Desert Duck

Well that was certainly a nice and easy 67 yard drive and TD for the Cougars. "Dear Lord - Please bring back our D from last week for the rest of this game. Amen"

I really have no idea. But I was so down after the Georgia game that it was a good thing there were no tall Bridges around 🙂 . After last Saturday's excellent game, I'm just about to the place where nothing they do will surprise me... good or bad. But this game will certainly be very telling. Last week's game was huge, but this one, given that it is a road against who looks to be a very good team, may be even more telling.

Remember, MC's very first play called as Oregon's head coach, was a timeout, right before the kickoff. He literally called a timeout before the game actually started. I've watched a lot of football over the years, but I've never seen that one before. Anyone paying attention knew that could not be a good sign of things to come.

And there's not a snowballs chance in Tempe in August that the alumni would allow the school to even give Taggert a sniff.

ASU is where college football coaches go to die. This is about the last HC gig Dillingham should look at. We've been down here for more than 10 years, and I'm convinced that there is likely not a bigger dumpster fire college HC job in the nation. I have several good friends who are ASU alumni and a couple of them played football here. They are very close to the program. And every year, their football program just gets a bit worse. They're beyond disheartened. Anytime I've gotten a bit down on our Ducks, all I have to do is just look down the road a few miles to ASU and I'm instantly reminded how good we have it.

That's just some stone-cold stuff right there. And spot on truth. And, IMHO, Kingsbury needs to take that short and whiny QB with him.

So... here's the deal -- If the NFL was looking to add just one new team, I'm pretty sure you guys would no longer have a college football team. But seriously, while the Ducks imploded in Atlanta, a big part of that is because the Bulldogs are an exceptional team. They're not 49-3 exceptional, but they're pretty darn close. While other teams have 2nd and 3rd string players, I'm convinced that Georgia just has "other players." Bottom-line is that I also appear to have drank the Bulldog kool-aid and therefore am likely not the guy you are looking for a response from. But Go Ducks & Go Bulldogs!

It's always great to see a coach coaching his players. I definitely support this.

x10. Coaches just need to do their jobs. The praise will follow.

If losing close games counted for anything, Frost would be beloved in Nebraska.

BYU 38-24

This was definitely an improvement over last week. The BYU game will tell us a lot more.

If a backup QB does not get some PT tonight, that will absolutely tell me all I need to know about our backup QBs.

Stanford - 4 TOs. Ouch.

If we're up something like 42-0 at the half, what do you think the odds are of seeing a backup QB or two get some PT in the second half?

"We’re Going to the Rose Bowl" I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm pretty sure we play UCLA in Eugene this year. ;-) But I do like your optimism. Please keep it coming!

Oregon 41-28 3 TOs 3 Sacks 260 Passing Hoping to under promise, and over-deliver.

I remember him well. After Oregon beat then #3 UCLA in Eugene, the Oregon fans were so wild that he was famously quoted as calling us "Deranged Idiots." I think it was about the greatest compliment he could have ever paid Duck fans. Shirts and buttons were printed up with the quote. Obviously, it doesn't matter if God had come in after John Wooden to coach UCLA... It was the ultimate no-win situation. I just looked and Bartow went 52-9 in his two seasons as UCLA head coach... and was promptly fired. Bartow was a very good basketball coach too. Following his two seasons as HC at UCLA, in his 18 seasons as HC at UAB, he never had a losing season.

Gene Bartow... now there a reference for an old guy (and I'm the old guy) 😉

Thanks for the correction. 4 BCS games, with 2 of those being NC games. His winning percentage of 84% while playing in the SEC, is crazy.

Smart is clearly a brilliant coach. There is a very good reason why Alabama made him the highest paid defensive coach in history. And even though Georgia is his first head coaching job, he has been utterly beyond exceptional. By the time he's done, I think he has a chance at surpassing Saban.

Because I’m such a glass-half-full kind of a guy… I thought I would point out that in 2016, Kirby Smart, in his first and only head coaching job, went 8-5 in his first season at Georgia --- which included losing to the likes of Vanderbilt. The next season he had them in the National Championship where they very nearly beat ‘Bama. And they’ve been in the BCS Championship Playoffs every year since (I don’t count the 2020 Covid Season as a ‘real season'). So, there’s my best attempt at providing a glass-half-full outlook.

I thoroughly enjoyed your piece. You and your brother heading outside to throw the football around, reminded me of growing up in Eugene as a kid, and heading outside with my friends to play football (tackle w/o pads) on the grass in front of Spencer Butte Junior High -- the parking lot and concrete sidewalk were the out of bounds lines. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to have grown up in Eugene when I did. At that time, in many ways, it still had a little bit of that "Mayberry" thing going for it.

I start to cringe a bit when we start talking about time zones. I definitely did not hear much about a time zone disadvantage last year when we played at Ohio State, which also happens to be in the EST. And let's face it, it's not like they travel by Wagon Train to get there. I doubt they even shifted to the EDT time zone since they were only there for a few days. And it's also not like we played an early morning game. The game was at 12:30 PDT. But I do think the home field advantage in this case was worth more than three points. Especially early on in the game.

Nope. My bigger concern regarding our QB situation is in regards to the future. Not giving either of our highly recruited and ranked backup QB's any playing time late in the game on Saturday seems quite bizarre, and to me, and raises a lot more questions.