David Marsh

If we win by double digits we start rolling the other way! I think this might be the week we see our real Ducks for the first time this season.

A run game getting good yards. It feels like that has been woefully lacking the last two games. James has good yards but we need to let him loose and run the ball.

The way we are playing right now feels like the Mario era... constantly playing down to our opponents. Let's hope we get back to the Lanning era this week and get back to crushing.

Though there are fun parallels this is still a completely different team. The timeline this time around is off by about two weeks. We also have a more talented team from top to bottom than we did in 2014, just need that talent to all come together. I do think our defense is better than it was in 2014 even with those big names and NFL all stars in large part because the scheme we have today is better and the roster is deeper. It is also important to remember that Arizona won the Pac-12 South, and was the consensus no. 2 team in the Pac-12, in 2014. They were a quality team that in the rematch with Oregon got blasted. I think Boise State is more akin to 2014 Arizona than Oregon State is to 2014 Arizona. That's not to say that Oregon State is going to be a pushover, they'll fight. However, I do feel that our timeline and depth this year is different enough that it may prove to our advantage. For instance it is possible we might see Bedford enter the lineup on Saturday, I think there is a good chance they hold him back and give him two more weeks to heal up, but it's possible.

This also feels a bit retaliatory because the MW didn't want to schedule games with OSU and WSU next year. So they were left out to cobble together independent schedules but they just decided to pull the trigger and take from the MW to form a slightly better MW... by slightly better I mean they have the best teams from the MW and none of the bad ones so they are now slightly better. It's still the MW.

You can do that already in the Mountain West! They don't need to move! No way the other P4 give them back autonomous standing. This is a G5 conference with a P5 label. The label means nothing at this point because we all know what's in it. They won't get their automatic bid.

I love how Limar had the piece of mind to pick that ball up in the end zone last Saturday. Because I saw the touchdown run and I immediately knew that he wasn't holding that ball long enough across the barrier. I'm happy it counted as a touchdown and I think it's a great lesson for the team in both a positive and negative way. Positive in that it counted a d a touchdown because Limar picked the ball up and finished the play. Negative because for all that work Whittington didn't (or shouldn't) get a touchdown on his stat sheet.

Anger, yelling and blaming tends to entrench people in what their doing rather than reevaluate their stance and actions. In some ways they become more motivated to not help someone shouting at them and saying that they're bad. I know what that sort of thing comes up, I've played enough online video games to have people spew obscenities at me, that it doesn't motivate to do anything, except do worse out of spite. Expressing disappointment, frustration and even anger in a calmer atmosphere is how problems are resolved and how respect is built between all parties. If you need someone to play better you fire them up and maybe get them angry but not angry at the team or the leadership of the team. You want to use passion to motivate and people to get maybe angry that they're not doing enough in the moment. That doesn't come from telling at people for being bad on the sideline during the game or in public. Right now I do feel the offensive line needs to play better but I think a large part of that comes from the coaches not fiddling with the line up as much. As much as getting players to do better and put the work in. The latest episode of Ducks vs Them has Bassa rallying the defense on the sideline. He's fired up and calling on everyone to put their best effort forward. He clearly cares about the game. But that's not the time to throw blame at players for messing up ... But to encourage them to get it right the next time. There is a big part of me that really thinks the tablets and replays in the sideline is a bad thing for this team. They can't change the past and need to just focus on the next play and bond as a team. As for the 2016 final Helfeich team... Doing a deep dive into everything from that year is on my list of articles to write. I might get around to it after this season. Lots of interesting moving parts on that one.

Three weeks in a row with the same helmet?!?!?! This is madness! But I like this combo.

Spoilers people! But yes .. you're onto what my article is about tomorrow!

Stay tuned for tomorrow... this year reminds me of 2014 actually and my article tomorrow will break it down. There are some interesting similarities.

I saw the interview the other day with Nishad that said he felt more comfortable at left guard than right. I know my article the other week about flipping the offensive line got some feedback that it wasn't so easy to just flip players around... and I get that it is the case... but it does feel like that is precisely what the coaches are doing.

They need to get a good chunk of it right this Saturday... I'd say be around 75-80% capacity. I'd say we are around 40-50% right now. That's a big jump but doable with adjustments. Then they have a bye to get more right. And then UCLA where they should be about 90% right. By Michigan State it needs to be 100% ready and rolling or we start seeing real problems. The passing game will get better when the run game gets rolling. In the second half last week we saw the coaches make a significant change to the run game, they had James attack the edges more. This puts more of the run blocking on the veteran tackles and James was picking up good chunk yardage that way. The interior of the line will continue to develop and as it does we will see more runs in the middle of the line. The run game opens up the pass and the pass in turn opens up the run. Need to enable these lineman to do their jobs and part of that is also pairing down the playbook a bit. Get rid of any unusual plays and focus on the fundamentals. I don't want to see Whittington and Sadiq doing fly sweeps! They aren't getting any yards.

We got only a fragment of his post game speech to his players. When asked about what was said in the locker room he said that what he said stays in the locker room. I seriously doubt that he would let the entirety of his talk to his team make it to the final cut of a public video. But I do agree that most teams need a loss to motivate them. Will that loss come this week? Maybe, hopefully not. But we'll probably take at least one loss this season, and if things don't improve on the offensive line we'll take more. Nothing kills entitlement like losing.

I doubt Bedford will play this week but he was seen lining up against the DL in OL v DL reps today. So he's close... and that might spark an offensive explosion.

I'd probably go with Ohio State currently. USC has made some incredible improvements and has looked good. But their best win is over LSU which looks mediocre so far. We'll see how real they are later. For the record I do believe USC is ahead of Oregon... we have looked mediocre at best so far and that feels like a stretch.

I don't think the Beavers have a better quarterback this season. DJU wasn't bad for the Beavers and he seemed to fit their system the best. So that's something for them I suppose. So maybe the Beavers are similar to Boise but with a worse quarterback and running back?

Are the Beavers better than Boise State? Maybe... but we'll find out later this season. But they are similar. Both are dependent on a run game to get things going. So it will be another week for the Ducks to contain the run game on defense. It would also be nice for the offensive line and the offense to get some push and get our own run game going so that the defense isn't on the field for as long. That is what really hurt us against Boise is that the defense never seemed to leave the field. Those special teams touchdowns are great, and without them we would have lost, but it doesn't give the defense a whole lot of rest.

Take away half the penalties on the offensive line and take away one of the fumbles... and the Ducks win by 14 at least. Take away both fumbles and the Ducks win by 21. That second fumble was just too close to the goal line for the defense to really keep Boise out of the end zone. First fumble... the defense messed up big with that long touchdown run. But at the end of the day a big piece of how this team is supposed to function is with an offense that can take medium to long drives and punch it in for touchdowns. Then put the defense on the field and have them force a three and out and have the offense repeat. Desperation sets in for the opposing offense and the defense capitalizes on it. But with the offense riding the bench for so long it is asking the defense to make stop after stop ... and eventually they'll mess up and that's what happened. Could the defense have played better? Yes... but they were also not given any help from the offense for a second week in a row. The biggest thing that showed up at the end of the day is that the Ducks bled 6 minutes off the clock in that final drive to cap it off with a walk-off field goal to win the game. They bled the clock and put up points like they're supposed to.

If we take the Fiesta Bowl offensive line there is only one player who is missing from that line-up, right guard Steven Jones. Everyone else is returning. Granted, I do feel that Nix did a lot of the pre-snap reads and helped Poncho out a lot more than we give him credit for, but that line played very well. This current offensive line is a far cry from that line considering there is only one missing lineman. This needs to be figured out real soon.

I like these Huskies better...

I'm going to bump my old article by adding a comment. In the article I talked about how the tech might be detrimental to a team because it might be too much of a distraction. One thing I didn't consider is that after a series the last couple of weeks I saw Gabriel and others head to the sideline and evaluate film. This is something new but what they didn't seem to do enough of was being around their players and rallying together. Sure the film might tell them what went wrong exactly but from a team perspective they need to be rallying each other. Now there has been a lot of time on the bench for the offense so there could be plenty of rallying going on that I'm not seeing but to be honest I kinda doubt that. This team needs to get their head out of the tech and just be with each other on the sideline a bit more.

The line-up they used mostly through the third quarter looked pretty good. But I think two things need to happen. 1. Settle on a starting offensive line... but this will also change when Bedford and Ilui are back from injury but they might plug and play better because both were already in the two deep. 2. Simplify the offense.... this feels awful but the truth is that this offense has three weeks (this week, bye week, UCLA) to really drill in on basics. As Mike said, get the communication and blocking assignments down. I felt there were too many cute plays that got nothing done. Like that weird bubble screen then backwards lateral to James play. The blocking didn't hold up on that play to make it work, better off just handing James the ball and having him run it. This team needs time and as long as they progress they have three weeks where the schedule isn't too bad. In four weeks we get Michigan State at home, they aren't playing for the top of the conference but they're a Jonathan Smith team so they'll be progressing as well. Week after that is Ohio State.... which we are not ready for.

Win by 28 and I'll say we're worthy. I'm making artificially high standards.

For all the Pac-12 network's woes... They at least knew the players and programs.