David Marsh

It's already happened!!! Auburn in 2018 felt this first hand as Georgia beat them in the SEC championship game. Auburn beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl. So Auburn was dealt their second loss and eliminated from the CFP. Bama got in with only one loss and wins the whole thing. Ohio State slipped into the CFP last year because they only had one loss, to B1G champion Michigan, and basically because there wasn't another team with a decent record to add. the CFP right now favors one loss teams over anyone with two losses. Championship games are a liability for a lot of teams and will continue to be.

This is a big reason why I say the Ducks should pass. OSU had a solid offensive line and a good run game. Their receivers weren't bad but not nearly as loaded at that position as the Ducks are... but throwing for under 60% is a big red flag for me.

No team was the same after playing Oregon. USC was fragile but after the Ducks they completely gave up. Colorado was exposed and eventually broke. Utah was bodied against Oregon and struggled to get their offense rolling again. Washington has played mostly in one score games after Oregon. Meanwhile... after the Washignton game Oregon has won every game (except USC) by major double digits.

I wasn't a football fan at all until Chip Kelly made it watchable for me. I was at Oregon at the time but I didn't start following until the 2009 Rose Bowl. Even then I didn't follow too close until 2011. The Kelly offense was just so much more fun to watch than any other football I'd seen before. Then I was hooked. So for me I guess I was at first a bandwagon fan, at least I have the credibility of being an Oregon alum, but now I'm a die hard fan. I wouldn't have been all that interested in football if Cristobal was the head coach at the time I became interested. That offense was boring to watch. One of the big reasons why I'm so happy with Lanning is that he has brought back an explosive offense. I do still miss the blur. Watching Mariota operate the blur was incredible to behold and I'll be honest I think it was a bit more entertaining than our current offense. However our current offense doesn't have any of the major weaknesses the blur had and is more effective all around. So I'm by no means complaining.

Gary Bryant should be back! Franklin is probably gone and should be drafted respectably. I'm not sure on Johnson's status and desire to stay or go but I suspect he's probably moving on as well. Loads of talent and we just need to make sure we have a QB ready to throw to them.

The first match-up this season I was a stressed out wreck the entire week. This time around... I'm feeling rather calm more like how I was against USC and OSU. Both of which had the potential to beat the Ducks and both games had a few moments where it looked like the Ducks might be in for a real fight but in the end comfortable wins. So right now I am feeling confident in the Ducks and this staff. I do feel that the loss to Washington was a huge learning point for coaches and players. The games following that loss have been planned better and the Ducks are playing harder than ever. So I am feeling fairly confident at the moment but not feeling like it will be a cake walk by any means. I wasn't feeling this way at all the last time we played Washington, I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself we were better prepared than we turned out to be.

The debate right now is about who controls the board. When USC and UCLA declared their leaving they lost their voting rights on the board. Same happened when Colorado declared they were leaving. So OSU and WSU are saying they are the only two members on the board with voting rights based on what has happened before. While everyone else is saying... that was before everyone else opted to leave the conference and everyone is a full member of the conference until the summer. The lawsuit about control initially went the way of OSU and WSU but it is going to an appeals court and the court has put a pause on the previous ruling. So we'll have to wait and see how these things work out. In short.. OSU and WSU want every dime they possibly can get. There are lots of revenues that will be distributed throughout the year as teams that make the playoff, significant bowl games, or the college basketball tournaments and so forth generate revenue that is split across the conference. OSU and WSU say they should get all those that are left over in the conference. Everyone else says that those should be evenly distributed and all other major assesses liquidated and those revenues distributed as well (such as the Pac-12 network).

It's strange grey area. A school cannot make contact about a transfer of a player is not in the portal , as no players are officially in the portal as it isn't open yet. A school cannot offer any NIL money as well as that comes from third parties. Schools are not allowed to coordinate with these NIL groups, but we all know this one is happening. There is completely the potential for collectives to contact players and "subtlety" recruit a player.

Not egg shell! Good!

I should have added... "It's a credit to Washington with lots of help from the refs..." Because those refs have really protected the Huskies this year.

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.