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WOW! Thank you, Mike. Even I, with limited Xs and Os knowledge, 'got' this. Wisconsin has not quit on its coach, and the weatherman was kind to a Badgers team with a solid run defense. As is often the case with suspect teams in mega-conferences, Wisconsin, especially, and Rutgers and Purdue were handed tough schedules. And Wisconsin played a road game at Bama and Purdue at Notre Dame. When the 'down teams' have difficult 9-game conference schedules, it exacerbates the weakness of the conference, especially in the final season of an ACC and SEC 8-game confrence schedule. Great comment Spartan, but seven B1G teams are ranked in the Massey Poll's top 25: Ohio State, Indiana, OBD, Michigan, Iowa, UW, and USC, plus No. 29 Illinois and No. 31 Nebraska. I believe the B1G is the 2nd strongest conference in CFB, and that the gap between the Big Ten and the SEC is not what ESPN would have you believe. For example, I don't think Texas' 38-point comeback against Mississippi State last Saturday means both teams are terrific. A Kentucky team that Texas also defeated in OT is not a good team. And Arkansas, Auburn, and South Carolina are not all that. OBD fails to cover against Wisconsin in a monsoon and is, of course, overrated. Ole Miss defeats Wazzu by three points in Oxford, crickets. UVA is No. 15 with OT wins over an FSU team that is 0-4 in ACC play, and a UNC team that has not won a football game. The Cavaliers defeated Wazzu at home by two points. Conference wins in the B1G just mean less. Conference losses just mean more. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that ESPN isn't following me!😁 The Establishment is going to push back against the over-the-top love for the B1G because of back to back titles. And I get this. But I also believe that B1G is experiencing pushback as the result of the Tony Petitti's AQ Playoff format. The B1G adulation disappeared when Tony's plan was revealed. And disappeared further when Greg Sankey stabbed Tony in his PO back. A pathetic Penn State does not help the B1G Cause. Cincinnati's loss to Nebraska seems to matter little. Iowa's 3-point walk-off field goal loss at Iowa State matters, as does Iowa's 5-point loss to the team ranked second in the Coaches' and AP Polls. UW lost to the No. 1 team at home and to a ranked Michigan team in the Big House. The Athletic's Stewart Mandel says this means UW's schedule is 'tainted.' The Clemson meltdown does not appear to have hurt the nation's perception of Georgia Tech, Miami, UVA, and Louisville. Mike, I apologize for drifting away from your most excellent post, and Spartan, especially based on the human polls before the committee's first ranking release Tuesday night, your take is certainly not wrong. I believe, like last season, the B1G will show up in the postseason and we'll see more of a 3-loss Illinois defeating 3-loss South Carolina, a five-loss Michigan without a passing attack and half of the starting defense sitting out defeating a 3-loss Bama, and a marginal USC team defeating A&M. I also note that Iowa lost by 3 points to a favored Missouri team and TOSU defeated two highly ranked SEC opponents. Thanks again, Mike, for a super informative post.

Looks like all Disney/ABC/ ESPN college football games will not aired this weekend or maybe longer.😠

I think part of it is the structure of the defense, the first priority as I have read it with the Mint defense is shutting down the short-intermediate passing game, we don't really stack the box quite as much as other teams do. Wisconsin has some decent O-linemen, they will win a battle or two, and I think their freshman RB had some juice. Our run defense wasn't what I would term bad in this game, it was just a little inconsistent. The LBs can sometimes make the wrong read and get out of position. Our line is very good, I'm not quite ready to call it great, the LBs are simply good, but the secondary is elite imo, and it will get better next year even with replacing some guys as I think we have incredible amount of depth there. I think it's hard to judge our defense, they haven't played many teams that have a pulse offensively. They played well against Indiana and Penn St. who despite their issues have NFL players on the roster and were in a much better head space during our game with them. Rutgers and Northwestern are difficult to judge compared to the rest of the nation. In general I struggle at times to compare B1G teams with the rest of the nation, there is such a divide between the haves (Indiana, OSU, Oregon) and everyone else. The Iowa game will tell us a lot I think about where we are as a team since that team is starting to figure it out it seems, I'm hopeful we'll put in a B+ or above effort.

There is so much swirling right now that everyone seems to be waiting to see what LSU does before the dominoes start to fall, which is probably increasing the pressure on Florida to strike first. Also adds a dimension of pressure on programs like FSU that may be on the firing fence and will no doubt feel an increased sense of urgency with each passing week. Not the time to have a bad showing. If I was Florida, I’d try to strike first and swipe Fisch. He’s a good coach and picking off a “contending” B1G coach would be as good of a power play as any in the optics war.

There are SO many open HC jobs right now that if he wants any of them he'll get one. I haven't been following coaching searches so far and realistically there is going to be a lot of quiet behind the scenes stuff going on because we are only just over halfway through the season. But if Fisch wants a job that's not at UW ... He'll get one. There just aren't that many pre-existing big games floating around. And the few that are like Lanning aren't leaving their current programs.

Lastly, Play 8 is 12:32 in the 4th quarter, 1st and 10 at the Oregon 47. This run stop is brought you by our awesome defensive line, specifically, Bear Alexander. We are used to seeing this a lot this year, but unfortunately, if our DLine do not beat block and get the back early, we tend to give up a lot of yards. I hope this is Ok. I love to look at X’s and O’s and I know I’m not as knowledgeable as many of you. What are your thoughts or observations?

Play 7 is 2:57 in the 3rd quarter, 3rd and 5 at the Wisconsin 10, very next play. This time it looks like Boettcher is on a run blitz. He’s way ahead of the lineman looking to block him and does a great job attacking the ball side of the ball carrier forcing a fumble.

I'm locked in on Dan Lanning. If he keeps the recruiting at a high level and the team in constant contention for the Playoff, I'll be good. Most of my frustration gets directed at the Coordinators (less so at Lupoi because that's DL's specialty, so he gets that heat). That said, Dan Lanning seems like a coach that would make changes when/if needed.

Play 6 is 3:31 in the 3rd quarter, 2nd and 5 at the Wisconsin 10. I believe it’s Devon Jackson this time doing a very nice job of beating the block and filling the gap at the line of scrimmage for a very nice tackle.

Play 5 is 11:52 in the 3rd quarter, 2nd and 15 at the Wisconsin 31. Tight end #88 for Wisconsin crashes down on our defensive end and then kicks out our linebacker to open a perfect hole for a play that didn’t look like it was designed to go that direction. Thieneman again to the rescue and a massive gain of 18 yards.

Play 4 is 0:50 in the 2nd quarter, 3rd and 5 at the Wisconsin 38. We have a chance to get the ball back with a stop and a timeout, but Wisconsin gets a great push up front and our linebackers again are easily blocked downfield by linemen. Run goes for 6 yards and a first down.

I'm going to say it, it is a nightmare if it happens, it's not THE nightmare, but it's certainly something I don't want to see. That program doesn't deserve it compared to us, they haven't suffered all the times we have come so close only to come up jusssssttttt short. It would be a joke to see a program come out of nowhere, whereas we have been scrapping for it for 25 years. We are now probably the biggest program to not have won it. We are the most successful program this century to not have won a title. It would devastate me to see Indiana just waltz in and win it. The good news is that it isn't happening, the win against us was not flukey, but I don't think that team will be able to overcome the talent gap over the course of three games in the playoff. Indiana's entire season was their game against us, they got us, I'm confident we'll beat them if we get another shot at them.

Based on recent history, if you had told me before the season started that Oregon leads the nation in fewest passing yards allowed per game after 8 games, I would have said we must be on our way to our first national championship. Pass defense when it matters most, has been our Achilles heel limiting many great seasons. Well, here we are at #1 in the country averaging a mere 124.6 passing yards per game. Although it’s harder to follow backend defenders while watching on TV, I am relieved when teams choose to pass against us and nervous when they elect to run. In addition to our phenomenal corners and safeties, there are no better linebackers I’d rather have in pass coverage. They are playing outstanding football! However, our run defense is still an area for improvement. We are not terrible by any stretch as we rank #27 in FBS at 114.8 yards per game. As good as our linebackers are in pass coverage, it seems to me they struggle against the run. But there are likely a number of factors at play. Analyzing plays over and over again, I came away with a real appreciation for how quickly players have to diagnose and react to plays and how critical instincts are at game speed. It’s a long two weeks between games, so I took some time to include a few key running plays below from our last game vs. Wisconsin for analysis. I’ve added some observations and would love to hear the thoughts of others as we seek to learn more. Play 1 is 15:00 2nd quarter, 2nd and 5 from Wisconsin 28. Between the left end and left LB, we simply don’t set the edge, and the running back goes for close to 10 yards. D-Line holds their gaps well and this seems like a very preventable play. Play 2 is 11:35 2nd quarter, 4th and inches at the Oregon 43. Seems like we’ve got this one well covered. Handoff goes to the fullback, and Boettcher just misses the tackle. Thieneman then holds on for dear life and another 9-yard gain. Play 3 is 10:25 2nd quarter, 2nd and 20 at the Oregon 44, still the same drive. On this play, Wisconsin O-Line won their battles across the board. They hold our lineman in check and each of our linebackers are easily picked up by offensive linemen hustling downfield to block. First contact is 4 yards downfield, and the gain goes for 7 yards. I appreciated Uiagalelei’s discipline here to set the edge with the motion man and then check the QB before committing to backside pursuit.

Dunning Kruger effect.. it's a measure of wisdom in it's own way. It's idiotic how the media keeps thinking Lanning is this coaching option for other teams. I mean DeBoer is more likely to leave Bama for something better than Lanning, why don't they throw his name out there instead. On a more realistic note, any Jedd Fisch rumors? That guy has always sounded like a short termer, so maybe this will be the test.if he's interested in a better college HC gig or if he's only really interested in moving on to the NFL. The irony for UW is any strong success whether this season or next, probably means Jedd gets an offer he can't refuse and they start over again with a new coach.

Stanford loss isn't a big deal, it's an exhibition, I do like that teams are now playing these types of exhibitions instead of playing Willamette or Southern Oregon. Oregon will be a weird team, I'm not really sure how all the pieces fit together, I'm honestly not expecting a whole lot from Stewart or Pryor, we seem to once again not have a very good 3 points shooting team. Shelsted and Bittle can hit from deep, but I'm not seeing anyone else that will be able to hit 3s on a consistent basis to help open up the lane. I'm pretty worried we'll see what we've seen for a lot years, teams sagging off, and we'll just start firing up bricks.

Ducks search for consistency on offense meets a daunting challenge at IowaAutzen ZooDucks search for consistency on offense meets a daunting...Against the best defenses Oregon has played this year, Penn State, Indiana and Wisconsin, the No. 6 Ducks have been held to 17, 20 and 20 points in regulation.

The glass is half full on the men's side according to this report. Oregon Ducks On SIThree Takeaways From Oregon Ducks' Exhibition Loss to Sta...This exhibition between the Oregon Ducks and Stanford Cardinal may not count toward each other's overall record, but this game matters for those in the backcour

Yes, every year.

Bye week strategy - practice plans - revealed by Coach Lanning. Oregon Ducks On SIDan Lanning Reveals Oregon's Bye Week Strategy Before Iow...After defeating the Wisconsin Badgers 21-7 on Oct. 25, the No. 6 Oregon Ducks were officially on a bye week, meaning the program has time to rest and evaluate i

This GIF reminded me of a little bit of off topic trivia. Today is Nick Saban’s birthday. How did I know? Lane Kiffin mentioned it in an interview.

I hear you but with Helfrich I think it was a deeper feeling that the program was regressing and there was little change of a turnaround under his “leadership.” Recruiting was in the toilet, IIRC. It was evident that Helfrich was a great evaluator of QBs and a good offensive mind but he was not head coach material. There is nothing wrong with that and he seems to be doing well now on TV.

Nice to see Kwame Evans rebound from 2 points, 4 rebounds, and 0 assists in 20 minutes versus Utah to 13 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists in 26 minutes versus Stanford. It would be helpful if Evans, former composite five star (#15 nationally), now a junior, could become a reliable 12/8/4 guy this year to go along with Bittle and Shelstad. Former Duke/Ohio State PF Sean Stewart (also a 2023 composite five star and #17 nationally) had a nice game with 15 on 6-8 from the floor to go along with 4 boards. Seems like Texas transfer SF Devon Pryor (who pulled himself out of the NBA draft but was worked out by the Blazers in May) is off to a slow start, 5 points in 27 minutes against Utah and 0 points in 26 minutes against Stanford. Altman should have both a fair degree of talent and upperclassmen in 2025 (plus a pair of international additions). It seems like a tournament bid, with no more major injuries, should about be the floor? Way off?

Sad. Cam Colvin, Ex-Oregon Football Player, Faces Federal Fraud Charges

The loudest and most obnoxious voices on many football forums (Ducks or otherwise) don't know as much about football as they think they do. I remember when I first started posting on FishDuck (before the forum when we just had conversations under the articles) that I was always cautious in making any comments because I didn't feel like I knew as much as others. I mean, I still know that I know nothing (thanks Socrates) but I am fine being corrected when I get something wrong. I have a friend and colleague in the social studies department who is the offensive line and offensive coordinator for the school's football team. I took him with me to the Montana State game and he at least was kind enough to say that I know more than pretty much everyone around us screaming for deep balls. So I'll take that. Now I'm writing a weekly article and some of them are good and I think have valuable insights. You probably know more than you think you do and the loudest voices tend to know less than they believe they do as well. Your insights Woundedknees are always welcome.

Predicting the last four games = all W's. I'm thinking the same but probably with 2 uclers Predicting Oregon's Four Remaining Regular Season Games Of 2025