Dr Hilarius

Please don’t hate me, but I am thrilled to see the Beavs on the CFP rankings.

@Pennsylvania Duck The Walsh rating is interesting, and it doesn’t surprise that the Ducks are leading the nation based on just my own non-expert eye test. What does surprise me is seeing Arizona nipping at our heals in 2nd place. They are going to be dangerous when they get their defense figured out.

What’s happening to Jimbo Fisher at A&M makes me sooooooooo happy. Let me count the ways… 1) Jimbo coached the world’s most overrated undefeated team to a Rose Bowl beatdown at the hands of the Ducks (and Tony Washington’s spooky forced fumble). 2) Jimbo’s FSU teams were all talent and no training (i.e. all hat and no cattle). 3) Jimbo left FSU for A&M bc he was losing on the field and in the locker room. 4) FSU hired Slick Willy as Jimbo’s replacement—hahahahahahaha. (Footnote: Slick Willy and Jimbo share the same agent.) 5) The highest ranked (and most expensive) recruiting class in ncaaf (that was expected to somehow entertain itself in College Station, TX) has imploded during Jimbo’s watch. I’m sure I will think of points 6-10 here soon…

Wow—the Beavs are ranked!!!

I will not jinx it by looking it up, but I don’t think we’ve lost a fumble all year.

2 turnovers on downs at the goal line in the 1st quarter will sour one’s perception of the game no matter how great the stats and score look at the end. This is the pattern I see in games this season: - stutter and make mistakes on offense but hold it together on defense in the 1st - offense starts to figure it out in the 2nd - total domination in the middle 8 - defense loses focus and lets the other team score late in 3rd / early in the 4th - total domination the end of the 4th for the win - solid special teams play throughout with a great special teams play dropped in somewhere for excitement IMHO it makes for very entertaining and low-anxiety football—my favorite kind!!

OBD made a lot of mistakes and still covered the spread. In fact, OBD are 6-2 against the spread this year, which is phenomenal IMHO. I don’t want to depress myself by researching the ATS records for the Mari0 years, but I am sure that we never came close to .500.

More excellent special teams play

yay middle 8!!

“Auburn cuts off its nose and then refuses to smell what Harsin is shoveling.” …one of the most funny mixed metaphors I’ve ever read. Could you imagine how we’d all be feeling this year if Auburn w Robby Ashford at QB were lighting it up while TT and Mari0 were flailing for the Ducks? Granted, Auburn was waaaaaay more invested in Nix than Ducks were in Ashford, but Ashford was on the Ducks’ scout team, so it evens out. All that being said, the current reality is sweet Karma for Dyer being down.

I can’t remember the last time I learned anything new about the Ducks from anywhere other than Fishduck articles and this forum. The only reason I ever read articles from elsewhere is to see if the rest of the world has figured out what we already know. And for that, I owe a great debt of gratitude to our fearless leader, @Charles Fischer

@Pennsylvania Duck I love this!! Best “middle 8” teams in the country this season As an engineer, clock mgmt seems like a no-brainer to me, and yet, some coaches (e.g. a certain Mari0) are soooooooooo bad at it. So this year I have been paying special attn to the middle 8, and the results… Chef’s kiss!! A work of beauty. Spotless and precise. I can’t fully express my delight in words.

@PittDuck Great question! I wish I knew the answer. I am not an expert by any means, but I am seeing a much improved defensive line. Could it just be that there are fewer opportunities for linebackers? Or maybe the LBs are doing such a great job getting into position that they’re forcing the play away from them toward DLs and CBs? Again, I am not an expert, but it doesn’t seem like the LBs are getting beat, they’re just not getting their names called. What am I missing?

I will stand by my prior post on this thread… IMHO, if Ducks go 12-1, they’re in the playoffs. A) No team has gone undefeated in the Pac since CK and LaMike. The committee knows and appreciates this degree of difficulty (i.e. 9 conf games). B) The Ducks would have 3 top-15 wins (ucla + utah + ucla/usc/utah) if they won out. C) The committee evaluates the “quality” of a loss, and the qualitative evaluation includes all the extenuating circumstances. D) Most importantly, the committee knows this is entertainment. Ducks can only make it as #4, and a Duck-Dawg rematch would prob get more eyeballs than a lot of Natty matchups. While they would never admit it, they’re human. Of course, the counterpoint is that if all 4 other P5s have undefeated champs, Ducks are out. But I think the likelihood of that is less than the Ducks winning out. The voters have been giving the Pac some love this year, and I think a Pac champ w a 12-game winning streak gets the nod over any 1-loss P5 runner-up.

“The Kick!” i love it!!

@Desert Duck Okay, I admit I might have been caught up in the moment… The Onside Kick is most definitely not === the Pick, but as @Charles Fischer said, it is ~ the Pick. I was a frosh driving back to Portland when I heard the Pick live on the radio and camped out overnight for Rose Bowl tix later that year. So I am reverent of the Pick. The Onside Kick is ~ the Pick bc it signaled a new era in Duck football. DL described the decision-making process… A) they used the BYE WEEK to learn an extra play B) the extra play they picked to learn is essentially a FORCED TURNOVER C) they managed the WEATHER and game clock to determine when to use the extra play D) they learned/taught the play to PERFECT EXECUTION That is 3D chess and is my/the new bar for OBD.

KD and DL just out-Kelleyed CK. Whoa.

KD gets the first half game ball. Frigging brilliance.

I agree When DeBoer was hired, I was much more concerned than I was w the Riley hire.

This might be superficial, but I wouldn’t trust Feld to get my coffee, let alone understand the subtleties of preventive therapy. And we all sure saw a lot of Feld—that guy really knows how to find the lens.

thanks @Pennsylvania Duck This was exactly my suspicion, and now I have arguments to substantiate my confirmation bias. Go Ducks!!

This is def an up year for the Pac. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/notre-dame-vs-stanford-updates-live-ncaa-football-game-scores-results-for-saturday-27009357/live/

I will keep reminding peeps that GA lost to AL 41-24 and then beat AL barely a month later for the 2022 natty. If ever there was a real reason to give a team a mulligan is when that team is playing its first game w a brand new coaching staff and QB against the reigning champs. tOSU lost to Northwestern the first game of the season and won the Natty later against the Ducks. I will argue that a 12-1 OR team doing a rematch against GA would be a MUST-SEE tv. Mark my words… a 12-1 Duck team is in the CFP .

I agree @Charles Fischer . Mari’s OLs should have been better. Sewell would have been great no matter where he played.

Defer