David Marsh

Right now I think OSU and WSU are hoping that rebuilding the pac-12 means they get to keep the "autonomous" or power status. They won't... the other four won't let them. With autonomous status they would get access to the playoff by being a well ranked conference champion. But I don't see the B1G, SEC, big 12 and ACC going for that. At best they keep the brand... but it's a brand everyone knows is toast.

I wouldn't declare the sky falling yet but I am not saying I don't have my concerns. 1. Last year's line had some big time veteran power to it. We have replaced 4.5 starters this year. I give the .5 to Harper as he does have some starting expirence with injuries last year. So lots of youth that needs to work together. Sure we have Cornelius who started elsewhere but he didn't stay with this offensive line. 2. Waiting on injuries... will this be the final version of our offensive line? Nope... we have a few transfers who are healing from injuries, will they best out the starters? Maybe... but they'll add depth. 3. Texas Tech did sell out to stop the run... which is why the slants and other passes were there. If the offensive line looks bad against Hawaii, Colorado or Stanford without any improvement I'll start to worry. Just not quite yet.

70mil over time is still different than 20 mil up front. Not saying MSU wouldn't be interested in making that move but I feel there are probably cheaper options. Perhaps poaching another Colorado coach? That would probably be cheaper.

But still not what doomed us... We were down Pharaoh Brown (Utah Game injury), Bralon Addison (for the season), Devon Allen (Rose Bowl injury), Ifo Ekpre-Olumu (Pre-Rose Bowl inury) and those are the only ones I can remember right now.. So yeah Carrington failing a drug test out another level of stress... but there just werent the bodies available to compete with Ohio State that also just had us beat on both lines of scrimmage.

That one could have been a bigger problem. But in 2014 Oregon made it to the national championship game. We just didn't have a deep enough roster to win it.

I'm going to be "that guy" ... But isn't that really the Oregon identity? Aren't we the bombastic upstarts who routinely piss off the blue bloods? I mean USC loathes us because we are innovative with uniform designs and we played a huge part in the most recent innovations of the game with the proliferation of the spread offense. I want to see Sanders and Colorado be brought down a peg as much as anyone... but I still believe that we are the upstarts in the room. Colorado is trying to reclaim what theyvd lost.

These I like. Part of me would like it more with a yellow helmet so it feels like it pulls the yellow through a bit better. It kinda feels like green with some yellow pants. But that's nit picking. Green and yellow all day!

I know Canzano has said he wants to cover anything of interest on his readers. So that's at least both Oregon schools and a mix of anything else. We'll see what happens. I mean even covering the Big 12 isn't that great of an option because it's still the Big 12 minus it's current two biggest brands. Sure there are lots of other schools but the Big 12 is clearly a tier 2 conference.

There is one potentially two holds in that picture alone.... if those were called Oregon would have held TT'S score down.

And that school wants to pay something like a 20 mil buyout?

The PAC has finally put together a overall good coaching roster and a coaching roster that is taking advantage of the transfer portal BIG TIME. As a conference we lost our on a ton of talent as high school recruits but able to get them on the rebound through the portal. Sad this is the end of the conference but going out in style at least.

Easy 14 points Oregon gave up from penalties. Jacobs is still not full go by the look of it.

Plenty of chasing the ball... a bunch of missed tackles that should have stopped the play for little or no gain... some mistakes should have resulted in a tackle for loss of a sack. Could the heat have played a bigger factor in that? Maybe... But they'll need to clean up the tackling big time.

Those dropped passes killed at least one maybe two drives. Add that to the dumb false start penalties and that's two - four drives toast from self imposed mistakes.

I'd say right now they certainly need to work on communication and teamwork. But there were plenty of times where the front seven got great pressure because the back end held up long enough.

If that touchdown just puts us up by 7 then I think it would be more critical to take the knee. But being up by 8 is a completely different game. Granted... taking a knee at like the 1 yard line the Ducks can burn time off the clock and still potentially get a touchdown. But in terms of perception I think it's important for the Ducks to cover the spread and anyone who just looks at the box scores sees that Oregon won by more than a touchdown. So I'm glad Bassa got the points... also I think it will really boost the defense's confidence. Defensive points can be hard to come by but can be decisive in the outcome.

There were some bad coaching calls on the defensive side of the ball, the mass sub on 3rd and 2 was a bad call that resulted ina botched play and a penalty. But I'd actually say most of Oregon's defensive woes last night didn't have anything to do with the play calling. Oregon missed a TON of tackles. I mean Shough had several big runs where he was actually hit behind the line of scrimmage but the tackle was sloppy and didn't bring him down. Same goes for the TT run game where many of their longer runs actually started with the runner getting hit but not going down. Tackling against Portland State was fundamentally more sound, and yes they were a lesser opponent but squaring up to tackle a runner and being fundamentally sound doesn't care about if the opponent is FBS or FCS, the defender still needs to use the proper technique. Granted against lesser opponents they can get away with sloppy tackling. Right now the coaching does need to work on reinforcing the fundamentals and also work on dealing with running quarterbacks... two weeks in a row now where a running QB picks up too many yards. Oregon has Hawaii this week to fix some of these issues before conference plays begins.

TT was making the red zone tough enough to punch through... a two point chance at that point probably would have failed. Up by 7 is a whole lot scarier than up by 8.

Yep... The first foot that was on the ground didn't count because he didn't have control of the ball... his second foot was definitely out of bounds. It was a close call and honestly probably could have gone either way.

The end of this one felt EXACTLY like the WSU game from last year. It arguably might have been better if Bassa took a knee in bounds at the 2 yard line to burn clock and kill the game that way.... But being up by 8 is pretty comfy all things considered. TT had to drive the entire field and score a touchdown and then convert for 2 points to tie the game. I will say this game felt like Jekkyl and Hyde on both sides of the ball at times. There were times that the defense just looked absolutely dominant and same goes for the offense... then there were times when they just looked inept. I feel the last offensive play with the toss to James was a mistake... either power it up the gut or have Nix do a keeper and either run it in himself or find a quick pass. That play felt too easy for TT to stop.

Uh oh... Mario has almost scored his quota of points. So things will get more interesting soon.

It looked like Baylor just gave up on that play entirely. I initially thought there was something called to stop the play but it was still live.

Also... Colorado has at least 2 unsportsmanlike penalties that I've seen, haven't been watching the whole game. That's pretty sloppy and avoidable.

Let them get ranked higher.... All the better for when they come to Autzen. Nebraska's defense is now playing sloppy with the penalties. Lots of off sides penalties. One of the things we could really take away from last week for the Ducks is that they played clean and didn't get any truly dumb penalties.

But it'd be close in the 4th!