David Marsh

They will have to determine who the highest ranked is because the format says automatic bid for the 5 highest ranked conference champions. As there are only 4 P4 conferences and 5 other conferences they'll have to determine who the best is for that spot. Which would mean doing a ranking outside the top 25. I have a feeling the committee would determine this behind closed doors and just slip in a 5th conference champion into the top 25 to make it easy on themselves. Doesn't mean it's fair or right ... Just the way it'll be.

And what's counter intuitive is that it matters more where you're opponents end the season than their ranking at the time of the game. Even though all the attention is on top 10 or top 25 match ups the week of it doesn't hold the same weight as where teams end the season.

They haven't met any real competition yet and they really don't this season. Their best win is against a Florida team in shambles. Or against USF who aren't power 4.

Yes.... They can but this is probably what needs to happen. 1. Win out .. duh this is a given. 2. Win convincingly ... Don't look like Mountain West teams are your equals. They can probably have a couple close wins but can't make a habit of it. 3. Pray the Ducks win the B1G... Yeah this one is going to be the hardest for Beaver fans. But if Oregon wins the B1G then they am an say their only loss is to probably the No. 2 team in the country. And then they'll have to hope and pray that the committee doesn't have anyone else deemed more worthy or they pity them enough. Then and only then does OSU get like the 12th spot and the honor of getting demolished by a B1G or SEC team in the first round of the playoff.

Overall... Not too bad. So far Oregon has played winning programs. Even FCS Idaho holds a win over Wyoming a G5 school. Oregon State has a win over Purdue a P4 or P2 school. Granted not a good one but it was a one sided win. These were some good training games to get the season rolling. This week we face our first team with a losing record in UCLA!

I'll be honest... I just stay at home. Though I've seen games atamy pubs, but never made a mission to go there and watch a game. It's been non Oregon games I've seen part of while out. Fire on the Mountain has some decent table seating for it and Breakside Brewpub has decent TV placement. Both have good food. Both are also in NE Portland.

And to anyone to said because we're in the B1G now we'll never have late night games. Yeah... We're getting late night games when we aren't playing on the east coast and we aren't playing against too teams. Boise State didn't start until 7:30 two weeks ago. This isn't going to change but it will be a bit less frequent. We'll have another late start the following week because it's a Friday game against Michigan State on the West Coast.

In this regard I think we're better suited for the B1G. The problem with Pac-12 refs (among many problems) is that they tended to not let players play through a play and we're flag happy. This got us into trouble when he had refs from other conferences because our guys weren't physical enough and it had less to do about physicallity and more to do with how refs called penalties. If you get flagged for any contact as pass interference you're less likely to engage and battle it out with a receiver. Oregon had a lot of these overly aggressive flags the past few seasons that we frankly haven't seen this year.

I'd say that if they were playing an old pac-12 slate but against mountain West teams... I can see 7-8 wins.

I do believe this Oregon State team and Trent Bray will win a good amount of games. But I never said they'd be fun or interesting.

Stanford won last night against Syracuse. I still find myself backing the old-pac. But of course minus USC and Washington. I wouldn't mind if those two went 0-12 every year.

By November... I think so. Oregon should have a full set of offensive linemen and a fully cooking offense by then. Which should allow Oregon to establish a run game of their own anf put up more points than USC. USC has some good linemen but no depth. Oregon's defense is deeper and more talented than USC's and by November should be functioning at a high level. Stopping the run and taking away the pass. I think Oregon matches up fairly well. Granted last year i thought we would have matched up well against Michigan but we were poor against Washington so didn't get our shot.

I'd agree with that now. They probably won't officially rename it at this point. If they renamed it when they said they would we'd probably use both names.

The alumni exchange the playapus trophy. Which is why it should have been a no brainer when they choose to rename the civil war game that it should just be called the playapus bowl.

And now we can all go back to being indifferent about Michigan football until they play someone else we don't like. I think the last time we were all rooting for Michigan was when they played Washington.

Harper's flexibility in think will be key. We are also waiting to get Iuli back as well. What does the offensive line look like with two more players in the rotation? I do think Bedford was recruited to play right guard in particular and leave Harper at left. But the current rotation does feel like he can play both and get players where they're comfortable.

The narrative of the game was agonizingly bad. They kept buying up WAZU like the best pac-12 team as if the pac-12 was still intact. Then the half time and early third quarter hype up if how great the new PAC will be ... I mean I guess they need to hype it up as that's kinda their job. But it felt like a joke and sad. They lost more than they'll ever get back in the rebuild.

This broadcast of the WSU game is pretty awful. Right now talking about how great this new Pac-12 is going to be just feels so false. Also saying that WSU should be top 25 because of their two wins... I mean they exposed the Huskies but no one was saying the Huskies were too 25 either.

Also the score board graphics are ultra basic. Kinda like they're made in 90's Microsoft products.

If San Jose State beats Washington State can we safely say that the Huskies are worse than a G5 team?

Could we get a talking fish version? I know this is a bass... but maybe something like this?

With a name like Cascade Clash, which is unofficial but should be the thing, I'd say it should be mountain themed.

I mean they basically had the ball for the entirety of the first quarter it felt like. Time of possession works great if you score on those drives and have a lockdown defense to stop opposing offenses. I mean that's how Stanford won so many games and caused Oregon so many problems in the last decade. This start doesn't work if you are out matched physically... As we all saw. They helped to burn their own clock to end the game for us.

We're still behind against the Huskies in the overall record last I checked. But that can change if Oregon can begin another decade of dominance.

I said in my article that I think Bray did his players a disservice with that line. They played well and executed well. They just were outclassed physically.