Desert Duck

Well... while it was a huge win for UCLA, being 1-4 might be part of it.

Wowzaa... Two Top-10 teams fall to two unranked teams today who, up until this afternoon, had combined records of 1-7. That's just nuts. I never would have thought that NIL would help make college football so much fun, and often, highly unpredictable. If a team chooses to take another team lightly, they do so at their own peril.

Great question. Time for the stats guys to go digging for that answer. PSU losing to UCLA makes our game against Indiana next week even bigger than it already was.

A total crap 0-4 UCLA knocks off PSU. Bummer... I was really hoping that PSU didn't suck. Either that, or the Ducks just completely broke them. Hopefully, it's the latter.

Wow... this kid looks extremely promising!

Needs: While going 5-7 on 4th downs was very impressive, hopefully, going forward, we won't need to do that. It's also not good for my blood pressure. We were 6-18 on 3rd down conversions -- 33%. I realize these numbers are only from one game, but we need to improve on our third down conversion % from last week.

Here's what I know for sure... Autzen is just damn loud, and it truly is likely the loudest stadium in the nation. But I cannot imagine that when they broke ground on this place six decades ago, that they had any idea what they were doing in regard to noise. I had to look up the architects which is a company out of Chicago named Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and they are still going at it all over the world. The design could not have been more basic and cost-effective. It would be fun if the architect was still around to get his take on this. The land that Autzen sits on used to be a landfill. They basically dug a hole into the ground, and poured in a massive amount of concrete and created a huge block and called it Autzen Stadium. Other than Autzen, there really wasn't much to the place for three decades. It was a solid, reliable, concrete stadium... that amazingly reverberated sound in a way I've never heard in any other stadium in my life. And, at that time, besides Autzen, there was nothing else out there but a massive gravel parking lot and much of it pretty much turned into a lake during the rainy season... and it seemed like there were thousands of seagulls around as well. And then, 30 years later -- and thanks in large part to Ed and Elaine Moshofsky, came the first college indoor practice facility on the west coast in 1998. And then, in came Phil & Penny Knight. And as they say, the rest is history.

Hands down: Dante Moore To walk into that environment, show absolutely no fear, have incredible confidence from the first snap, and put up the exceptional numbers that he did, is something I might likely always remember. Certainly, I realize that he had 10 other excellent players around him, but everything starts and finishes with the QB... just ask PSU. And one more thing. In our culture of instant-gratification, the practice of "delayed gratification" seems to almost be a completely lost art. For this 19 year old (at that time), absolute stud, 5 star recruit, to wilfully choose to back up his bus, play the long game by going to Oregon, and riding the pines for a year, is a truly beautiful thing to see and an example for others to emulate. This action and decision on his part pretty much tells me all I need to know about this young man. He is likely going to have an excellent career in the NFL. But, even if that never happened, this is the kind of young man that is going to excel at whatever he chooses. His parents must have done some fine modeling and have to be incredibly proud of him... regardless of football.

What a great fall weekend to have been out there. That is an incredible area.

Last week of February... now that's what I call 'proper planning.'

We were at a large wedding reception during the entire game. I was sneaking peeks on my phone, but caught the 2nd OT on the TV in the bar. OH MY GOODNESS. UNBELIEVABLE! AN INSTANT CLASSIC. Can't wait to watch the entire game tonight.

Dear Mods: After doing a bit more research regarding the impact that PSU Whiteout games actually have on Top-15 teams, I'd like to alter my prediction... if possible. Oregon 34-28 1 1 281 FINAL ANSWER 😄

CORRECTION: I missed their Whiteout playoff game last year against SMU where they won. So, they are actually 3-7 against Top-15 in Whiteout games. Which is still unimpressive.

I think it's a great tradition and totally cool. And clearly PSU will have another huge & rockin' stadium. But I like to look at what the data says, and from the only perspective that matters -- e.g win & losses, the data says it's really not a big deal. In fact, the data says it's been the opposite for PSU. Stats obviously don't win games, but here's to hoping that we expand their White-Out Top-15 record to 2-8.

Since PSU started their vaunted "White Out" games in 2004, I thought I'd take a look at the data. Against Top-15 teams during White Out games, PSU has a combined crap record of 2 Wins & 7 Losses. The word "Overrated" comes to mind.