David Marsh

Lots of help for Oregon today. Now they just need to take care of business and win! Wake Forest went down as well. They were the ACC's only undefeated so getting them out of the way helps.

My hands were getting tired from writing at that point. But absolutely a great point.

The pac-12 is the most geographically diverse conference in the country. We cover more biomes than any other conference by far. Where most conferences are pretty much laid out east-west they sit on relatively the same lines of latitude... Or at the very least within a very narrow bandwidth. The PAC is laid out across a much greater range of latitude. Just think we have the LA schools AND the PNW schools in the same conference. The range of temperatures and weather alone is pretty great from that alone. The only other conference that has a similar north-south layout is the ACC where it goes from Miami Florida to Syracuse New York. However, the ACC is pretty closely tied to the Atlantic coast and coastal temperatures tend to be more stable with less variance than continental temperatures. Now the continenantal conferences are the B1G, and to a lesser degree the big-13 and SEC. Though all these conferences are really laid out as states above east-west so the variation isn't so great on the whole. Then there is the final thing that makes the variation of climate and weather in the PAC so great... Mountains. Mountains act as a great divider and change weather themselves. Where Oregon, Oregon state, Washington and the California schools are all coastal we have one set of variations in temperature and weather. Cross the mountains and the biomes change to high desert or in the case if the Arizona schools... Just desert. Then on top of it all Utah and Colorado are so far away from the coast that they are Continental and suffer from the wide range in temperature variations across seasons. In short the pac-12 has the most range in longitude and latitude which creates the most variance for our teams to play in. Well ... That might answer your question. At the very least is allowed me to use my UO geography degree for a few minutes.

I did write and article that said that Frost was absolutely right about the difficulties of recruiting to Oregon. MC makes it look easy but he out works everyone.

Good to see refs from other conferences can be blind and miss obvious calls. That was definitely pass interference and may determine the outcome of the game. Granted if Nebraska didn't miss to fgs it would be tied.

I just root for Oregon. Anyone else I root for is only temporary.

Right now braska is playing hard... Now they just need to finish. They are still down but a TD will tie and extra point the lead.

Anyone else watching this game? I'm torn who to root for this game. On the one hand we need Ohio State to win to make our win look better... But some B1G chaos is also what we need. If OSU loses a second game and then takes down both Michigan teams and Oregon takes care of business Oregon is pretty secure. Also there is a part of me that wants to see Frost succeed. He is a duck and that is enough to want him to do well. Unless he is playing against Oregon that is.

My wife went to UW... our relationship works because she doesn't care about football and basically backs the Ducks by default because it makes me happy (also I am way better to be around when the Ducks win). There was a Brital Shower quiz about her that I took so I could be compared with her friends to determine who knows her best... I tied but would have won outright if I could answer the question "Ducks or Huskies?" accurately... I couldn't check Huskies.

I think Lake is around for another year regardless... 2020 didn't count for the majority of coaches out there and it didn't for Lake.. after all he "won the North" LOL! But there is one thing Washington fans want more than anything out of a coach... beat Oregon... and well... Petersen manged to do it twice.. but he caught Oregon at our lowest point in quite some time. I don't think fans will tolerate him for much longer though... especially when he starts Hate Week off talking smack about Oregon and he ends up losing to Oregon.... really looking forward to seeing this happen tomorrow.

And if this is the truth I'm ok with it... We have been screaming on message boards and articles for years that we want a more dynamic offense. Oregon fans really do love MC. Our biggest frustration has been the lack of points. So if we get more points then we will be even happier with MC.

I would take Helfrich over Kelly in all honesty.

Chip just struggles in rebuilding a program. He was given an ampted up and ready to go Oregon and ran with it. But trying to take a failing program and turn it around... that is very difficult for most coaches and requires a different skill set than what Chip has. Though here is a follow up question... Moorhead will probably not be at Oregon forever... so how would people feel about Kelly returning to Oregon as OC?

I'm just glad he isn't at Oregon. We are really starting to see the Moorhead offense now and I love what I am seeing. Arroyo's offense was ok at Oregon... it didn't get the most out of Herbert but in truth there wasn't a whole lot of supporting talent around Herbert to really allow Herbert to showcase his abilities.

The Husky defense is dependent on keeping the opposing offense off schedule. They do well on third down because they have a good passing defense and if it is third-and-long the passing defense takes advantage of that situation and gets the defense off the field. However... if it is third-and-short... different story. Oregon needs to stay on schedule and make life difficult on Washington.

Also... Washington has a pretty bad rush defense. So lets let loose the runningbacks and really challenge Washington to have to load the box. If they don't we can let Dye and Cardwell just run through them all day and that would be fine too.

It is year two... but yes... I get what you mean in his second FULL year. Granted.. Lake did mess it up last year because his program's culture resulted in Washington being unable to play Oregon and potentially a Pac-12 Championship... for the record I do believe that if Oregon and Washington played last year that Oregon would have won.

"Nobody else in the country can match." ... except Oregon... and USC... and Alabama... and Ohio State... and Notre Dame... and Oklahoma... and Texas.... and Auburn... and Georgia... and Clemson... and Florida... and UCLA ... and.. need I go on?

I'm not so convinced on his strength only because he has under-thrown some deeper balls. That could certainly be an accuracy thing but his last interception against UCLA really just didn't get enough air under it. The throw was to give Williams a jump ball opportunity in the end zone but he under-threw it and was picked off.

I am inclined to believe that Huard is not ready.. much like Thompson. Though the Huskies should have some serious questions about their scheme. Their offense is just bad. They want to really rely on their defense to win games because that is Lake's identity. They really want to be a purely ball control team but only a few teams in the country can really pull that off. The Washington situation isn't unlike the Oregon one... however, Oregon has recruited much better and MC has done a better job in bringing in better coaches. Oregon's offense is clicking and starting to look good and that is because the scheme of the offense under Moorhead was going to be good. However, in Washington's case the scheme of the offense was bad to start with and surprise, it still is bad.

I didn't see that coming. Looks like the committee has forgiven the Stanford loss. Bad refs and no Moorhead.

And if that's the case next week that will be reflected... but Utah had a dominant win over UCLA and Oregon State looked pretty lost against Cal. I feel that has to stand for something as well. The Pac-12 isn't making power rankings easy this year. Basically Oregon and Arizona are the only two easy placements at this time. After that it is a complete mess.

I was really torn... Do the cougs keep it rolling or was the ASU win was a fluke. With so much coaching turnover in such a sort period of time it is really difficult to judge.

By the end of the season the percentage of the pistol was probably down to about 40-60 (Pistol to Shotgun) not that I have actual snap counts and the sample size would really come from the last two games. We started to see the shotgun making an emergence against Cal last year.

Oh boy this last weekend created some big changes in the Pac-12. As always please disagree with me as it is always a good conversation. 1. Oregon (7-1) (4-1) - Well this week our Ducks are making this easy on me. They are far and away the best team in the Pac-12 right now and their offense is looking like it is finally coming together. They get the Huskies next and we all would love to see them leave Seattle with a big victory. If the offense and defense ever get in sync at the same time this could be a terrifying team. 2. Utah (5-3) (4-1) - Utah is getting better as the weeks go by. Their overall record doesn't look so good but they really have been the most dominant team in the Pac-12 South. However, they their only conference loss comes from Oregon State to date and that does tell us a lot about how weak the south may be on the whole this year. 3. Oregon State (5-3) (3-2) - Does Oregon State deserve its place at No. 3? Maybe, maybe not, they played very poorly at Cal on Saturday and really weren't ever in that game. Cal is rising pretty fast right now. Oregon State still has plenty of games left to play with Colorado and Stanford the next two up which they should walk away with two wins. Then they have Arizona State, at home which should give them a major advantage and then they finish the year against Oregon. I can see Oregon State going 3-1 in their last four games of the year. 4. Washington State (5-4) (4-2) - Washington State needed to do something to impress me to move up my power rankings and the did just that. Maybe this team doesn't need those five coaches who were fired? Or maybe they just caught Arizona State with their pants down and took advantage of the situation. With that win over ASU though it is really making Washington State reconsider how much they need Rolovich. 5. Arizona State (5-3) (3-2) - Arizona State didn't look good against Washington State by any stretch of the imagination. Honestly, I am conflicted whether they belong here in the rankings at all. However, the Pac-12 only has one bowl eligible team at this time, Oregon, and something has to be said for the the teams that only need one more win in order to make a bowl game being ranked above those who may miss a bowl game entirely. Arizona State beat UCLA in a head-to-head so they get the nod over UCLA for now. 6. UCLA (5-4) (3-3) - UCLA has come completely off the rails. KT and company completely trashed DTR and it resulted in DTR not playing at all against Utah and it showed. UCLA had a few good drives but the defense was run off the field and UCLA largely didn't look competitive. UCLA should win against their remaining schedule and make a bowl game as they have Colorado, USC and Cal left. UCLA is a better team than all of those but maybe Cal bites them as Cal is starting to peak right now. 7. California (3-5) (2-3) - Cal has been a team all year long where they have come up sort by a score. They beat a good Oregon State team at home and the previous week they beat Colorado. They are on a two game winning streak and they get Arizona, USC, Stanford, and UCLA to finish the year. Right now if this Cal team keeps up the pace they are looking at winning at least three of the four if not finishing the season undefeated. 8. Washington (4-4) (3-2) - Can Washington make a bowl game this year? Maybe... they have Oregon, Arizona State, Colorado, and Washington State left on the year. I see Washington losing to Oregon and probably Arizona State, unless Arizona State continues their decent which definitely looks like that is their current trajectory. Colorado is probably the only sure win left on Washington's schedule though if Colorado plays the way they did against Oregon they it could be a anyone's game. Additionally, if Washington State continues the way they have been they will beat Washington. I am just not quite sure what to make of Washington State still but for the moment they look good. 9. USC (4-4) (3-3) - USC lost their star receiver Drake London and that is the reason more than anything why I have dropped them this week. They beat Arizona but Arizona gave them a spirited game. Can USC make a bowl game? Its possible but without London that looks less and less likely. They might pick up one more win but unless something more disastrous happens to another team this could be as many wins as USC gets this year. 10. Stanford (3-5) (2-4) - This Stanford team is bad and sadly this is the team that Oregon bottomed out and lost to this year. Their remaining schedule is tough with Utah, Oregon State, Cal, and Notre Dame. It is unlikely for Stanford to win another game this year. Even with all that said they will only drop a spot in these rankings if Colorado manages to beat anyone on their remaining schedule. 11. Colorado (2-6) (1-4) - Colorado fired their offensive line coach last week and that may have helped them. They played far more aggressively and had some success. Oregon's defense was lacking due to injuries and half of Colorado's points came in the 4th quarter when Oregon was going deep into the bench but still, Colorado has some life and they might steal a game from someone but that is highly unlikely due to their remaining schedule. 12. Arizona (0-8) (0-5) - Arizona will sit at the bottom where they belong this year. They are putting up a fight but just vastly out gunned at this point. Again they may steal a game but that is looking less-and-less likely at this time. Well folks there it is... please agree or disagree with me as you please. Always fun to debate where these teams should rank.