David Marsh

I'm more concerned about the defensive side of things. The special teams haven't been hurting us but the defense couldn't get off the field against UCLA. Thankfully we had that brilliant onside kick by special teams to steal a possession to give us a solid lead.

Ole Miss went down today. The path to the playoff is appearing. Only one thing for the Ducks to keep on doing. Winning!

8 turnovers??? Is Maimi playing football or basketball? There isn't a team out there that is going to win a game with 8 turnovers.

Well... We saw something special today against UCLA. That onside kick was amazing. Brilliant call (especially since it worked) And brilliantly executed. That was something special.

Also... Put Nix in that Heisman conversation already!

This is MODERN physicality! Stress them with power, speed and most importantly stress them mentally!

Again... They'll give Cristobal two years to get Miami's house in order... Or so they think. He'll also make fans super happy and excited during the off season with recruiting wins and new coaching hires. We have all lived this... And bought into it to varying degrees. Now we get to watch Miami fans deal with it. Meanwhile... How about Lanning's Ducks?!?!?!

Steak a possession with an on-side kick and then hold them to 3 points... I can live with that.

Seeing a bunch of pass plays right now which are working... I just don't want Dilly to forget the run game. Don't forget to feed Irving!

One side kick??? I LOVE IT!!!

I think injuries are certainly a major factor here as well.

I can see why this rule re-interpretation was put in place. When the defense sees this, even as a fake, they crash down to stop a run play but then it leads to another pass which the defense cannot fully react to. But the rule change means it can still be a fake but a run play is still THE play... or at least a play behind the line of scrimmage. The way this play will probably get redrawn is that they do the fake fly sweep like that and then the quarterback throws a backwards pass to the edge. I guess this was really just a lazy trick play.

I think this is part of trying to correct the problems of special teams neglect under Cristobal. Sure Oregon had some good returns under Cristobal but they were inconsistent and only really occurred when the other team's coverage broke down. I feel this year the standard for the return game is really going to be don't hurt the team. Next year I do expect a whole lot more from the return game. At this point I feel there is a consistency element that keeps putting Hutson onto the field over others. McGee has been mentioned for some time as someone taking reps at practice for special teams but we really haven't seen him on the field. I suspect he isn't consistent in some element of the return game. Lorig has a reputation of being a pretty good special teams coach and I feel he needs time to get this part of the game in better shape for the Ducks. It was really neglected under Cristobal.

That's what I was saying about last year's mountain of injuries... I don't remember how bad 2019 and 2020 was in all honesty. It's not a full pattern yet but if 2023 brings an equally large pile of injuries to Miami we have a pattern. I do remember a lot of freak injuries along the way and those were usually pretty big last year... Verdell breaking his leg on a run for instance. But there we lots of smaller injuries that knocked players out for a week or two that felt all too frequent.

What is going on with Cristobal and Feld's Strength and Conditioning program? Last year Oregon suffered from constant injuries and turnover. It got so bad that Oregon started a different set of starters on at least one side of the ball in every game. This year they are at Miami and they still have massive injury problems. There is something wrong with their training problem. Meanwhile at Oregon, Wilson Love has done a fantastic job increasing Oregon player speed and also keeping the team pretty healthy. Sure we have had injuries but nothing like what we suffered last year and nothing even remotely close to what Miami is suffering.

Yep that is what I was trying to get to but didn't say it clearly. I do feel this offensive line is going to be too much for UCLA to stop. Especially when Oregon can burn them with plays like the one you had today in your article that is based off a shorter throw in space. I don't think UCLA's defensive front is going to be able to break through the offensive line. Then Nix can just go on the run and pick up yards if he is flushed from the pocket.

As long as Oregon can beat them in the red zone, something that they have had difficult with but also seem to be figuring out quite quickly, then bend but don't break defense just results in long and punishing drives for the Oregon offense. Could Oregon do to Chip Kelly what Stanford did to Kelly and the Ducks in 2012 (and later) by just forcing the Bruin defense to bend until they break? If the Oregon defense can limit the Bruin offense and keep them off the field then that style of football can really be the Kelly-killer.

It's a mixed bag here. I do think from a culture perspective Oregon needed to get humiliated and it overall didn't hurt for that to be to last year's national champions. But if we didn't play Georgia we could very well be 6-0 right now. Or just as possible... 5-1 and we would have gotten beat by a lesser team. We can survive the Georgia loss for so many reasons. Would we have been better off losing to BYU or WSU? Probably not.

Also our Chip had 3 NY6 Appearances 1 Rose Bowl Win 1 Fiesta Bowl Win 1 National Championship Appearance

It's still a good education but in truth most College Athletes, especially football, can't really pick any major they want. They need to pick a major easy enough for them to be able to complete the course work while also allowing them to take on the rigors of the athletic side of the program. It used to be that they could realistically do anything they wanted to do but now they are required to do so much more outside of just the academics. The notion that football players in particular only have "20 hours" of practice time might seem fine on paper but those 20 hours are formal practice and meeting time. Athletes are expected to do workouts, extra player organized practice time, and film study all on their own. Overall they are working over 40 hours a week for just football during the season. Even in the off-season they are expected to continue their strength and conditioning, both formally and informally, their player-led workouts, and film study, but at this point its not for an opponent but on themselves. And in the off-season they are even expected to show up for some limited meetings. This really is a full time job before you add in the school work which again isn't necessarily the major they would have picked but rather the major that is most comparable for them with football. There are obviously exceptions to the rule, as there are players who achieve degrees in majors that are typically not football friendly but for the most part student athletes find themselves picking for a restricted selection of majors. Personally... I majored in Medieval Studies, Religious Studies and Geography. Probably one of those majors could be football friendly but certainly not all three at once.

The way I am interpreting this is if the team is well coached and experienced the crowd noise shouldn't be a major factor. After all it is the players who actually play the game. A well disciplined team can shut out the crowd noise and get the job done when needed.

Colorado's interim head coach Mike Sanford I think should be a top candidate for their head coaching job. I watched enough of their game against Cal to say that their team was playing with a lot of energy. They revamped the defense that did wonders, granted the past couple of years the defense wasn't entirely Colorado's problem but rather their lack of offense, that is still a problem. Then recruiting to Colorado hasn't been easy because it is difficult to find a lot of quality players who want to join a problem with really one winning season since they joined the Pac-12. Ok, more than one but not much more.

That is a problem... at least most of our kickoffs are touchbacks or we'd we in real trouble.

I think the bigger problem was that Helfrich didn't personally continue to coach quarterbacks. Frost I would say is good at teaching QBing 301 for established quarterbacks who need some fine tuning... Mariota and Adams being two key examples. But Frost can't seem to ensure the development of a raw product that needs QBing 101. Helfrich brought in David Yost in 2016 and I think that was probaly a major factor in Herbert's early development as from the sound of it Taggart and Arroyo and Cristobal really didn't do anything to encourage his development afterwards. But he did at least have a strong foundation that he could build on. Hard to say right now what is going on with the development of the backups under Dillingham. As it has been beaten to death at this point that Thompson hasn't looked good in games but maybe he is looking good in practice? Maybe Thompson is amazing in practice and just can't convert that to something in front of a crowd as that is something that could happen.

I feel the error free Nix is able to come out because he has a well rounded team around him that do their jobs and that enables him to do his. Desperate hero ball is not his strength. And thankfully Lanning and Dillingham are not putting him in a position where he needs to do that.