oregon112

Your second paragraph.... NAILED IT!

Play one of the talented freshmen QBs. Lock down the short pass defense especially over the middle. Expand the offensive playbook. Ducks could win out while everyone else knocks each other off. Outside shot at playoffs. KT turns it on 2nd half of season - is Heisman contender. Noah is All-American. Pittman has some great punt returns instead of just pointing at the ball. I don't want to even think about the lowest possible downside. We have seen it at the end of last year. In 2014, Ducks went to the natty with one loss 31-24 to Az, also on Oct 2nd. They climbed back in the polls to #2 as other teams kept on losing. Mich St was #7 at the time, so that big win took some of the sting out of the lone conference loss. Its not over yet. Next loss though, it will be. Ducks are still in this thing if they can pull it together. But they need better passing, whoever the QB is.

I saw the Ducks playing the hardest yesterday that I saw them play all season. These players play hard. You can't stop all penalties, its just not possible. What is going to be the identity of the coaching staff?

I like it when the beavs beat teams other than the Ducks. They need to beat Stanford this season so Ducks can win the north.

Here is something that has yet to be speculated... Maybe Brown CAN hit those throws - in practice. But can't in games and the coaches are 'waiting' for the talent to rise up? Kind of like a hitter who can crush batting practice, but strikes out all the time. Ty and the others need to get their chance in the Cal game. You can't just sit on mediocre and accept a meaningless bowl game and another wasted season - when you can take a chance to get your team back in the playoff hunt. Even if that chance costs you another game. Its playoffs or nothing. Roll the Dice. Go for Broke.

If they make a change at QB and TT is great, then the 'experts' will have to re-evaluate the Ducks. Change QB, blow out Cal - and Ducks are back in the picture.

Here is what I think they should do. Cal is bad and DeRuyter knows their offense, so experimentations are free to be made the next game. QB: play each one for one quarter: Thompson, Butterfield, Ashford, then Brown. Take long shots and see who can hit the targets. RB: rest Dye and play the other 3 LB: build depth WR: play them all and Thornton too Defense - take away those short easy throws - make them beat you some other way

Yes! Changes SHOULD have been made right after the big Ohio St win, because Stoneybrook and Az would be almost guaranteed wins. So they took their 'problems' to Palo Alto and hoped to get lucky and get out of there with a 'W' and then address issues in the bye week, is my best guess.

On Defense: Stanford receivers were not as open as I thought. Some soft coverage to allow short passes, but McKee was hitting receivers when covered because his throws were fast, on time, and accurate within inches of the target. Oregon pass rush was good most of the game, but they needed some blitzes to get through when Stanford was blocking all the D linemen. Or mix it up and drop more into coverage to force a coverage sack. Oregon needed to mix their coverages better. Stanford looked like they knew where the open spots would be. On Offense: (here is the bad stuff by possessions) 1. holding call, then bad throw to open receiver 2. bad throw to open receiver, then bad throw for a pick 3. 2 runs to set up 3rd and long, then throw to covered receiver 4. bad option read, Brown should have handed it off 5. 3rd and 8: Brown gave up on pass play when he had time, and ran it to force a 4th down 6. Devon open on fly route - overthrow 7. throw to covered receiver Last offensive possession of 1st half - terrible call to run QB up the middle Last offensive possession of game - 2 procedure penalties Bottom Line: McKee was much better than Brown. Oregon gave up too many easy short passes. And Oregon's receivers were not getting open once Stanford knew that the downfield throws were either not being called or wouldn't be completed. You can't expect to shut out a team with a QB like McKee and tall receivers - it just won't happen. Especially not with the way they call penalties for pass interference and late hits to the QB when the QB is barely touched. Oregon needed to do more on offense. Oregon should have won by two scores with better QB play and some better pass coverage.

The secondary is letting catches happen easily for first down after first down - the defensive scheme is not good. On offense, they run up the middle, attack the edges with runs and short passes, and do little else - so the D knows what is coming. Screen passes don't work for the Ducks. And once teams figure out how to stop Brown from getting yards with his legs, then the whole offense will melt down. There needs to be a downfield passing threat - to spread out the defense and to get some long gains that turn into TDs.

If the teams switched QBs yesterday, the Ducks win by 4 scores, easily. I have a bad feeling that Mario will stick with Brown and some or all of the others will transfer.

Brown was pretty good in the pac12 championship game last season. Thompson should have gotten 4 qtrs worth of action against Fresno, Stoneybrook and Az to get him ready for pac12 play.

When do you move a player down? ANSWER: When you are sure he isn't going to get better. Brown has had 5 games and this was his worst. Other players on the team have gotten better. Some, I just don't think will be that great, but they still provide depth. The offense can change with a new QB. The defense needs bigger changes. Stanford drove 90 yds in 2 minutes. All due to the wrong scheme. Helfrich did himself in when he hired Brady Hoke and stuck with him. Why did they allow a first down on that 2nd and 15 or 20? Just tackle them in bounds short of the chains and burn out the clock. Will Cristobal stick with Brown? Will Cristobal stick with the defensive scheme that doesn't cover receivers? ------------------------------------------------ When Oregon used to lose 'big games' like LSU and Ohio St before this year, they did it largely because their linemen couldn't compete. But against Stanford, the Ducks had better linemen. Oregon was taking over the game in the second half. Stanford won with a better QB and better offensive and defensive schemes. Watching your favorite team underperform is hard. All we want as fans is for this team to play up to their potential. Then if they lose to Alabama or Georgia in the playoffs, we will say it was a good year just to get there. But this loss feels like the losses to Boise St. We know we should be winning games like this. Just like my criticism with Brown, who isn't improving, Cristobal also isn't improving the schemes. Many players are improving, which is very good. Dye and Verdell fought hard to break tackles and get extra yards - something missing from their game for a long time. There are still 7 games left plus another one or two, depending on how things go. I want to see the schemes improve this year. The defense took a downturn this year and the offense has been not good since Cristobal took over. This is a rebuilding year. Not rebuilding the players, but rebuilding the identity of Oregon football and what the game plan is. I just want to start seeing plays and schemes that make sense for modern college football.

The question for this season is: Why hasn't Moorhead and DeRuyter fixed all the problems? They have players that are better than every team they have played so far. Brown is getting worse, yet he stays in there. Why couldn't Moorhead call plays from the booth? Or with technology, from home?

Look back at the last play each team ran in overtime. Stanford hit a slant with perfect timing and the receiver carried his momentum into the end zone while fighting off several tacklers. Oregon QB on the run and throws a desperation pass a yard or two out of bounds, thus never giving the receiver a chance to make the first down. Oregon is out of sync with Cristobal as the head coach. Moorhead and DeRuyter are not fixing the problems. This team has #3 players but is only playing half as good as the Beavers.

He is supposed to be fast - what the team needs - LBs with speed to cover the short routes

No downfield passing success and can't stop the other team's passing attack - 5 out of 5 games. This is all I need to see to know that something is fundamentally wrong with this team. Oregon is out of sync on both offense and defense. This is especially troubling when I can see that Oregon has players that are better than the opposition in most games. Stanford made an adjustment the last 2 minutes of the game and continued it into overtime. Oregon was not able to match what Stanford was doing at that point. I expected Oregon to come out and open the playbook in all phases of the game to challenge Stanford, but the team looked like they don't know how to play football. By the way, UCLA can't pass the ball either tonight and Az St is blowing them out. Oregon looked well coached in 2017 when the snake was in charge and Leavitt was DC. Ducks haven't looked good under Cristobal, even when they are winning. Cristobal is looking like another Donte Williams - a super recruiter and someone who looks like they can coach, but what is on the field looks like a mess. My expectations are very low until I can see a team that its schemes together.

They had some nice downfield plays, but Brown couldn't hit them. So instead of putting in TT, they adjusted the plays, which worked mostly. Those plays had Oregon receiver open, but the throws were off. What killed the Ducks was giving up passing completions to the other team. This is what needs to get fixed. DeRuyter is messing up worse than Moorhead.

We need Dog the Bounty Hunter to find our vertical passing game