan Wolken) describe DeBoer's huge 2023 season at Washington as: (an) "Entire season played on the knife’s edge with a series of Houdini-esque escapes thanks to the brilliance of quarterback Michael Penix."

Saturday Blitz writer, Josh Yourish, with some very good thoughts on the first week of the 2025 season. My take on the best wins in Week 1 relies on the preseason AP Poll's best guesses. 1. No. 9 LSU 17 - No. 4 Clemson 10 - Terrific win on the road. 2. No. 3 Ohio State 14 - No. 1 Texas 7 3. No. 10 Miami 27 - No. 6 Notre Dame 24 4. Florida State 31 - No. 8 Alabama 17 5. No. 24 Tennessee 45 - Syracuse 26 G5 - USF 34 - No. 25 Boise State 7 Saturday BlitzTable for 12 Week 1: 1st impressions of Arch Manning and...Every program in the country is vying for one of the 12 seats at the College Football Playoff table, and each week, FanSided’s Josh Yourish will break it down.

Based on last year and this year so far it is a short yardage formation. It's only designed to pick up 3ish yards at the most. It's less about clogging the running lanes and more about creating windows via timing. My article I wrote about it last year looked at it's use against UCLA. But when they used it in that game they put Cornelius and Connerly side by side on the right side of the formation. Both were NFL draft picks. The blocking scheme between those two was rather complex and then the additional blockers coming off the delay from the snap as they were the ones standing next to the QB and the RB being lined up directly behind. It has lots of potential but the timing and precision of the blocks has to be just right or it gets disrupted.

Wow. Good catch, as I did not know that. David Marsh revealed in his article that Benson was the surprise leader in receptions for the game, and it bodes very well for us. Like you, Solar, I am feeling MUCH better about the upside of our passing game.

What I like about the formation, (Shades of Stanford and David Shaw) is that it is balanced. Thus we can overload blockers to either side, and while the defense has to line up balanced--we can overwhelm them on one side. It is a very successful formation for inside the five, IMHO.

College football has become surprising more balanced at the top, as the portal and now NIL are evening things out. While it is a fun conversation, my gut tells me that Oregon...like another nine teams, could win it in a given year, and challenge for many ensuing years, but not do it again for some time. The way Georgia dominated for a while? It is hard to believe that they have not won one since, and their slight decline has been puzzling to me. But GatOrlando...you are very kind, and most of us crazy, die-hard Oregon fans would be incredibly grateful to win ONE 'Natty right now... Gary Bryant Jr. Gosh I love this new uniform!

Without Penix, perhaps DeBoer and UW would not have won all of those one-score games that led UW to a PO spot, a one-score win over Texas, and a champ game beat down from Michigan? Penix went with DeBoer because of a Hoosiers connection. All of the terrific WRs Penix threw the ball to were not recruited by DeBoer. Recruiting at Bama under DeBoer has been very good. With this talent, there should be no no-show games. In 14 games against unranked opponents, DeBoer is 6-4. In 128 games against unranked opponents, Nick Saban went 124-4. https://rolltidewire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/crimson-tide/football/2025/06/18/alabama-football-records-unbreakable-nick-saban-derrick-thomas-bear-bryant/84259608007/ DeBoer's hire is looking more and more like the Harsin hire at Auburn. It's one thing to lose to unranked FSU; it's another thing to get punched in the mouth and out-coached in the process. Bama plays on the road against Georgia, Mizzou, South Carolina, and Auburn, and plays Tennessee, LSU, Oklahoma, and Vandy 😁in Tuscaloosa. I don't think a mega-upset will happen when Wisconsin visits in Week 3, but the Badgers will come in 2-0 and with an improved defense. You're right not to knee jerk after Week 1, but none of the predictions that Bama would turn it around in 2025 with a terrific O-line, defense, and Ryan Grubb to call the plays for Ty Simpson panned out in Tallahassee. DeBoer has a huge buyout (why these ADs do not contract for a Right of 1st Refusal if the coach gets another offer is baffling) but if Bama misses the expanded PO back-to-back, He Gone! And Danno will receive another salary bump. 😍

They dominated if you want to say outscoring a Mountain West team 14-0 in the fourth quarter is dominant. They certainly looked better than their little brothers in Pullman who barely hung on to beat the Idaho Vandals 13-10. *I realize Oregon struggled with that same team last year, but to me there's some weird magic regarding Oregon and teams from Idaho. Washington State isn't going undefeated and head into the playffs as the number one seed. They could win the PAC Who this year though. Oregon State looks terrible.

ESPN was the only game in town decades ago. ESPN is slowly sinking, competition has decreased viewership, and they rely heavily on college football to float their boat. They will be all in on SEC football, and the CFP, because that pays their bills. They will always tout the SEC, before others, for as long as they hold the contract to show SEC sports content. It is all about who pays their bills.

Agree with the consensus in this thread. ESPN FPI deserves to be flushed down the toilet! This article speaks of it. Ducks snubbed in the most drunk, inaccurate, useless ESPN FPI ranking everThere are lies, damn lies, and statistics. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli never saw a football game, but he apparently knew more about it than ESPN, which updated its Football Performance Index after Week One in college football, only to come up with the most preposterous ranking ever. The update was issued before AP No. 10 Miami's 27-24 win over No. 6 Notre Dame. FPI purports to be "The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team's performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is." It ranks all 136 teams based on 20,000 simulations, but something about their data or calculations is haywire. ESPN’s FPI has been updated following Saturday of Week 1. No one can take this seriously ever again pic.twitter.com/IVzsX7meNk Autzen ZooDucks snubbed in the most drunk, inaccurate, useless ESPN...There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

With Alabama losing it's fourth game vs an unranked opponent under DeBoer in the first game of his second season, he has already matched the amount of times Saban lost to an unranked opponent during 17 years. It got me thinking about dynasties and how eventually they all end. The Patriots and Crimson Tide both won 6 championships in eras that weren't meant to allow it. Salary cap, walk on and scholarship reductions plus draft slots were meant to keep programs from dominating like Bear Bryant, Chuck Knoll, or Tom Landry did. But during our lifetime we have seen two dynasties under two men that shouldn't have happened. In baseball you don't even have runs anymore like the Yankees in the 90's or in the NBA with Michael and the Bulls. We've seen the Dodgers win a couple, the Warriors won four and in the NHL we've had the Kings, Blackhawks, Lightning and Panthers win multiple times or back to backs. But nothing like the 80's Islanders or 90's Red Wings. But in football we had the Crimson Tide and Patriots run dynasties concurrently. Will we see another team take that title in college football? Can the Chiefs continue on their trek to get Patrick to match Tom? I think the Chiefs dynasty is over, but I could be wrong. I don't think I'm wrong with the Crimson Tide being done though. The majestic whale has finally been caught by Ahab. There is no bigfoot or dragon out there. In the NFL you have the Chiefs, Eagles, Bills, Ravens, Commanders, Bengals and Rams as potential multi championship winners imo. Mostly because of young QBs or great young coaches that can win another Super Bowl. In college it's obvious to put Ohio State up there as they just won a title, they have a young coach that now has a title and recruits very well. But who else? Texas? Notre Dame? Georgia would be the other obvious choice as Kirby has two titles and runs his program like Saban. But I'm looking for new blood. I'm looking at a program led by a guy in his late thirties that learned under Kirby. I'm looking at Moby Dick to become Moby Duck. I think Oregon has a great chance to not win one title, but multiple titles. Perhaps we won't have another six title dynasty, but Oregon can have a Clemson type run.

Thank you, David. And thank you, Natalie. No one appreciates an excellent editing job more than I do. What's the news on Hughes? Will OBD receive a positive ROI? I hope so, but as you noted, with or without Mahki, Will Stein has a deep RB room to work with. Great first outing from Benson. OBD sent a darn good Benson to FSU, the top RB on an undefeated Seminoles team. Wouldn't it be nice if FSU returned the favor? Love the Triple Lindy Skadoo! I said, 'Shotgun!' formation. Right out of backyard ball with the neighborhood boyz, where little brothers blocked and big bros played QB or went deep. 😁 A perfect result from a perfectly scheduled, and sold out 🤑let's get the Duck feet wet game. Lasso the Cowboys!

I may be in the minority, but I personally don’t want to see the Buckeyes in the playoffs again, after the past few games…