Solar

So far Dante Moore has only had to play 7 on 7 with the occasional shuffling of feet in the pocket. Moore was a 5 star based on his 7 on 7 abilities. Obviously I'm not giving him full credit for running the offense, which isn't easy to do, but he still hasn't seen anything in the way of pressure that got him to make mistakes at UCLA that got him benched. How does he handle a defense having some success getting into the backfield consistently, and how does he handle the pressure of executing a game winning drive when he's forced to throw every down because there isn't enough time left to run? Does he have the clutch to put the team on his shoulder in key moments? I guess it's conceivable we are so good and will be so lucky that we win a national championship without either of those things happening to him, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I'd have to imagine that every DC this year will ask the analyst about the scouting report for Oregon, then the analyst will take a really, really deep breath...."So...

Thomas likely he as a better command of the offense at this point that puts him higher in the pecking order than Smith, and they didn't get that far down the depth chart for Smith to play. Dan Lanning has made comments to the effect that we can play winning football with Thomas. He's more than serviceable.

What a difference a week makes. Last week I thought FPI was the most nonsensical ranking system I'd ever seen, but now I have no problem with it.

Ironically, it was the 2019 line recruited by Helfrich that was the best MC ever had.

This is the first season where Dan has felt comfortable enough to put the backups in around halftime, and the sheer volume of "1st team" rotation players feels very different too. This feels very national championship like for that reason alone. Like the Mariota days.

I prefer to call it a SWAG a Scientific WAG. I had my reasons posted why I thought we could put up over 60, although pick 6s weren't one of them. Gundy playing to go home on the last drive was the bad beat for me. He wanted to get the heck out of Autzen as fast as possible rather than try to put up any more points on the board.

Ugh! I was robbed! LoL. This is Oregon. We need a 'The Price is Right Rule" where if you guess the highest offensive score of anyone and the Ducks score more than that, you're an automatic winner. LoL Where heck is Bob Barker to back me up on this?

I always thought he had good short area quickness, but have been surprised with his top speed. He's also improved tremendously in his understanding of spacing and calculating the optimal path.

This may be our year to win the Joe Moore Award, not to mention the Rimington award. BTW Pickard is still our #2 center, but he seems better this year.

I meant what I said, Montana State is probably a better team than the next 3 teams on our schedule. Maybe not in talent, but on the whole, a better team. Maybe Cooper Perry deserves his own thread this week. Some of the statements made by Dan Lanning to date about him were so strong, they were difficult to take seriously, but Perry may be that good. One of those slot receivers that can get open at will, and never drops the ball, and has some wiggle after the catch. If you absolutely have to have 3-7 yards in 1 down, he's the guy to do it. The route tree has improved. It's doing a better job at intentionally winning the numbers game to get specific receivers open in specific areas of the field. I think Douglas has contributed to that. How about the double reverse flea flicker field side screen pass play? I've never seen that before, but it's brilliant. I wish we'd saved it for Penn State. The one thing we are missing on the DL line is a Jamari Cardwell type NT that can't be moved off the ball. I'm not sure our run defense is better this year. There times when the OSU OL were road grading us. I'm sure there were some schematic reasons for those plays, but I'm nervous about the Penn State and Miami's of the world. At least our DL sees something similar in practice every day.

I live in San Diego now and was watching the high school football players running around. For those that don't know August is the only time of year it gets truly hot and humid, yuk. And with pads and a helmet, I don't know how they can see with all the sweat running down into their eyes. I can imagine the Southeast being way worse is NOT a fun place to play football.

Oregon, 63-13 3 t/o 5 sacks 360 passing yards They are going to blitz us and we will throw the ball over them. Lots of explosive plays whether deep throws or yac dump offs. Explosive plays lead to quicker drives, and more opportunities to score. And if there are a lot of turnovers that shortens drives even more. I'm not a betting man, but if I were, betting the over would be like stealing candy from a baby.

I've watched the condensed Oregon State and Washington State season openers, and really was surprised just how far down they've gone in one season. IDAHO looked bigger, stronger, faster and more skilled than WSU. The only reason Idaho lost was from shooting themselves in the foot over and over with stupid penalties and fumbles. OSU just looked untalented and inept against Cal that looked same as they have for the last few years minus Jayden Ott. OSU and WSU have gone from P5 competitors to mediocre G5 teams in a year and a half. The PAC whatever absolutely will be a G5 team across the board. The only resemblance it will have to the former PAC12 is it will be league of parity.

Here's the take from the OSU faithful. https://pokesreport.com/s/7854/a-shot-across-oregons-bow-and-a-wake-up-call-for-oklahoma-state

Great, now make the post season a recruiting quiet period and put the only signing day on January 2nd too. I'm not a fan our staff recruiting when they should be game planning in the post season.

My reading between the lines is he is being competed for RB2 like ever back on the roster not not named Whittington. He didn't get his share of touches due to circumstances. I think the desire to keep D Moore healthy against a high blitz defense will change RB playing time this next game. I hear Mahki is the best pass blocker on the team. So I expect to see him a lot in the first half, or until Moore is done for the day.

Great article and comments. Certainly there will be an endowment of some kind to continue supporting Oregon's athletic program. Certainly being a premier team in the "consolidation of power" era will ensure that the best level set funding provided by the conferences will be as good as anywhere. My question is what happens to the level of Nike involvement, dare I say integration with our athletics program? Will we continue to be used as proving grounds for the state of the art by Nike? Will they continue to be involved in NIL and use players as an employee pipeline? I would like to think enough history is there that the status quo continues to be the path forward as a mutually beneficial arrangement, at least until some hotshot CEO decides to move Nike headquarters to some low cost southern state.. Some of it depends on what happens to the 20% voting shares of PK. Is it sold or just administrated as part of the estate.

So we live rent free in the USC players heads too, not just their fans.

I doubt Cristobal is going anywhere. He's home. I want to say the same for Dilly, but he would have to be tempted by the salary and potential prestige if he's confident enough in himself. Maybe Cig? Bama has to let the ugliness play out a while. If you fire a 9 and 4 coach, who the heck is going to want that job? Only someone hungry for the extra millions. It would have to be an up and comer, not some already established elite coach.

QBs don't target WRs they don't trust. They don't trust them to be open, run the right route, or catch the ball. Sometimes maybe it's lack familiarity, not building that trust in the off season and camps. Partly why I was so excited about Malik is how frequently Moore was willing to send the ball his way in the first game. Moore trusts what he is capable of. I do expect it to carry over to this Saturday, and if it does, we'll all notice because I expect Moore to air it out if our OL can buy a little time against the rush.

The infamy of the "Texas is BACK!" call was when they beat ND in the 1st game of the season. It turned later that both teams sucked. 1 data point doesn't make a trend. We'll just have to see a few more games to even begin to have an idea of how good these first wins and losses really are. That's why I'm fine with the rankings right, because as long as they are in the ballpark of reasonableness they did fine.

Washington is my #1. No DT should have that many tackles and that much time spent in the backfield. He wrecked the run game for the #1 rushing team in all of college football.

Bizarrely, I have zero issues with this list. I think they got it pretty much right.

It's Tuesday! I've been making the same mistake all morning.