DrJacksPlaidPants

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.

Notre Dame has some brass maracas calling out the ACC for favoring their own teams. The ACC is the only conference keeping their strength of schedule afloat. Once the SEC goes to nine conference games they will cancel any future scheduled games with them. If they don’t have the ACC then they will be nothing more than a strong team who plays a G6 schedule. It’s going to be very difficult to break into the top 12 with no P4 opponents. Why on Earth would any P4 team schedule a game with them? The only ones I can see doing it are cash-poor teams at the bottom of their conferences who won’t move the SOS needle.

This sort of thing has a tendency to galvanize a team. I don’t think there will be a huge drop off.

A&M would've dropped to 4th in the old format after they lost to Texas.

SEC because they claim to play tough schedules but they only play 8 conference games. A&M didn’t play one SEC playoff team this year. I’ll give the other four playoff teams credit for beating a SEC playoff team this season, but a lot of their ranked games came from playing Mizzou, Vandy, and Tennessee. However, it’s not just this season. Did you know that A&M has been in the SEC since 2012 and has only played UGA once in the regular season? UGA and Bama only met once during the regular season during the years of the 4-team playoff format. They’ve gone out of their way to protect their big name teams. Lastly, Bama getting to play for the BCS championship and go to the playoff without winning their division is pretty lame as well.

Carson Beck against UGA’s defense is a matchup I want to see. Something tells me there will be a few late hits.

I actually think they will boat race the Aggies. Texas exposed them.

We’ve had good luck with pass catchers from Idaho.

The committee finally put Miami ahead of Notre Dame because the media pundits started to really call them out for their BS. They had no choice. They would’ve looked like biased idiots if they hadn’t switched them. I’ve always been of the opinion that championship game competitors shouldn’t be punished for losing if they would’ve gotten in without playing. However, Bama has been the beneficiary of getting into the old four team format with even winning their division, so I think they should’ve been left out. OU or Indiana will keep them from playing us which is kind of unfortunate.

Weather won’t be a factor. Harrisonburg, VA is colder than Eugene this time of year. The biggest factor will be talent.

Apparently, FanDuel leaked the spreads for the first round of the playoff. Miami is out. Notre Dame is in. Oregon opens up with JMU -20.5. This could all be fake since the seeds are messed up. NOTE: Yep. It was fake. Mario is going to the show.