MikeJ

We say Dante had only 20 starts, but Mendoza only had 19 to start this year. Dante 100% needs another year, and to improve his field vision dramatically in the face of pressure. I hope he can.

Definitely needs someone to work with Dante on seeing open receivers and responding to pressure. He's likely to get better next year, but how long will it take, and what if the improvement is only marginal? Mendoza had fewer starts to start this year than Dante had going into yesterday. Need someone who can really work with him. And its pretty clear we got outcoached in last years Rose Bowl and yesterday. I'm not that familiar with how experienced our new coordinators are, but if necessary, bring in some more help. It seems we've been strong enough schematically against the bulk of our schedule, but not against the top teams.

I resisted this for a while, but I'm now convinced that experienced, expensive portal QBs are how titles are won. Indiana and Miami have them. We had them the prior few years. Indiana already secured one for next year. Dante is a transfer but not an experienced ready-made product one. You have to have a seasoned, polished, top QB or you don't have a chance.

Been an Oregon fan for a very long time and it's hard not to feel like we're snake-bit on stuff like this. But someone who knows better correct me if I'm wrong--but it's my understanding that Limar entering the portal doesn't mean he can't play (if he and the team want him to). Is that right?

Awesome day for our defense. Looking ahead to Indiana (who is cruising to victory to be the first long-layoff team to win), I agree with the following comments from others here: "Our offense has got to figure some things out before we play our next game. 1 offensive TD on a short 5 yard field, is not going to cut it next time." "If Oregon has to play Indiana, Dante needs to fix his happy feet or the result will be the same as the October game." We'll be facing a very similar defense against Indiana, with a dominant, disruptive front. Our offense is better overall today than when we played them the first time, but there were some troubling tendencies today that looked a bit like that first Indiana game. Lots of miscues on offense and an inability (for the most part) to respond well to the pressure. Defense carried the load this game, offense needs to get better for a very similar defense next week.

The long layoff bug is very real, they need to change the format. But it doesn't appear to be bothering Indiana much (at least after the 1st quarter). I think Indiana is the top team in this playoff (other than Oregon). I'd love to have the layoff bug bite Indiana and play Alabama in the next round, but there appears to be zero chance of that happening.

Call me crazy, but I wish we were playing tOSU next instead of TT. The B12 hasn't looked bad in bowl games with lowly TCU (who got steamrolled by BYU, who got steamrolled twice by TT) beating USC (which is one of our better wins) and Utah rolling today. Not sure tOSU is that great.

Everyone knows Miami is an overrated, non-playoff-caliber team. I hadn't really looked at A&M's schedule until today though. Yikes. They played only one of the top 7 teams in their conference this year and lost that game by double-digits. Squeaked by some truly horrible teams as well. Seriously, look at their schedule and the records of their opponents. Shows that if you're in a 16-team conference that plays 8 conference games, you can have an 11-1 record and not really be very good. Ohio State is going to maul the winner of this game.

I like the setup, but I will confess I think many are underestimating Texas Tech because they aren't a traditional power. They have a loaded roster (#2 in NIL spending behind only Texas is what you read, and something like $28m compared to Oregon's $23m or so). They're defensive front is considered by many to be the best in college football (and is where they've spend a lot of NIL money). BYU and Utah (I live in Utah) may not be in the top tier of teams, but they are good, and Utah has a very highly regarded offensive line, but neither team belonged on the same field as Texas Tech and neither could handle Tech's front 7. They had the Utah QB on the run consistently. Its that match-up that I hope we game plan for. We saw against Indiana (with a similar ability to get after the QB) that when under pressure, Dante sometimes hurries things and doesn't see receivers down field. With Texas Tech and then Indiana in our path, I'm hoping we scheme some things up to help there. Having some receivers back will certainly help too.

Yes, I'm coming around to Charles' view regarding the importance of experienced transfer QBs in the portal era.

That might be an easier match up than Texas Tech.

It's more the other side of the ball I'm concerned about. Their D-line, and whole defense, looks really good. They get a lot of pressure on QBs (they got pressure on Utah's QB like no other team despite Utah's very good O-line). We've seen Moore struggle under pressure against Indiana. I know there are no easy opponents in the 2nd round, but I think many assume Texas Tech is the easiest of the four and I'm not sure that's true.

I hadn't really watched Texas Tech this year until this game. Their defensive line is scary good and they look like a very complete team. I'm not at all sure this is an easier team to play than others that might end up in the top 4. It will be interesting to see if they remain our projected first opponent after the other games today.

Yeah, I wish we'd not go with these ambitious deep balls when we're back at our 30 unless the guy is truly open. Run the ball and use shorter passes to get up near FG range. Field position and FGs will be important here.

I've been reading this week about all the injuries Washington has too, and there have been some key ones. Unfortunately, reading the injury reports, it looks like they'll have all those players back today - Boston (WR), Hatchett (center), Coleman (RB). I wish we'd had a little good news like that of our own to balance things on the injury front, but our other players have been playing well.

Agreed about the pressure Desert Duck. As depleted as their O-line apparently is, I'm not sure why we aren't hurrying their QB more. Especially since our coverage of those elite receivers down field isn't working very well. We've got to do one or the other.

Going to be along day if the coverage of Lane doesn't improve.

The good news on the other side is USC is without safety Fitzgerald (one of the top in the nation) and also possibly Ramsey (another star safety) who is questionable. With us not getting any receivers back, maybe the soft spot in USC's secondary with those safeties out with strengthen our passing attack a bit.

Great to see such a complete game. I do have to admit, though, that the Gophers' 6-3 record impressed much less when I looked at the actual results that make up that 6-3 record. But it was a great game. USC not looking that strong against Iowa so far.

Yep. We needed that field goal. Game of attrition today. We should be up by 5.

OSU has sunk very low indeed. Students there today will have to stretch to find things to celebrate, and I appreciate the post and the humor Charles. I'm also with you TexasDuck about not forgetting how things were. I'm one of the greybeards who remembers when we were fortunate to finish over .500 (Chris Miller was the QB my freshmen year in 86/87) and I remember the excitement around that Independence Bowl in '89. We've come a long way and I'm glad it's the Beavs living that reality now and not us. 😁

All of these east-west and backfield plays. Why are we reluctant to just run it straight ahead or throw north/south?

Here is what I was looking at (after seeing these same numbers reported elsewhere): NIL Collectives – Power 5 Schools – NCAA Revenue Sharing & NIL Estimates 2025 NIL-NCAA.COM I can't vouch for their accuracy. If anyone has seen a different ranking or estimate I'd be interested in seeing it.

I know, it's frustrating, especially when in reality we only rank 19th in NIL spending at $10.5 million compared to over $20m for tOSU and others. If we want to spend even in the ballpark of those schools, we have loads of budget room to lure players like this.

Nice post. Another comparison point which looks bad for us right now is NIL spending. NIL gets spent on players who were not only blue chip recruits out of high school, but who have proven to be great players at the college level, so I would argue it makes an even bigger difference. I think we need to flat out spend more on NIL. I never used to think this way, we have 'done more with less' for many years. But if my understanding of where Oregon ranks is correct (someone correct me if I'm wrong), we rank #19 nationally in NIL spending, and while we spent about $11m this year, Texas, Ohio State and a few others spent north of $20m. That's a massive difference. We're way behind Michigan, and behind even Indiana and Mich. State in NIL spending. It's starting to look, at least to me, like we can't field a roster that is strong enough from top to bottom to bring ourselves into parity with teams like Ohio State unless we spend NIL money that is at least in the same ballpark as other top teams. Being ranked 19th in such spending (that is among public universities only, we're likely lower than that if private schools are included), and being outspent nearly 2-to-1, appears to be a serious handicap. I'm not saying it should be this way, and maybe some kind of NIL spending caps will be put into place, but for now I don't think this can be ignored. Everyone who doesn't do the research assumes Oregon is a big NIL spender due to the Nike connection, etc., and maybe we need to do a bit more along those lines.