David Marsh

Expensive yes... but I do feel it is fair. It wouldn't effect the scholarship limits because they aren't with the team. It's no different than a medical retirement in that regard but it's just no the players choice.

If Rising wants to play another year then best to red shirt him and let him come back fully healthy. If he wants to enter the draft... he needs to get healthy to do that and not risk getting more injured by playing. It is likely Utah loses another game before he returns. They don't play Oregon until week 9 which is his projected return date. Before then Utah has Cal and USC. But wait... Cal isn't very good can't hey beat them? Yes... but Cal is happy to play a defensive slugfest type game and that's the only thing Utah can do. I give this one a coin toss with a slight advantage to Utah. If Cal can put together slightly more offense they might be able to win. As for USC... well they'll score on Utah and Utah's offense probably can't keep up. This is the game I predict Utah probably losing. Which puts Utah at 2 losses which knocks them out of the playoff running and probably out of the conference championship running. So what would Rising be returning to? In this day and age where everything is about the individual player and that player looking out for what's best for them it would be refreshingly selfless for Rising to return for his team... but it would be unwise for him to return for himself.

Every coach is doing it now. Sanders was the most high profile coach to do it at scale. Riley gutted his roster at USC and filled it up with the portal as well. Lanning even gutted and rebuilt this last season. Though in truth the portal has uncontrollable losses, sure coaches push players out , but a lot of players just leave because they want to. I'm pretty sure that Lanning and company would have been happy to hold onto Donte Thornton but he left and they needed to go fill the spot. I hate the idea of more lost recruiting rules... but it has to change with the other rules.in place.

I'm sure they'll be developed into top NFL draft picks. Every last one of them.

His teams had made the playoffs ... but never won a playoff game. Got close once but came up short against Georgia, first time Georgia made the playoff. The other appearances were less competitive.

We are reaching tte point in the year that teams are starting to understand their own weaknesses. With this understanding comes two kinds of weaknesses. One that can be fixed with changes in coaching or practice. A good example of this is Oregon getting their penalties under control. They were really bad against Texas Tech but since we have seen them decline in a meaningful and significant way. The other kind of weakness is structural and these are a lot harder or impossible to fix during the season. Colorado has a major structural weakness in their offensive and defensive lines, they're too small. That can't be fixed during the season because they can't add anymore guys to their team. They are going to have to live with that. Teams usually have a mixture of the two. But I think some of Washington's problems are certainly structural. They don't have much depth and they lost one of their big linemen against Arizona and by the sound of it he is suspect to return for the Oregon game. If that's the case that's something they really can't fix. They've also had some bruised up receivers but they are expected to return but how effective will they be? How effective with Washington's offensive line be against Oregon's pass rush? That's another structural problem. Sure they can scheme their way out of it by getting the ball out fast but what if there is no separation between receivers and defensive backs? The question for the Huskies is how much can they fix? And how much can get put a bandaid on to make it less bad because there is no in season fix?

We are testing the depth and guess what???? WE HAVE IT! I wish Noah the best in his recovery but the run game won't slow down. We have too much talent to be stopped! Bucky and James have ripped it up this year and will continue to do so.

If the B1G money wasn't so good Nebraska probably would have pulled a Colorado and left for the Big 12. Oregon has the brand to recruit nationally and it is paying off.

Here is how I see the offenses break down in the Pac-12 right now. Air Raid -Washington -Washington State -USC -Colorado -Arizona -Arizona State Ground and Pound -Utah (would probably balance out if/when Rising returns) -Oregon State -Cal Balanced -Oregon -UCLA (Passing attack is a bit suspect at the moment but both stats are close) -Stanford (but they are awful at BOTH!) So far Oregon has played a TON of pass heavy teams... and some of their most dangerous competition will remain pass heavy teams. Oregon State and Utah could be dangerous but our Offense has put up a whole lot more points. Utah might be a bit more deadly if they get Rising back as they have been one-dimensional so far, but how good is Rising going to be if he isn't 100% and when he returns he may be healthy but he isn't going to be as good as he was last year, at least not right away. He hasn't been able to play or practice at full speed for quite some time.

I don't know if Colorado is an elite overall offense. But they are an elite passing offense as they are ranked in the top 10 for passing offense. If Sanders isn't getting sacked every other play he can destroy a defense. But Oregon never gave him the opportunity. The reality is that most teams have decided to lean towards the big 12 model of minimal defense and just outscore the opponent. I think that's really the easiest way to win these days. Building a defense that can stop stread offenses is HARD and getting the pieces to do that is even harder. The teams that pick up the best linemen tend to be in the top 10 recruiting. We can thank Cristobal for starting to prioritize the lines. But I think Lanning's hires on both lines have developed our linemen far better than Cristobal's staff.

Beat me to it... The first game I saw Bucky Irving was against Ohio State and the dude was shredding them. A week later it was CJ Verdell shredding the Ohio State defense. Bucky was an incredible talent that slipped away from them.

Probably right... We are flying under the radar and will get bumped up when we win but not as much as other teams. That's just fine because if we keep winning we'll be where we need to be through it all. Remember we are just starting the month of October.... lots of football to be played still.

No... 15-0!!!! Let's go Ducks. Let's live that dream!

The problem comparing any current defense to Gang Green is that Gang Green never had to face the offensive proliferation that has happened in the last 15 years. The game in 94 was defensive focused where it isn't as much today. Still an incredible defense and a great model to strive for.

And... Troy Dye's other hand has a broken finger on it and he still played. The guy just couldn't be stopped!

Colorado is pretty air raidy too... Washington has slightly better lines and I would say better receivers. Most teams are going more of the air raid offense these days. Oregon is a bit of the exception. More on this on Tuesday.

I feel Nix is a better leader. He knows when he needs to put the team on his shoulders. Against Stanford on Oregon's third possession he runs on 3rd and 5 and gets the first down. He did some similar things against Texas Tech as well. He knows when he needs to lead for the team to win.

The ESPN match predictor is funny at the Runningback position as it is comparing Bucky Irving to Washington's Dillion Johnson. It looks like the two are evening matched in stats but the reality is that Oregon has two other runningbacks behind Irving that have close to the same stats as Irving. There is no comparison between these two team's run games.

I basically said that Oregon wasn't going to get any press coverage for the next two weeks (this week and next week) in my last article. Ducks Continue to Surge in Silence FISHDUCK.COM Last spring Josh Pate at Late Kick Live did a segment about how the Oregon fanbase was feeling. He basically said that the Ducks... We were on the Pac-12 network which seems to have less viewership now than every before with the conference's imminent demise and we played Stanford... a team that no one cares about. Oregon is flying under the radar and best to embrace it at this point. In some ways it puts less of a target on our backs and may inflate those Huskies heads enough that they make a few mistakes.

If Zona has better athletes on the pass rush they would have gotten him a few times there. Also... to give the pass rush more time having solid man coverage on the back end will make those decisions slightly harder. This is a game of split seconds... don't need much to to change the outcome. I think Stanford may have a better offensive line than Washington or at least somewhat comparative. Only Stanford is very underwhelming at every other position. Get a little heat on Penix and this pass heavy offense will be behind the chains. Always able to break out because it's so pass heavy but 3rd and 10 is still a different beast than 3rd and 4.

Against PSU Oregon only had like 1 or 2 flags. Against TT (pac-12 refs) it was dreadful. Then still pretty bad against Hawaii. But a decent improvement against Colorado. Then yesterday against Stanford there was another significant improvement. It should be under control against Washington. The coaches aren't going to let up yet on flags. It needs constant reinforcement. Some flags are acceptable but the self inflicted penalties are not and those are the ones that have really diminished the past couple weeks. It will be interesting to see if the false starts come back at Washington though with the actual crowd noise for the Ducks offense. Stanford isn't exactly loud.

It was old school Stanford football. Burn clock and slowly march down the field. Only thing it was missing was touchdowns instead of field goals. The defense stood strong in the end there. On the Duck side of things... that first three and out series I was frustrated they went for a deep shot on 3rd and 4 instead of trying to convert. After Stanford burned like half the first quarter on their opening drive it would have been better to keep the offense on the field longer.

Even if our secondary doesn't blanket the huskies receivers perfectly we'll be ok. Because Penix isn't a big runner and Arizona is giving Penix some pressure, not enough to seal the deal with sacks but a more athletically gifted team, say like Oregon, will get through and get some hits. Add that with having man-defense on his receivers making those throws more difficult and it could be a long day in Seattle for the Huskies. Remember everyone... Oregon doesn't need to hold the Huskies to 6 points to win and they probably can't do that anyways. They just need to ensure that Washington doesn't score more points than Oregon. And right now Arizona has been running through that Washington defensive line and their secondary is also getting carved up by Arizona's back-up quarterback. Not enough to make that game truly close but enough that Arizona is still alive and kicking in the 4th. Just wait until it's Oregon that is punching through with big runs and big passes. It's going to be a BIG game in Seattle in two weeks that's for sure.

Meanwhile... Oregon's defense is averaging 11.8 points per game allowed...

The Oregon crowd is getting in it now... Hearing the "let's go Ducks" chant on the TV now. Fans at Stanford, make this game a home game now!