David Marsh

The offensive and defensive lines cannot truly be built on the transfer portal alone. There just aren't enough quality linemen in the portal and those high quality linemen that do enter the portal and usually grabbed by some of the biggest powers in college football. I mean Oregon grabbed three offensive linemen who were all starters at their respective programs at one point and they grabbed Jordan Burch from South Carolina. There aren't that many high quality linemen in the portal. You can fill holes with them but you need to recruit them to build the foundation of your lines.

I actually think that all the other conferences that have former Pac-12 teams are really going to regret the break-up of the west coast conference. B1G - Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA will take games off everyone in conference play next year. If Oregon is able to reload they may even make a run for the conference championship. Big 12 - Honestly.. Utah and Arizona (if Jedd Fisch stays) may end up running that conference. ASU is a year or two out from being a real problem and Colorado already plays Big 12 football with all offense and no defense. The Big 12 is probably going to be run by former Pac-12 teams for years to come. ACC - Cal is looking much better this year and if Wilcox stays around I can see them taking a bite out of ACC schools and making bowl games regularly. Travel time will be awful but that goes both ways and as for Stanford... well the ACC will have a lot of teams drop games to the Cardinal when they know they shouldn't. I don't see either California team owning the conference but I see them both making other teams in the conference miserable as I can see to the two California teams making bowl games and keeping others out of them. The Mountain West - even if the Beavers and Cougars aren't officially apart of the MWC next year they will deal everyone multiple losses. They will probably end up owning that conference for at least a few years, or at least until their banks run out.

I do find it funny that due to a lack of performance TVD was benched by Cristobal. Something that never happened at Oregon when we had under performing quarterbacks and the fans were begging for another quarterback to play. Granted they were underperforming due to scheme and coaching and not their actual ability. But still... Remember when the Oregon fanbase had had enough of Brown and wanted Thompson because surely a highly ranked freshman had to be better? Nope... But MC seemed more willing to bench TVD. Some maybe he has grown as a coach.... Just not in a productive way for the offense.

I'll probably look like a fool in a week or two... But... I don't get the sense that Lupoi wants to be a head coach. If that is something he wanted he could of had it by now. He may have proven his DC chops a bit this year but the hiring of most HCs these days is less and less about how good a coordinator is and more about whether they can recruit, develop, and manage a team. I think if Lupoi wanted to be HC then he could have gotten a job somewhere, even a power 5 job.

We know nothing at this point. I would be surprised if the coaches decided to sit him last week to give him time to heal. He was in steet clothes so it's clear the coaches' intent was not to play him at all. He has an undisclosed injury so it could be significant or it could be minor and the coaches just wanted to rest him. It would be great to have Florence back.

Smith won't have anything this big. But a significant increase over what he had at OSU.

Zone read runs as part of a RPO are reletively safe for a QB. Nix was injured last year in one of Dilly's absolute WORST play calls of the entire season. Nix was in an empty set (no runningback) in a fairly obvious running situation against Washington. I want to say it was 3rd and 6(ish). They run the play, or partially run the play before a timeout is called and the Huskies see its a QB run play. Then the Ducks line up and do the same play again! By this point in the game Washington had put a spy on Nix to try and slow his run game. Without a runningback in the backfield with Nix there isn't even a fake hand-off to try and confuse the defense it's just a QB run right after snap. Then in typcial Washington fashion the defender leads with his head into Nix's leg and injures him. But this injury could have been avoided if they at least put a runningback with Nix and based the play off some sort of zone read rather than just auto running the quarterback. They could have also passed the ball, T-Ferg is an absolute beast and could have caught a ball for 6 yards and a first down. So I'm less afraid of running a quarterback if the play call around that call is right and it puts a quarterback in a position to protect themselves in the process with either a slide in the open field or just running out of bounds. But a QB run without even a runningback in the backfield is frankly poor judgement.

It does feel a little bit like the Ducks should just take the field goal and not bother trying for a touchdown at times in this situtation. I remember the Mariota era where that offense was in a short yard situation at the goal line and sometimes for them getting a false start seemed to make scoring easier because they had just a little more space to operate the offense. This offense's problem is the opposite sooooo.. yeah. But we also seem to have far more penalties around the 10 yard line than anywhere else.

Nix kept the ball and scored against OSU on a run from 6ish yards out. So that is an effective answer but don't really want to send him in too much. But a few more QB designed runs might help loosen things up in general.

TAMU is doing something SC likes doing. Hiring someone who has connections with the program. DeBoer has been good with Penix but can he keep it up moving forward? Keep in mind that linemen out of the portal are few of quality and Washington has been ok so far but what happens when they graduate. Oregon has dominated west coast linemen for about 5 or 6 years now.

This is the major key. I feel Oregon did not game plan their defense well enough last time to make this consistent enough. It might take putting a double team on Odunze and force the Huskies other playmakers to step up. They have them without a doubt but Odunze is their biggest threat. The other thing the defense really needs to lock down is the Washington run game. It's not a prolific run game but it's plenty good. In the last meeting their RB got 100 yards against us and that was more than enough to keep the Husky offense on track on a regular basis. Shutting down the run will allow them to really get after Penix because they'll be in more forced into passing situations, they usually want to pass but don't let them pass on their terms.

Burch and Doralus are playing some insane football right now. I think they have another big day in them on Friday.

Need the gators to take out FSU. That will open up a lot for the Ducks. But I'm not feeling great about the Gators right now.

Bama will have to play and beat Georgia next week to get into the playoff. I don't think Georgia is going to be as easy as Auburn.

And maybe DeBoer has an eye on that TAMU job. But the Huskies are a team that has used up most of its depth. Oregon has used up some but we have a whole lot more. Also... Our front seven is peaking big time right now. Where Penix escaped six games ago, he'll go down. I also hope that Lanning, Lupoi and Hampton have really looked at how other teams have slowed them down because we need a better defensive game plan that what we used last time. Also a bit better offensive game plan too which I think we'll have because the Ducks have been much better at game planning since the Washington game.

They do ... But not a top 10 team let alone a top 5.

Yeah ... We need a highly ranked Washington to make the playoff. So we better beat them now and ruin their dreams.

Refs protected the Huskies AGAIN with that roughing the passer call.

The thing is in sure Lewis is practicing the best out of everyone in terms of kicking. But that's not translating to the game and it really needs to. Knowing nothing about the other kickers I would want to bench Lewis but I also know that I know nothing about the other kickers. So I will default to trusting Lanning because he knows what is going on.

I didn't see the rush yards but I know he's running a lot more than Nix is this year. Nix gets another chance to impress though and Daniels is done.

Daniels didn't break the stat sheet against a completely unranked and mediocre TAMU. 235 yards passing and 4 total TDs. Nix looked better against OSU with his over 300 yards passing and 3 TDs against a RANKED OSU team..

I think some of the math is changing st Oregon State right now. If they want to get back into a Power conference rebuilding the pac-12 isn't it but they still might think so. But I think a lot of that would have needed Smith around. Being king of a weak conference can be just fine to make the playoff, especially the expanded playoff, but you need to be king by a mile. OSU can get another good coach but they are certainly a stepping stone school. I think they could have a shot at the big 12 in a few years but that was with Smith. Without Smith it all became a whole lot harder. But if you're Smith and you want avoid being G5 leaving now is really the only option.

I have found it funny how Washington fan think they beat the Ducks by double digits when that was not the case.

Ohio State's offense being so meh this year is a bit of a shocker because that's been their strength. Day is an offensive guy. They are getting punched pretty bad right now. I do think our Ducks could probably take Michigan or Ohio State right now though.

Biggest thing to help Oregon right now is that Oregon beats Washington. Do it with a respectable margin and all the better. I think Oregon matches up against both rather well. But in the grand scheme of things it all comes down to the comitee which seems to like Oregon. One thing Oregon has done a great job of this season is just dealing with lesser competition. We have only had two nail biters all year. Texas Tech was dicy for a while there and then the loss to Washington, which could have been in a win but the Ducks shot themselves in the foot. The B1G sucks outside of 2 teams at the top and a top 25 but by no means great PSU team. The pac-12 has done what it always does and canabalized itself after the top two teams. I wouldn't be surprised if Oregon's beat down of the Beavers throws them out of the top 25 just to cause us some problems. No team that plays Oregon is the same afterwards. If Colorado played USC before Oregon I think there's a good chance they would have stayed ranked for a couple more weeks. They played Oregon and were exposed badly and were thrown from the rankings. They would have lost that ranking regardless they aren't that good but Oregon threw them from the rankings fast. USC gave up on their team after Oregon.