EastBayDuckDad

Surprised a little by how well the D-line held up against the PSU rushing attack, but Bear Alexander had a coming out party. The rest of the interior was solid with good if not great LB play. DBs shut down the WRs for the most part and except for the TD by #8 against Theinemen and a couple of risky but successful heave it up throws by Allar, took away the easy routes and chunk plays. Surprised a bit, and thrilled, that Tosh's schemes nullified much of what PSU was trying to do. Nothing the offense did was surprising, but ecstatic that the Duck O-line spent almost three quarters either having their way or playing straight up against that good Penn St front seven.with few misfires as a result of the hostile crowd. And Dante's performance was all that and a bag of chips. I am less worried about what Indiana will bring into Autzen in two weeks than I was after that Illinois beatdown. They are good, but OBD's better. DL, TL, WS and staff will have two weeks to dissect apart how Illinois screwed the pooch and counter what Indiana was so successful at against them and Iowa. I think Mendoza will get rattled by a steady diet of Matayo and Tatum in his grill and Bear on a mission of mayhem up the middle.

I will hand it to the Beavs, their LBs looked pretty sharp and the QB made some good throws when he wasn't running for his life. They looked good enough to win outside of not-so-special teams. A win over Houston would have boosted Oregon's SOS too.

PSU 28-27 1 TO 2 Sacks 315 yds passing I so want to be wrong here, but I think this is OBD and Dante's trial by fire that comes up one point short. Oregon plays well and beats the spread but doesn't get the outright win. Tight enough to only drop the Ducks by a place or two in the polls. Then Oregon misses the B1G CG, but runs the table ala Ohio St. last year, gets a home CFP first round game and beats PSU in the semis.

Whenever the camera pans the Illinois sideline, Bielema looks like he's trying to remember where he left his wallet and car keys. Same look he had when Oregon beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl over a decade ago. Lord, what an embarrassing beatdown.

Man, is Indiana really this good? They are dominating Illinois on both sides of the ball and they can't keep Altmeyer upright. Mendoza is having a career day. I agree with others that I'm glad Oregon gets them at Autzen after a bye following the Penn St game.

Beavs came to play. More to fix in the run D for the 2nd half and for next week. Doubt the 2s and 3s play much today unless a huge can of whoopa☆☆ gets opened up in the 3rd qtr by Oregon. Nice drive to end the half, except for that wonky screen in the 1 yd line.

Iowa up 38-28 after a pick and a couple of scores. Looks like the Hawkeyes will pull it off. OBD just has to play their game against both of these teams and they'll be fine, even on the road

And right on cue the Rutgers QB drops a beautiful go route in the bucket for a big gain. Between these two teams on the road, the Scarlet Knights look to be the bigger threat.

Defenses have woke up but both O-lines have gone to sleep. Turning into one of those zombie style B1G 2nd tier games.

Two teams of interest to us OBD fans going at it on Fox Sports. 21-21 midway thru 2 qtrs. Neither team all that interested in playing defense and lots of PIs when they try. The Rutgers QB Kaliakmanis running a ton of RPO, pretty good arm and decent legs when he decides to take off. Iowa is still a variation of 4 yards and a cloud of rubber pellets on offense. Other than that, entertaining game. Mark Helfrich is doing the color analysis. Better OC than announcer, I'm afraid.

Dominate LOS on both sides, particularly in the run game. Be efficient and minimize penalties. Don't show much to Penn St. Keep everyone healthy. Am I asking for too much? 🙂🦆

Yep, Lanning and the Oregon D staff sure can't develop players internally. Getting only 4 and 5 star recruits and proven transfers because of those deep pockets and NIL. Mixon was a 3☆ that played special teams early, then rotated in on defense, and now is arguably playing better than the faster and more 'talented ' #26, Jackson at the ILB position. Ditto Boettcher, who walked on for 'a t-shirt and backpack'. Mixon has shown the ability to play heady football, diagnose plays and respond quickly even if his top end speed is not elite. PFF may reward interceptions a bit too much in it's ratings, but it rewards Mixon in all aspects of his performance. He plays his heart out and like BB, brings his lunch pail to work every day.

I think that there is a concern for run D, particularly with the YAC we saw against NW. A few thoughts: Admittedly a big chunk of the yardage was in garbage time, and padded by the 79 yd run against the 2s and 3s. If the sacks and big butterfinger TFL by Stone are subtracted, there was still significant YPC for the NW RBs. This was even apparent in the first half while the starters were in. It is something to address, and I'm confident that DL and TL will take it to the 'doctor' this week. On the flip side, running the ball was NW's game plan as the only way they could hope to keep the game close was to slow it down, run clock (their TOP was 5 min longer than OBD) and keep the ball out of Dante's hands. Oregon let some of that go and made sure the NW passing game was ineffective. And ineffective it was, held to 135 yds on 50% completion rate, 3/11 on 3rd downs, 2 sacks, two picks, a big TFL and no penalties (though the 1st pick could have been a PI and would have been with the old PAC12 crews). The one stinker was on Offord, and that was a rookie error that can be corrected. Point is that the run game D had some concerns that the NW game plan amplified. It did the Ducks a favor by exposing an area of relative weakness and focus for clean up before Happy Valley in two weeks. Hopefully we will see it cleaned up significantly against the Beavs Saturday.

Run D still a weakness, even before the 2s and 3s gave up the one at the end. Lots to work on before the Penn St game, or else it will be a very bad day in Happy Valley for the Ducks

Yikes, DM took a head shot that vacated his helmet from his noggin'. Right back in after a TO, then laser shot to Sadiq for the TD!

They are missing Noah. O-line losing some blocking battles on the runs, but they are solid in pass pro. 1st half almost done in a little over an hour given the grind it out nature of this game. DL will have a little motivational work to do at the half

The NW DBs are playing pretty well, and Moore not really sharp on his longer throws up to now. Sappington hits the FG while the announcers are pointing out that he missed several in practice wide left due to the wind. OBD 10-0. This has all the looks of a grinder.

Give NW credit, they are blitzing just enough to disrupt the downfield passing game and then covering the outlet and screen reasonably well. More misdirection is the cure.

DBs doing their jobs even if the D-line is a bit slow to get going. I'm confident they will start to dominate.

Pick by Boettcher! Beautiful misdirection by Stein and a pitch to Lamar for the TD. DUCKS 7-0

No Noah to start, Lamar gets the nod. NW playing stiff defense on the first series. Time for the D to do it's job.

Oregon 51-10 1 TO 3 Sacks 265 yds passing

Honest, I didn't see this article at Autzen Zoo before my post. It is nice to see others in the media are thinking the same way. Autzen ZooThese Ducks are different: Dak is not DATBecause college football has regional character, history and tradition, and these are the best parts of the game, people like to compare eras and players.

At first my comparison for Dak was DAT with the speed and evasiveness. After these two games I'm convinced that he will be much more than that. The route running and timing is more precise and Dak has three inches and 20# more fast twitch muscle on him. Much more advanced in his football IQ and overall development at this stage. And the blocking, oh my! Imagine if Dak had been flanking MM instead of DAT on the Nov 17, 2012 run against Stanford that failed to reach the end zone. Different outcome. No diss on DAT as we all loved him and what he meant to OBD success at the time, but Dak is just a different breed of cat.

Not just coaching but the confidence to put in young players when performance matters. What strikes me as different compared to previous DL teams is the depth of talent. Very little drop off between the '1s' and the '2s'. Lots still to prove with the real test in Happy Valley in three weeks, but what a start for OBD. Hilarious that Florida's fan base thinks that DL would leave for Gainesville when he told Bama "The grass is damn green in Eugene".