David Marsh

Yep... We have gotten used to it over the years. Usually they are saying that sort of thing when USC hasn't earned anything. Williams at least has last year's Heisman.

Arizona is playing to win right now. They are going after USC. They are getting pressure on Williams which makes me feel pretty good for Oregon's chances against USC later. Though at this rate USC may not be ranked.

So Colorado barely survives ASU. How much of that might be playing a later kick off game and then relegated to the Pac-12 network rather than one of the biggies for this game?

The defense was what really lost those games. Oregon was only able to win by just out scoring the opponent. The defense didn't give us any wiggle room last year. Nix's injury should not be repeated this year. I have already ranted and raged about the empty set and won't do it again... but Lanning and Stein aren't running Nix like he was last year. No where near as much which is a good thing. He is still getting some run time in but fewer designed qb runs.

Need Colorado to win this one to make our win over them look a bit better.

Kinda odd... chip has a good defense but his offense is basically non-existent.

I would say that trend is across much of the country right now. I'd say Oregon, Georgia, and Michigan have some of the best line play overall this year. Ohio State looks vulnerable, Texas and Oklahoma aren't that deep on their lines either. Even with steller QB play much if the game is still won at the line of scrimmage.

My answer... probably. But it doesn't matter. Oregon just needs to continue to take care of business. They have No. 7 next week and if WSU wins today another top 15 math up at least if not potentially a top 10. USC should be ranked by the time Oregon plays them but where we'll have to find out. Utah could also be ranked but I'm not feeling super confident there at the moment. Oregon State will should also be ranked at the end of the season. If Oregon gets through that gauntlet they're in the the playoff. Texas and Oklahoma both see a drop off in their schedules for the remainder of the season.

I absolutely agree that the Ducks made a fantastic hire. And I also get why fans were like "who is Dan Lanning? And can't we get someone more high profile?" Admittingly I was a bit in that camp until I started to dig into who Lanning is as a coach and a person I was completely sold. I was actually thinking that Kiffin might be our best shot at getting the offense back. But I'm far happier with Lanning now than I'd ever be with Kiffin by a long shot. I also completely understand why program alumni and old timers wanted Wilcox or someone with deep connections to the program. We had gone through just losing two head coaches to schools in Florida. I think we'd still have Cristobal if it was any school besides Miami calling. Taggart was only a matter of time until he could return to Florida. Thankfully for the Ducks these two Floridians returning home gave us a nice windfall in money to help fund Lanning and his staff. But I get that there was a strong desire to not have to be in he market for a new coach in a few years. The truth is that we had a lifer at Oregon in Helfrich, this was his dream job and by the Bellotti standard Helfrich's record was plenty good enough to keep him around but the standard at Oregon has drastically changed. Lanning may oray not be a lifer but right now it feels like he probably is based on his comments.

But we'll be in the LA market for TV every year which is what it is now. And Oregon is geographicly fairly close to southern California so I'm not as worried. I would like to play USC and UCLA every year but I also understand why the schedule doesn't align that way.

Oklahoma is starting to pull ahead. Maybe Texas isn't as good as everyone was saying? Both teams have some issues and neither is unbeatable. But it looks like Texas has lost a few players due to injury and that shows a lack of depth. The Ducks have a ton of depth this year that's for sure.

The Texas Oklahoma game could determine which team has the inside track to winning the conference and a CFP spot. The rest of the Big 12 doesn't look so good. They might have to play each other again in the Big 12 Championship Game ... I believe they haven't changed their format with the new additions.

And my bet is that most of the pickers for that game are going to pick the Huskies over the Ducks. But the Ducks are going to win and make them look silly.

I didn't see one already made so here we go... there is loads going on today. Ohio State is downtown o Maryland at the moment and Missouri is taking it to LSU. And Red River is heating up. Let chaos reign!!! In a good way for the Ducks anyways.

Don't need to shut it down completely and I don't think that's possible... but get just enough stops to build a lead offensively and run out the clock. Don't need to hold them to zero... just less than us.

I think at this point we still have yet to fully understand how high the ceiling for a transfer portal team can be. In truth I think we may be pretty close to understanding just how high they can go. I think it might take a few more years. Colorado did something amazing with their roster turnover as they went from a 1 win team last year to trippling that by mid season this year and I think they may get another win or two... getting to 6 might be tough.. Colorado also gave USC quite the scare which is a long way from where they were last year. But... Colorado couldn't compete with Oregon which is built very different.

I fast forwarded through the intro... there are at least some time stamps on YouTube.

We see this mostly across the board as well. Look at the runningback room. Any other program Irving, Whittington (now injured) and James would not only be starters but the featured backs. Instead they all have to share. At receiver it looks like Hutson is in the second string at this point. I saw him on the field with Thompson I believe. Though I do anticipate Hutson may transfer as he is now down the depth chart but we'll see. Offensive line will be pretty deep once we get some more transfers back to full power as well. Strother is practicing again and did play some reps against Stanford. Also... on the defensive line Burch is on the bench a whole lot more than I think anyone anticipated. All these fresh legs exhaust opposing teams thats for sure.

It all comes down to how they use the portal. USC, Washington and Colorado all want to use the portal to get the best players they can get... usually skill players. Which is admirable. But the portal has only a few of the absolute best recruits that every big program is after... high quality linemen. Oregon has really prioritized linemen that they want. Sure USC got a good defensive linemen from Georgia... or at least precieved good, Lanning didn't go after him so that says something I feel. Good and big linemen are difficult to recruit as high schoolers and expensive to get from the portal but personally I feel that going after linemen is probably the most important get out of tje portal. You can't teach big and that was on full display against Colorado.

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?