C J

The football team needs to take some pointers from the basketball team. Those dudes know how to come out and get a big lead and hold it. Well at least through their first two games, but we will see what happens against BYU here next Tuesday.

Not I, he doesn't want to throw it down field for fear of an interception or incompletions.

They got away with two huge holds on the corner on a 2nd and 18 screen to Borghi. It was obvious and not just one but two holds on the same play.

Yep, wish I could say I was wrong but yet another melt down.

Not really bored but it does seem a bit predictable. Same old story. Ducks show flashes of brilliance and then all of a sudden they look horrible on offense for three possessions in a row. The most mystifying team in the history of the program. My next prediction is Wazzu scores a touchdown here before half.

Man that looked like a bad spot on that 3rd down pass catch. Cristobal never seems to want to challenge.

Ducks 24 Wazzu 31, 2 TO's, 3 sacks, 225 yards passing. I am watching Utah struggle mightily with Arizona right now, they are losing 17-14 with less then a minute to go in the half. Nervous would be a major understatement for me in this game tonight. If we get into a close one and I suspect we will then I think Wazzu will pull it out. We have had a lot of luck in close games this year, you can't continually rely on that luck.

Getting a little bit of recognition from the WAPO. A couple quotes from the article: "Capable ball-searching can upgrade the happiness of entire American towns." "On Monday, Cristobal spoke of his Ducks “playing with a tremendous edge and energy.” Maybe they can keep that going while ignoring that until the playoff expands inevitably, they’re stuck with shouldering the world’s fourth-largest country. That’s heavy."

The Kent's were great but nobody beats Walton in my book.

Hmmm......seems like a bit of a mismatch. I feel like the numbers and other graphics on the jersey should be white.

So true! The Ducks need to come out and dominate the LOS on both sides of the ball from the 1st quarter though the 4th. I feel confident we will dominate physically in this game. The question comes in whether we can dominate mentally by minimizing stupid penalties, making good decisions from the QB position and holding onto the ball. Another big area I hope we improve this week is with kick off and punt coverage as well as kick off and punt returns. Not all special teams have been an issue as field goal kicking and punting have been good.

Spot on. These numbers are definitely in our favor and hopefully we can cash in multiple times on both of these aspects of the game Saturday night. They are correlated stats in that the more pressure Thib's and co. can get on de Laura the more apt we are to see interceptions. I would love to see at least 2 picks and 4 sacks in this game.

The Ducks have gotten where they have so far on sheer talent as they have made more mistakes than most teams in the Pac 12. For instance the Ducks currently have 68 penalties for 645 yards lost on the season, the fourth worst in the Pac 12 behind three other really bad teams. Meanwhile Wazzu only has 44 penalties for 379 yards, nearly half the level of mistakes. The turnover situation is a bit better, as we currently have a 0.7 turnover margin for second in the Pac 12 behind Cal. The bad news is that Wazzu has the third best turnover margin at 0.6, and they have more takeaways than any other team in the league at 20.....with 11 fumble recoveries. Holding onto the ball will be a huge part of the game and this has been historically an issue for Travis Dye. I know it's cliche and kind of goes without saying but look for mistakes to play an outsized role in the result of this Saturday nights game. Can the Ducks put together a more mistake free game than they have been able to so far? If not then I think there is a high probability of a loss, because Wazzu has been one of the more mistake free teams in the Pac12 this season.

Trap game of all trap games this Saturday night. The entire season is on the line. If we lose the repercussions are huge. As was stated in the article we lose the playoff chance, we likely lose the Pac 12 north, we lose the Pac 12 Championship game and we lose the opportunity to play in a meaningful bowl game. What a crazy game is college football where one loss can completely change your entire season. We are pretty high on the hill right now, but come Saturday evening at 11PM or so our entire outlook could be entirely different. We could go from what we have now at #3 in the playoff picture to being lucky for an invite to the Alamo Bowl, but likely it would be more like the Holiday Bowl or Las Vegas Bowl or something like that. The point of this rant is I sure hope Cristobal gets these guys fired up in a big way. This is quite simply the biggest game of the season. They need to come out and stomp the Cougs early and often. They have been to the well too many times, if they get into a close battle this weekend I really don't like our chances.

Since we are discussing hypotheticals. A&M stinks......they barely beat a lowly Colorado team that we rolled without a problem. Bama lost to the crappy A&M team. How about this hypothetical. Based on deductive reasoning we would beat Bama if following this chain of thought.

Lot of close ball spots. Glad they reviewed them because they pretty much went all our way, but yeah the time it took was atrocious.

Huh? If you didn't get Lake calling his players and university more intelligent.....which implies our guys are stupid then I don't think it's worth continuing to go back and forth on any of this with you.

Oh I don't know maybe all the personal fouls after plays and all the chipping. I mean Lake had to restrain one of his players on the sideline. And did you happen to see the fans in the stands flying the double bird at the Oregon bench and fans pretty much the whole game? If you didn't see it or catch on to what I am saying then you weren't watching the same game.

I actually think that what Coach was talking about had a lot more to do with the dirty play that the Husky players were promulgating during the game last night and less to do with Lake's comments. Let's face it though.....it's likely Lake's comments that led to a lot of dirty play by the Huskies last night.

Totally agree with you NW777b, and I am not quite a grey beard yet. I don't see why anyone would make anything out of this. His player was acting stupid and he let him know by popping him in the face mask and separating him from the situation. No way should they hold this against Lake. The stupid slips of the tongue about academic prowess yes.....that is foolishness, but this, come on man. Is this still football or what????

I don't know. I had the same interpretation from your comments as Jon did. While you are entitled to your opinion I respectfully disagree on this one as this is football, not golf or tennis or something. Yeah emotions run high as it's pretty much war out there. What Cristobal said is not bad at all and it shows he has his players backs. The offense situation I do agree with you on, but I think it is slowly but surely getting a bit better.

"Those fu**ing guys right there, they represent everything that is wrong with football". I love this quote. Honestly this just gained a lot more respect from me towards Cristobal. He couldn't be more right. What Lake and his players were saying and doing in the week leading up to this game deserves way worse than a quote like this. Then the Ducks went out and ran the rock right down their throat. Oh how sweet it is to be a Duck fan. In Mario we trust.......and believe me when I say that is saying something for me considering how frustrated I have been with the coaching at times this year, but folks, this is why Cristobal's players love him and play so hard for him. This is a representation of why Cristobal is a great recruiter and is slowly but surely becoming a great coach as he lets his coordinators implement the x's and o's. Huck the fuskies!!! "Academic prowess" my arse.

I was watching the Ohio State game and JT made some plays and I was thinking about how well he would of fit in with this Ducks team. I do really agree that he made a mistake on that decision to go to Ohio State. Oregon is the better team and Eugene is a waaaaaay better town. I am still really surprised that he decided to leave the PNW and move to the midwest. I wonder if or when he will regret his decision.

I I haven't seen that anywhere either???? Did it get taken down?

Travis Dye exemplifies why I watch the game of football. He is the quintessential underdog and an old school throwback to a bygone era. I truly believe Travis should be considered a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate after his performances the past several weeks. The defense looks to be in snowballing mode. In other words they are building and getting stronger the longer the season goes on. Thib's is forcing other teams to develop an entire scheme to deal with him and that creates a suitable environment for other players to excel. Man Jeffrey Bassa eh? That dude looks the part and is playing the part. What is he going to be like as a safety? That is going to be scary in the next few seasons. Personally I really enjoyed RGIII's commentary. He has a great happy go lucky personality and keeps it light and entertaining with all his funny sayings. He gave the Ducks respect, which has been hard to come by with some of the broadcasters we have had. I would love to hear more from him. Glad he turned his tough pro career into a broadcasting career. He was a tough luck case in the NFL. Ducks roll again but Wazzu is going to give us a really tough time next week. The defensive back field is going to have to deal with about 40-50 pass attempts. It would almost be good if it was raining real hard next week too, but right now the forecast is showing decent weather at about 60 degrees and cloudy.