David Marsh

Well... I think we're Indiana fans now that Penn State is basically out of the CCG race.

Hey now... That's the B1G meta game! Big, slow and unimaginative.

In truth is be surprised to see Ferguson. I think if we see Burch he's on a snap count. Lots of games left, assuming we make the playoffs. Need healthy players down the stretch.

Kinda. It makes things simpler if Ohio State beats Penn State right now as Oregon hoods the tie breaker over Ohio State. Indiana does play Ohio State in a few weeks. But if Oregon, Penn State and Indiana are all undefeated then the tie breaker goes to who beat Ohio State by more and our 1 point win probably would be the lowest. Which leaves us out of the CCG.

Did Oregon break Ohio State? I mean they haven't looked the same since.

Gang Green is the standard of the best Oregon defense. However whatever stats you can compare come with a little problem. Football has changed a ton in the last 30 years. Offenses, even B1G offense, are more prolific than they were in the 90's. So yes... This is the best defense.

Thank you for your kind words. And playing off meta is how Oregon burst into the scene in a big way. A credit to the Brooks era to stabilizing Oregon and to Belloti for elevating Oregon and bringing in a certain offensive coordinator. But it was Kelly and Helfrich (yes Helfrich) playing off meta with the spread offense and up tempo. We couldn't recruit the linemen needed and instead they countered with raw speed and space. And it worked, big time! It worked so well that many elements of Oregon's offense became the META for football. Saban's Alabama and Dabo's Clemson national championship teams BOTH used elements of Oregon's offense. Kelly caught lightening in a bottle with the right offense, the right staff and the right players. Helfrich couldn't fully adapt to the changes in football when everyone caught up and the Ducks style of football wasn't so special anymore. There is much more in what went wrong for Helfrich but not going into that here. Lanning was a part of a shifting meta in the game away from high powered offense and back to smothering defense at Georgia. Now he's really brought in a high powered offense and now we are seeing that defense at Oregon. Lanning is changing the meta of the game right before our eyes! Enjoy it everyone.

And at this rate he might in the running for rookie for the year. Just think.... Two vastly underrated Ducks in the NFL draftt might pull that off. Herbert won it in his rookie season. I'm pulling for Nix to get it this year.

Well... I do think there are some B1G regrets! Are There Some B1G Regrets? | FishDuck FISHDUCK.COM We are at the halfway point of the 2024 season and this new era of college football. The B1G added four... The answer in the media is at least... Yes.

A big thing to look out for now is that with only 4 games left on the schedule is how many freshman are going to suddenly rotate into the game in some way shape or form. They get to keep their redshirts at this point AND they get experience for playoff play. Riggs looks like he is poised for some big yards in his one appearance so far. Do we see more of him in the next few weeks and does he make it into the runningbacks rotation at this point in the season to give James some more rest? We'll have to wait and see.

Caleb Williams hid a lot of the Trojan's offensive line problems. If he had a good defense they would have made the playoff one of those years. Miller Moss isn't a bad quarterback, but he isn't Williams. He can't hide the problems of USC's offensive line and they don't seem to have the world beaters at receiver this year either. The USC run game this year actually looks better than it has for the past couple of years. But this USC team is frankly built for the Big 12. They would probably be No. 2 or 3 in the Pac-12 this year in truth. They might get edged out by Colorado only because I think Sanders is a better QB than Moss and that game would be a shootout.

But there is a mindset that is stuck in that style of play. Washington State saw they weren't winning any games so they went out and hired Mike Leach and his air raid offense. Sure he had runningbacks on his roster but they got just enough carries to be dangerous but more often they were just another pass catcher. Washington State under Leach weren't always good but they certainly had some good seasons and they were always interesting. They were also always good for stealing a game or two away from a top team in any given year. How do you stop that kind of air raid offense? It's certainly possible and if given enough time to prepare very doable. Leach lost a lot of bowl games and some of them badly because his opposition could take weeks to prepare. Washington State also never won any conference championships or went to any major bowl games under Leach. In the end if given time any good team was going to beat him. However, if you're a team struggling to get top recruits and you just want to be good and bowl eligible most years then adopting the air raid or other off-meta offense can certainly do that. Teams lost to Washington State because they couldn't adequately prepare in a week, and even if they did they were often in some dog fights of games. The B1G meta (excluding the newbies) just doesn't have really any of these strange teams outside of Ohio State.

In truth I'm feeling a bit more nervous about this game than any of the others, outside BSU and Ohio State. Michigan is in wounded animal mode and are desperate for a good win. They are also starting to figure things out a bit. They are like Illinois but without a quarterback. But if they start getting that QB picture together they are a much better version of Illinois.

The reality is that it isn't really about player safety but safety theater. There are some hits that are dangerous but aren't targeting. There are some targeting hits that are so minor and incidental that they should be a foul. The problem is always about the written rules and trying not to leave too much up to refs making a call on the field. They have to make enough of those as it is and they're not hitting them at a perfect rate already. If we want to take player safety seriously when a big hit happens with helmet to helmet contact both players need to be removed from the field and be checked out by a third party. Intent is something that should be evaluated. Lowering the helmet and launching is obviously bad form and should be targeting. A defender trying to get low to make a tackle on a shorter runner who makes a quick movement and there so happens to be helmet to helmet contact shouldn't be a foul. Though if the hit is hard enough the players should be looked at. Helmet sensors should be a part of every teams equipment to measure impacts. A third party should be in charge of watch those sensors and pulling players off the field if they trigger. I'm not saying a coach doesn't care about his players or the medical personnel don't care, they absolutely do, but you don't want there to be any questions about why a player wasn't pulled to be looked at. Football is a dangerous game and there is no way to take he danger out of it. But there are ways to insert safety into the game. Agree or not these are the sort of real steps needed to actually address safety.

The bad tackling was our hang over... If that's the case and we still pitch a shutout, I think we can all live with that.

They kinda do this for all teams right now. I think we just hear it more with Oregon because we know our team. Last year I became exhausted of the Bo and Tez story. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool story, but that seemed to be the only story the announcers ever told. I think the transfer stuff is kinda interesting for the first 3-4 games of the year. After that it gets old real fast. We're 8 games in now... They're Ducks. I mean Nikko Reed has been with us for two years now and they still say he's a transfer for Colorado.

Root OSU... the obvious reason is that it eliminates an undefeated team from the conference championship race. It would suck to be the number 1 or 2 team and be potentially left out of our conference championship game. Granted... just making the playoff is all that matters. A team that has to play in the first round that didn't play in a conference championship game has to play just as many games as a team with a first round bye.

Next level mind game? Are they not showing something right now as they suspect they may need to use it in a rematch later this year? It's possible. It did feel they were one man short of getting home for some big sacks. However, if Burch is back in the line up for a rematch I think Oregon has a party in the OSU backfield.

I think that's Finny who is from Maryland.

Personally, I'm fine with something like targeting that can impact the availability of a player for the next game. However, I do feel that should be something just fine automatically at the end of the week. But for Ohio State's complaint about Oregon and Lanning's 12 man penalty... That one was pathetic. That has no impact on a future game. I'm also fine with coaches submitting a play and penalty for review to get a breakdown of why the flag was thrown. That is a learning experience and a chance for growth. It would also just be nice if the behind the scenes stuff concerning officiating reviews was more public. All refs get reviewed after every game and graded and it would be nice to see that data. No one is expecting a perfectly called game but it'd be nice to know if a game was normal or not.

It would also simplify the B1G championship race. The nightmare scinario is what happens if there are three undefeated B1G teams? I think Oregon could be the highest ranked AND miss out on the championship game oddly enough. Oregons one point win over Ohio State could come back to haunt us theoretically. However, i feel Ohio State may split Penn State and Indiana and not drop both.

I think it might be a little worse. But the reality is that everyone thinks the refs are out to get them and I am pretty sure almost every fan base thinks that their conference's refs are the worst. I know Pac-12 refs aren't perfect but to be honest a lot of the griping we are seeing about Big Ten refs and their no calls are things that we'd expect Pac-12 refs to be flag happy about. The Big Ten refs are absolutely fine (for the most part) with a lot of receiver-defender battles and hand fighting. In many ways they tend to favor the defender in that conflict. Whereas, the Pac-12 refs were always favoring the receiver, I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a Pac-12 ref throw a flag for offensive pass interference. I mean I remember the OPI in the 2020 Rose Bowl game but those oddly enough weren't Pac-12 refs. What we need is a centralized authority on refs that covers ALL of college football.

So far it doesn't look like Lanning and Oregon are the next Coaching Rebahiliation Center. Lanning has kinda gone the other direction in terms of coaching hires, going young and up-and-coming. Lupoi is an interesting one because if he wanted to at this point have a head coaching job somewhere he absolutely could have had one. Probably not Power 2 but somewhere would have taken a shot on him. I think Cal would have in their last head coaching search to be perfectly honest. For them taking Lupoi and where he was on the Saban coaching tree would be really appealing and he's an alum over going the Justin Wilcox route. But Lupoi hasn't shown any interest in a head coaching job. I think he's a continuity guy who will be at Oregon for as long as he or Lanning want him to be here. He's been here for three years at DC, that's longer than ANY of Mario Critobal's coordinators at either Oregon or Miami. And Lupoi isn't alone as there have been many other assistant coaches at Oregon for the three years of the Lanning administration. I'm sure a few of the younger guys have some head coaching aspirations so there'll be coaching movement at some point for sure, but I don't see Lanning filling spots with former head coaches at this point but younger guys.

If he wins the Natty it would be "a great honor"... Without the championship ring he'll consider it a "so what" for sure.

Him going nuts on the subject was also playing within the rules. They couldn't undo the win but if you put 12 or more players in the field on purpose that is an unsportsmanlike penalty. Again, can't undo the win... But if he said more than he did I could see something from the B1G office come down on him. He was certainly playing with the line.