DrJacksPlaidPants

Merry Christmas! May at least one of your gifts be green and yellow.

At least this isn’t the national championship game. Gray pants and white jerseys really haven’t worked out in those games.

Every team is fighting for their survival at this point of the season. They have nothing to lose, so expect the unexpected. This is why we saw a fake punt and the Annexation of Puerto Rico play from JMU.

Hopefully, he takes this clown with him.

It’s nice to be a finalist, but the Indiana game kind of sealed the Duck OL’s fate. Granted, many of those sacks were on the QB, but the stat line still stands out. Kudos to Iowa. They played the top teams very close this season.

Oregon had a little over 9 minutes time of possession in the first half. The defense was out on the field for over 20 minutes. Oregon’s defenses in the CK era were conditioned for that kind of load. I don’t think these guys counted on the offense scoring so quickly.

This was a Chip Kelly game. Blow their doors off in the first half and then fart around in the second half. Sometimes Oregon would start slow and then blow their doors off in the second half. It was very seldom that Chip’s (and Helf’s) teams put together a solid 4-quarter performance. I still remember Aliotti getting mad at Mike Leach for not rolling over in the second half of the 2013 game.

It used to be that if you could recruit Florida, Texas and California really well then you were going to have an excellent program. I think the same rule applies today, but I would add Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama to that mix. This is why the southern teams have dominated for so long. Ohio State and Oregon each have 25 players on their roster from the SEC footprint. OSU has always recruited the South pretty well due to their brand. Oregon has come along lately due to NIL and their rising stock as a CFB brand. If throwing money at players is all it takes to win then the Texas schools would dominate. Much of Oregon’s success with NIL comes from helping players manage their brand. The wild card in all this is Cignetti. If he keeps winning with 3-stars and portal players I would expect a few NFL teams to make a run at him. His ability to evaluate and develop talent is perfect for the salary cap environment.

Ed O confirming your theory. Of course, he also spent a few years at USC as well.

I don’t know how I feel about being the first game of the day. A loss ruins the rest of the day. Last year I didn’t feel like watching football after the Rose Bowl. Fate dictated that the Sugar Bowl was postponed, but I likely wouldn’t have watched it anyway.

Rainbow trout, Willow Creek, AK. That’s a size 13 wading boot for reference. This is how you have to take fish pictures when fishing alone. I guess I wasn’t as “alone” as I thought. Dolly Varden, Kenai River, AK. The cork on my fly rod is 7 inches for reference.

Good thing it’s a bowl game. Oregon probably shows up on Saturday or Sunday and gets a few days to adjust to the time zone.

Davison was in a walking boot and using crutches after the game. It’s not anything different from the precautions they take for any kind of sprain, tweak, etc. However, he wasn’t putting any weight on his foot when he was being helped to the locker room. If I had to guess I would say he’ll be held out against Tech. Oregon’s RB room is pretty experienced and I think Noah has done really well when he’s been called upon to take the lion’s share of the carries in big games.

I think Tech will have the crowd advantage. They’re going to bring a lot of fans because they haven’t played in a major bowl game as a conference champion since 1995. They’re also Texans, so they’re genetically predisposed to spending a lot of money to go watch football. However, the Ducks seem to have a good plan in place for crowd noise as we saw in a few games this season.

The betting line has Oregon as a slight favorite at -1.5. It’s the lowest point spread of any of the remaining playoff games which makes sense in a 4 vs 5 game. What surprised me was that every other playoff game has a point spread of a TD or better. Tech has a nasty defense, but their offense is just as good. They’re top 5 in total offense. However, they haven’t played against a top 20 defense yet. BYU (28th) was the best defense they played against. They played against one top 20 offense (Utah) and handled them easily. Oregon’s offense has been tested against three top 20 defenses (Indiana, Iowa, fuskies), but only played against two top 20 offenses (USC, Indiana).

This game was vey similar to the season opener versus Arkansas State (MM8’s first start) back in 2012. At one point Oregon was up 50-3 midway through the 2nd quarter and Chip pulled all of the starters. Oregon ended up winning 57-34 but ASU controlled the 2nd half. The game was never in doubt but you could tell the team lost focus.

Marcel Reed throws like Darron Thomas, but with less accuracy. He’s also a one read and tuck it QB. There are plenty of open receivers if he would follow his progressions.

Wayne Knight always delivers.

Oregon 28-13 1 Sack 1 Turnover 189 Passing Yards

In the past 40 years only four QB's who were picked first overall won the Super Bowl (Aikman, Manning, Manning, Stafford). In that same time span, only nine QB who were picked in the first round won the Super Bowl and one of those guys (Dilfer) wasn't a franchise QB. There are very few QB's who have the ability to turn a franchise around and most first round QB's are expected to do exactly that. Dante is going to be a high draft pick due to his arm strength. Therefore it would serve him well to get as much experience as he can before he is expected to turn around a bad franchise. If he's lucky he'll get picked by a team looking to replace an aging starter and he gets a chance to learn like Aaron Rogers did.

I heard there’s another “ham” who just left Utah who is rumored to have mutual interest with Michigan. I understand his and Dilly’s interest in that sort of high profile position. They both have proven they can win in the Big 12 and they know that anything bigger than a conference championship is a pipe dream without significant investment. I think they want to be in a position where the resources are plentiful. Dilly has been on record practically begging for more investment into his program. Earlier this year he was saying how he wanted an indoor practice facility that could double as an indoor tailgating area on game day. He has coached at Oregon and Auburn. He knows that doing more with less can only take him so far.

Raiola is the dude who imitates Patrick Mahomes to an obsessive degree. Same hair, same number, same mannerisms, etc. It wouldn’t surprise me if he transferred to Texas Tech.