Solar

Not completely true..the greater the number of individuals, the higher the probability of finding better players. Simple statistics. If I had 100 3 stars I'd argue I could field a better team than from 20 4 stars, especially at the college level.

I would flip it around to CAP-12. It's the common lingo in schools right now that "cap" means you are lying or faking it. My son is always saying "That's cap." When he sees or hears something that is trying to deceive us.

As opposed to the Will Howard/Avery Johnson affair. It's weird OSU ran their own QB out of town, yet picked up a QB run out of town from somewhere else. At least Howard's running ability is a fit for Kelly's offense.

Michigan State looks much like Oregon State did when Smith arrived, just starting from a higher floor. Their defense is not good. The QB is elite but inexperienced and not getting much help from the rest of the offense. They should be about the same as UCLA, maybe a little worse.

Did you miss seeing that they have Mario on their sidelines? Mario will lose interest in the high flying offense, and force the OC to put handcuffs on Ward to play 3 yards and a cloud of dust against the lesser teams in conference, exposing his team to a loss or two. It's like clockwork.

Will Howard on the other hand absolutely was going to lose his starting job to Avery Johnson who is amazing. OSU flopped picking Howard, but pulled the rabbit out of the hat bringing in Kelly to scheme him into something that can make the offense work.

Totally agree. There are many reasons for the 3 point home advantage and referee calls are one of them.

I was thinking the same. They will at least think twice before enraging 10s of thousands of rabid fans at an away game.

The end will be way past my bedtime. My only hope is we play good enough that the second half is garbage time and I can DVR it to see how the backups did.

With so many teams there are bound to be some really good and really bad teams. I do think that the days of parity we were used to in the PAC12 are over. They live on in the Big 12, but who cares. Our new reality is weekly exposure to wildly varying quality of teams. Losses to the bottom half of the league will be unfathomable upsets, while games against the top of the league will be national games of the year. Purdue is a well known steaming pile this year.The fact they kept it as close as they did with the Beavers makes me think the Beavers aren't worse than I thought.

The trophy should just be a a beautiful fir tree carved out of a beautiful piece of wood mounted in a bronze base. Maybe the wood should a be a waterproof variant like teak for longevity. What to call it, I don't know. Something stupid but perhaps more original would be a carved woodshed model with an axe in front. Implying who killed who that year.

Attacking the edges is the one weakness of this team because our interior OL doesn't have the speed to pull and block in open space as well as prior years. Watching Cal play SDSU was an eye opener of how bad SDSU is. I'm sure the beavers defense is okay, but 49 points isn't as amazing as I thought. In the B1G I'd say Indiana has the best offense I've seen so far.

2024 would look WAY worse if you compared it to the average of the 3 no conference games only, especially compared to 2023.

I thought Stein play calling was noticeably different from previous games. It was far more pro style, much less of creatively getting people the ball in space within 2 yards of the LOS. Tez didn't have as big of a game because of it, but it was far more efficient on the whole.

With regards to Strothers, I'm always dubious of coaches being so sure about their evaluations based on practices alone. I'm a long time believer in saying that when a player goes on the game field and shows you who they really are, you need to pay attention and forget about how they practice. There are some people that will always have that extra something when it's the real game. My hunch is they reviewed the film from BSU and thought he did well, and spent practice for the week just getting the lineup solidified with him in it. Kudos to them for doing that.

(don't hate me forever) 30-27 Beavers in overtime (Sappington misses?) 1 1 330 I would love to be way off the mark, but if there was ever a time for a hot take this is it.

Fun facts: If we reschedule to play the Beavers in 2026, we will play all three OSU schools in a single season. Probably a first and not something we thought we'd ever see. Depending on the playoffs, we could spend a third of our season playing OSU (5 times out of 15 games). It would be fun to beat OSU 5 times in a single season! Haha.

I want to see OSU run for 150 yards or less. I want Gabriel comfortable in the pocket and I want some runs make it untouched to the third level. It seems like a low bar, but if we actually achieve those things we should dominate them.

This is why it's reasonable to attribute their great play to the size of the fight in the dog rather than the size of the dog in the fight. It's dangerous for us. They did pick up some decent talent in the portal.

Given MJ is one of the only effective medical treatments for brain damage I have no issues with it being associated with football.

Finalized next week!? As most speculate this will reinvent the PAC12 a G6 conference. The playoffs arrangement could care less about "Group of #" rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Those teams are who they are. We may still get beat by them on occasion (perhaps in 2 days) but it's just not P2 level ability on average.

To clarify some things, my quote of Mariota was not to say the Ducks should act like Winston, it was to point out very clearly the team had no leadership outburst of anger regarding underperformance or lack of discipline ever. Not good. People don't change until they realize it will hurt worse emotionally to stay the same. That's a high bar sometimes. When people screw up they need to feel really uncomfortable about it to really solidify their desire not to screw up that same way again. Also, sports psychology refers to the emotional and mental state or framework of the players. Not fans, not coaches. Lastly I am not extrapolating a line on a graph I'm extrapolating cause and effect of past psychology and game performance for both teams. It's speculative by nature, and n= very small (sample sizes). Your thoughts and opinions are all valid too. I really hope something clicks this weekend and we win. The strange, nervous energy vibe from Lanning for the post practice interview yesterday did not give me warm fuzzies. I've never seen him act like that before. Either Red Bull gave him serious wings or he is beside himself at practice trying to figure out how to get the players to stop taking turns screwing up or both!

I think talent wise we should win by 30+. But motivation and discipline closes the gap to near zero.

We really need to add an old school screen pass to the running back. When your OL is getting beat, it's easier to fool the DL that they getting to the QB for a sack. It would also help take the edge of the DL aggression.

I appreciate the comments that we only saw a snippet of Lanning's looker room speech, however he didn't leave himself that much room to pivot into a tirade of anger about them playing like crap. I'm extrapolating from what I see. I don't recall any Saban like outburst of righteous indignation at his players underperforming relative to what they are capable of. Did I just miss it? I think there are only two ways to have a primal response to underperforming: 1. Losing and 2. Being on the receiving end of direct personal derision in a social setting when you screwed up. I'll leave this last nugget to ponder: After the 2015 Rose Bowl win Mariota was quoted at being shocked with the yelling and screaming he was seeing on the opposite sideline especially Winston and the head coach. "Nobody on our team EVER yells at each other we always just talk things out." That approach was part of a culture that ended a few years later with a 4-8 season for a team with zero discipline left when Taggart arrived.