David Marsh

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.

What's been interesting is seeing how Lanning and Stein have really changed up larger game plan to take care of opponents. Against Oregon State and USC Lanning didn't want them to possess the ball too many times. So they concentrated on slower drives. Well against USC the first two scores were so fast that it looked like the game might become a boat race but there was some intentional slowing the game down with the run game. Against OSU, Lanning knew they wanted to possess the ball and hammer the defense. Oregon is really deep so that didn't quite work but doubly so when the defense kept coming onto the field rested from long offensive drives. The downside in both games... Oregon didn't score as many points as they could have if they played with more tempo. The upside... Two solid wins.

From what I keep seeing year after year is that the B1G is pretty awful after Ohio State and Michigan. I think Penn State was overrated this year, sure they are a top 25 team but not top 15, they lack an offense. Wisconsin should be good again at some point but they may be a year or two away from being relevant. But who else do they have? The Pac-12 has been the most competitive and entertaining conference for the last decade easily. We haven't been the best conference or produced any National Champions granted, but in terms of top to bottom and competitiveness there hasn't been a conference that has competed in that department. Sad to see it go but there is still one more game to be played for the Ducks. The B1G just doesn't look as good from a top to bottom in terms of competitiveness. It will make Oregon's entry into the conference certainly interesting because the Ducks are going to mess up their entire dynamic.

And... Oregon may have dismantled OSU so badly that I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they were ejected from the top 25. Which would mean Oregon doesn't have a top 25 win... again.

I think in some ways that is why we may not have seen a "correction" because Lanning and co want them to be physical and because of that physical play they broke up a number of passes that would have been catches otherwise. I do remember after the Texas Tech game, which did have Pac-12 refs, that Lanning basically said he wasn't concerned by a couple of the PIs because the players were playing physical and sometimes a flag gets thrown. It felt that way a few times tonight where the flag was thrown but any other conference's refs wouldn't have thrown it to begin with.

Watching the game and the flags that were thrown I kept saying to myself, and whoever in the room that would listen, so usually no one, that those flags were most crap. There was physical play on Oregon's side but I kept thinking that a good portion of the PI flags on Oregon wouldn't have been flagged in the B1G or SEC. They would have let the players play a physical game against each other. But in the Pac-12 getting too physical at DB is often a flag. Granted what frustrated me most is always the late flag where the play is over and everyone starts to reset and the flag flys in. But I think this Oregon team is going to be just fine in the B1G next year because of the physicality of this team. And I'm really starting to think that the Pac-12 refs just don't let the DBs play all that physical. Unless you're Washington in which case you can hold receivers all you want and ram opposing players with your helmets.