Solar

I think AZ did a lot more for Oregon, showing us the weaknesses UW has and how to beat them.

If I remember his cast had actually broken and stabbed/cut his hand mid game. Didn't seem to affect his mood much, lol.

Smith could potentially end up a 5 star by signing day too.

The one thing in Oregon State's defense of saying they are Oregon's team is the number of players from Oregon on the roster, especially on scholarship. That does count for something in my book.

They won't play on the PAC12 Network even once this year. The big boys will pick up every single game.

Dan Lanning motivational methods have been a bit of a black box, and honestly they could have used a bit of work based on last year. I remember at about 2/3rds of the way through both of our rivalry games that I commented to myself that it looked like we were the better team, but the rival "wanted it" more. As others noticed, against Colorado is about the most motivated I've ever seen Lanning's team. Lanning obviously made a point to get his pregame speech shown during game. I definitely hope it is something Dan saw the need to improve on from last year and has made a point of improving himself in motivating the team. We are certainly going to need maximum motivation if we want to win the PAC12 this year.

When there is only a 5 rank difference between teams in week 4 I'm not sure you call it an upset. I mean really. There's a reason CFP meeting don't start until after the midpoint of the season. I'm not even sure the 10 rank spread for Utah vs UCLA would qualify it as an upset. Nobody knows just how good UCLA really is this year, because all we have so far is a narrative about who they lost, but they've destroyed bad teams.

I noticed watching the games on the PAC12 Network that they aren't running as long as the games on the major networks. The reasonable explanation is they didn't add more in-game commercials to make up for the shorter play time like every other network did. So they just let a golden opportunity pass by to increase revenue for the programs. Another sign of incompetence, or maybe they just don't care anymore and would rather just watch the games? lol (Don't be too hard on me, this is a little tongue in cheek.)

A good reminder to Colorado and fans they aren't the only ones that can flash. Keep that legacy alive and kicking.

I had the same humorous thought seeing the final Texas WYO score. Someone could probably convince me WYO wins at home in week 1 or 2 (watching SEC monsters that have never seen a hill asphyxiating at 7k feet would be worth a watch), I don't think it would be particularly close in November at a neutral sea level site.

With both being transfers, I said "virtually" because it's hard to feel like you are missing something you never had. It is interesting to wonder if guys like boettcher would be seeing any LB time if Jacobs was our best LB on the field as has been projected.

From a recruiting perspective, the comparative play between Oregon and USC playing Colorado back to back weeks could be a thing too. I'm a little worried that Colorado plays better on the road than at home due to their underdog mentality, but we'll see. The differentiator between Oregon and USC will still likely come down to which team's defense improves the most against the pass.

It's crazy that the Ducks have both depth and virtually no injuries. At the level Oregon Washington and USC are at, it only takes one injury to derail championship/playoff aspirations -the QB. No Nix, No Penix, No Williams, no show.

If I were a actual bettor, I would not touch this game with a 10 foot pole. It seems far more likely for it to end up tied or losing at the end of regulation than for Oregon to win by 42, but probabilities are nonlinear so that is irrelevant. Colorado appears to do better away than home, and they will compete for 4 quarters, if I was forced to chose, I would pick Colorado at -21.

One comment to add, CU is getting their running back back from injury that Lanning just compared to Derrick Henry. It does add a bit of dimension to their game plan, and much better chance on short yardage plays. That being said, HI had that dimension with their converted OL RB and we didn't do too badly with it.

Thanks for catching that, spell checker sniped me there. It wasn't about any particular practice, it was the sum of everything that consistently occurred in practice that we never saw. Perhaps the amount of effort, perhaps perceived willingness to bash in your brains for practice glory, perhaps just not performing error free in a low care setting, etc.

Something that has reduced my stress levels regarding possible legislation is to first determine if the there is a status quo group of rich and likely politically connected private citizens that stand to benefit from the legislation passing. If you can't identify that group of individuals, then it has a zero percent chance of actually passing. I don't know how rich people would benefit from NIL legislation, with the legislation presumably going to restrict how rich people can spend their play money. Maybe I'm missing something though.

I hope Lanning is wise enough to realize that you NEVER. EVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, outside a hail Mary, play prevent defense against an elite clutch QB which there are 5 or so in our league to deal with. The only thing it will do is prevent you from winning. Keep up the QB pressure with numbers on the line and blitzes, pull out the LBs, and lean on the DBs to ball out with tight coverage.

One thing that drove me nuts about Cristobal was his religious dedication to the notion that how you practice is how you play in the game. This resulted in ballers, people with clutch, people with an extra gear in the game riding the bench. Brady Breeze and Deadwood Davis are two examples of individuals that made magic happen when they were around the ball, then immediately disappear to the sideline remaining buried on depth charts. I've always thought that how players do in practice is a starting point, and when the player goes in the game and tells you who they really are YOU DON'T IGNORE THEM. Lanning on the other hand, appears to listen. For all the projections about what the depth chart would be, they've been irrelevant. Playing time in the spring game and scrimmages, and in the preseason games has been fluid and demonstrated that Lanning is adjusting to the actual production, help and hurt players are providing on the field of play. Lanning plays the ballers. Another example is his recent statement about penalties, that if you are going to rack up penalties and hurt the team, you won't play. It doesn't matter how good you practice. If you keep giving the other team's offense a first down on a blown up 3rd down, or you keep putting our offense a mile behind the sticks, then you won't play. I find Lanning approach to player evaluation very refreshing.

That's too narrow/vertical. We have FCS and FBS, just need to make an FAS with top 36-48 teams pulled out from FBS. If we want a relegation system between FBS and FAS, fine.

9.3 million people were watching a Mountain West team after midnight last weekend. There's no precedent. I expect Colorado vs. Oregon to darn near break regular season game viewership records. Should be roughly 15 million viewers. For that reason alone this is the most important game of the year for Oregon as a program.

They have G5 size, CSU looked much bigger than them actually. They don't have much depth. They do have speed and make the most of whatever abilities they do have. I could see them giving us fits, and giving us a scare, odds of losing are not zero, but pretty low though. The current line above 15 points sounds about right.

3.5ypc? That's garbage with the backs we have. That would be a failure mark for our OL. As I keep saying, Terry is a Cristobal disciple. Klemm had to get OL to unlearn some techniques, whichever ones those were, for whatever reasons. Pass blocking is great and light box run blocks are great. When things get overloaded in the box is when they have trouble. It even worse when the play moves horizontal. The guards do seem to be a bit of a weak spot right now too. I'm not going to complain. It could be way worse.

Coaches poll sucks this time of year. That's what get when coaches spend 5 minutes looking at who won and lost this weekend, and haven't played enough teams to make any relativistic determinations. AP poll looks pretty decent. Blue bloods continue to get the benefit of the doubt until they lose to non-blue-bloods, which I don't care for though.

Their inability to score will prevent them from winning against teams with good offenses, I don't care how good their defense is. This is 2023. They should lose to LSU. They would lose to the top half of the PAC12 for that matter. Is Texas really back? I remember that year they beat ND week one and it turned out both teams were trash.