Mike West

What have I said about pass coverage? What ticks me off more than any unforced errors? Thirty yards of passing because the linebackers are looking at the QB while receivers run past them. Both instances, all the backer had to do is locate the receiver in his area of responsibility, and take away the QBs option by covering the damn target. Like I said, I will write this ONE HUNDRED TIMES this year!!! We will have the best damn pass defense correcting that one mistake. NUMBER ONE!!!

42-17 OBD 1 TO 3 sacks 285 Passing Yards

Yeah, I'll NEVER forgive those arrogant fusky fans from the 70s, 80s and early 90s. I went to UW my first two years of school. I LOVE that campus. But I still hate those fans. So I despise them myself. No amount of quality education will erase the disdain I have for those days when Fusky fans rubbed our mediocrity in our faces. Now they tremble at the thought of Oregon. Poetic Justice at its greatest.

Who cares about hating the Fuskies. A UW win helps long term. I always look at the big picture. And I'll say it until my cold dead hands can't type anymore: Very good UW and USC teams- and in fact elite status- is the best thing that can happen to OBD. Because we're positioned to STILL BE BETTER. I'm not ever going to fear teams like last year's UW or Pete Carroll's version of USC. We are developing better teams than both. It's all in the players now- they have the best tools EVER.

Boy, I sure hope the College Football leaders nip these issues in the bud, AND maintain some semblance of the game they grew so well (until they made it oh so clear they were totally exploiting the players). Reggie Bush...suing the PAC12 and USC? Are you kidding me? They guy skirted the rules to set up his parents ( and himself)! Now he wants compensation because he "had to take that route". While I agree the NCAA and the school limited his financial opportunities, how do you rear-ends his situation, the. come up with a formula for the average player? They signed contracts after all. What a mess. When is a contract a contract? In other words, when will the courts enforce the contracts people sign? How is it just that people can sue to weasel out of their contracts? This goes on in the NFL all the time. In my opinion, if you want market value for your services every so often, sign shorter duration contracts. Or sign better contracts with incentive clauses. Worse, the NFL owners can't "collude" to restrict those negotiating ploys ( and some NFL owners are so stupid, they bid up the price for certain players- which in my opinion exposes just how much they STILL exploit the players). I don't want 45 premier college teams mimicking that financial arrangement. I loathe watching the NFL, until the semi finals for that very reason. Seeing a player I've never heard of sign a $200M contract ( all the power to him actually), while seeing another player get mad because his ego tells him he's better (bolstered by the fact he's been to the Superbowl and three AFC title games) infuriates me. This UNLV kid is another unknown, already milking the system instead of suing the collective. Worse, the public doesn't get to see the details of the contract- to determine what is just or unjust. We already know kids are using the portal as leverage, and it is only going to get worse. All so mostly anonymous kids that looked great at their local, mostly ordinary high school. I'm all for setting the players up so they get rewarded for what really is a dangerous sport. And if the colleges do this right, some kids will set up the next five to ten years for themselves, even if they never go to the NFL. Heck I'm ok with players playing up to seven years now. What a way to stick it to the NFL for preying on kids' hopes and dreams knowing less than 5% of them will never sign an NFL contract. Of course, setting up that kind of arrangement has to be carefully crafted, as agents and family members already blow up these kids' minds towards illusions of grandeur ( look at the Sanders kids- especially the defensive back- he's a marginal talent at best, and might not make an NFL team). Look at this UNLV kid. Bad career move in my mind. Sue the damn collective. Expose the game some, so players and families ( and CFB fans) get a grip on how the game is being played.

Yep.

I'm not sold on Jackson Arnold yet. He has more ability than Howard. But he hasn't shown the performance skills Howard demonstrated at KSU. I'm not much of a fan of Freshman or Sophomore QBs starting for P4 teams. You literally have to show me you are as good as a Heisman caliber QB those first two years - and I'm talking about performance, not ability. Now if you perform better than the guy ahead of you ( Arnold didn't and still hasn't), THEN YOU CAN START FOR ME. USC is playoff caliber with a guy that waited four years to start. Tennessee and Texas have Juniors that are top shelf performers that sat behind top shelf performers. I'll let you leave if you feel you're great. Most especially if I have a DG or Will Howard as my QB. If you aren't leading TD drives in practices and scrimmages every day, and I mean multiple TD drives, you are riding pine on my team. Potential would not get me either fired, or sitting at home on conference championship day. I can't go for that ( no, no ...no can do). I get what you're saying. But Oklahoma and KSU went all in, and busted. They're both out of the playoffs.

Glad you posted this. I didn't think about today's game, but I sure have been thinking OU made a serious mistake forcing DG out. Goes to show the NIL/ Portal issue is very serious for budding playoff prospects. Too many kids are a legend in their own head.

Nice Preview Jon! I agree, that Miami's win in Gainesville is overrated ( A&M revealed how hollow UF is, and ND blew up A&M's playoff hopes). There will have to be some upsets, as the SEC could sneak in FIVE teams if they win the games they're supposed to. Clemson beats Miami IMHO, but depending on what happens in the B1G, Miami could notch a playoff berth. Oregon AND Penn State have to go 11-1 to assure themselves a spot. USC has to beat Michigan and/or Penn State to nab a berth ( they should beat ND, but who knows). North Carolina was in good shape till they lost QB Johnson. The SEC is very deep. I suspect there will be controversy on who plays in Atlanta for their crown. Four of them have a real shot at going 11-1. That 10-2 team will have an argument for playoff inclusion, as this conference is truly deep. It looks like the regular season still matters. I didn't see that coming. For the good of the game, I actually hope the P2 offer that 14 team playoff with two guaranteed spots to the ACC and the Big 12 ( and no G5 for unless they defeat a ranked team or two). That format, as ugly as it seemed when it was offered, just might be the only difference between CFB and the NFL ( especially if the P2 are stupid enough to go their own way). This is actually going to be a thrilling year!

Charles, The first thing I in thought about was the sequential plays. I can spot three that might work, but I'm just a hack. I certainly hope Stein is working those sequential plays in practice, and keeps them under wraps until Ohio State comes to town. We'll have to see. The Buckeye LBs are pretty darn good in pass coverage, so anything to keep the off balance would disrupt their very effective pass defense. Great article. You observed something I didn't catch. Not even sure those plays were part of of the first two games Did you catch anything else from last week?

I don't think that's a bad deal. If he plays to his potential, and scouts believe he will eventually start in the NFL, that means his performance will be top shelf. In addition, the talent behind him ( talk about great depth) will get to play that much sooner. We have massive QB talent right now. Best to develop DM to NFL caliber this year, so he performs next year. It's clear Stein gets the most out of his QBs. And if Stein stays...whew. I hope DL is scouring for OC talent just in case

Looking forward to your analysis FishDuck.

I like how the defense responded to an obvious getting chewed out. Damn near perfection. That is the standard. They don't have to be perfect, but the effort to be perfect matters. We didn't see that effort in the first half on defense. Very good performance today. A solid B+ ( on a scale from F to A+). So much to clean up. Because we're playing to get ready for the playoffs. Every game is practice getting ready for the playoffs. Grade them tough, love them up to superiority. All criticism is in respect to prepare for the elite teams. No intent to denigrate the players. It's all about rising to elite status every game.

Naw, That was strictly poor performance last week. The line met the standard this week. Boise State isn't capable of stopping OBD when they play like this. This is what the nation expected out of OBD.

Not much comments on other games now that OBD are playing. LOL

Yep, Poor tackling like that is from a lack of intensity. Definitely not up to standard. Will this team put together a complete game this year?

They're not taking FishDuck's advice. Just stack the box and force them to throw the ball. I am disappointed in Lupoi's choice of formations. Again, they don't have the personnel to run the defense they want to run. In addition, the defense is slacking. Now THEY are playing lax. No intensity outside a few players like Boetcher. Finally, I'm picking on Dontae Manning all game of I'm an OC. Poor call on the roughing the passer. That's a homer call. Defense needs to start playing to their level of talent. They just don't play with fire.

I'm going to say this 100 more times this season. Cover the receiver, stop looking at the QB

LSU DE abandons the edge, Gamecocks score. Gentleman, this is a football. Seal the edge, cover your receiver ( don't look at the QB), run the ball well and you control the game. If you have a talent edge, you dominate.

Oregon 38-14 1 TO 2 Sacks 315 Passing yards

Not in my opinion. It's about survival. We did it. Why wouldn't they? I could write a book about it, because after all, I babble too much. , WSU and OSU want to survive the best way they can. I don't think it makes sense, but I'm not facjing extinction either. If I was, I sure as hell would consider many things I don't now. That's for sure.

I totally respect your perspective on the time and place to correct bad behavior. Plenty of styles are different, and effective. Again, abusing a player is totally unacceptable. Respect completely matters.

A couple of thoughts... When I coached, I was pretty calm mostly. One time I raised my voice and everyone nearly laughed , but they paid attention. Another year I had a team that was just a clown show. If you ever watched Magic Johnson coach the Lakers, you can imagine what I was like. I couldn't stand the lack of work ethic. I just left the team. They went undefeated...they beat themselves so badly they were never in any of the games they played-all year. Timing is everything in a nutshell. You raise your voice for an impact. Usually, stared downs, snippets of disappointment, and silence (with a disgusted look on your face) is enough. Saban was hard on his players when they made mistakes, but he was encouraging when they lost their poise. He knew which buttons to push. As far as losing to little brother: I encourage all of you to watch some highlights of the SDSU game. In my opinion, we would have to play worse than both games x factor 3. The Beavers are fundamentally sound, and that's about it. In fact, if we don't deep six them, I'd be surprised. Even if the OL plays as poorly as they have. That's just my feeling.

You know, When I grew up, coaches yelled at us constantly. Hated it some of the time, but I mostly didn't mind. If you screw up as bad as Kris Hudson did, I would get in your face like that. It was known at the time the team was clowning around too much. Tons of dropped balls, unforced errors and inexcusable penalties. We even talked about it. Then Kris Hudson basically trashed a key first down conversion. Yeah, I would have ripped him one too. In fact, I didn't say it at the time, but my first thought was 'it's about time". Abuse is never acceptable. I'll tell you this, Kirby Smart and Nick Saban routinely lashed their players. Why do you think they have , what ten Nattys between them? Because they don't let kids run the show. Remember when Neon 'shallow' trolled Saban for quiting because of NIL? Guess who will never see a playoff game in his career? I'm pretty sure there's a reason Gen z and the millennials will never rise to the level of greatness Boomers have achieved - they didn't get their butts chewed out enough. If you don't force kids to take things seriously , they won't. Oh, I'm pretty sure Saban would have ripped Hudson for that dumb display.

That's a pretty good observation David. For me, it's the eye test. In addition, you just don't see consistent shut down mode from that unit. I've seen that routinely from the defense Lanning wants to mimic: Georgia. Their linebacker unit simply dominates games. That's what I think of when I assess OBD's unit. I believe you're correct though. They make their presence felt. That's a start, and that's definitely a good thing.