OhioDuck

The refs always had rain in their eyes when Iowa was holding, like on every other play.

Short addition: It is real though, but it's part of East coast - West Coast stuff about life in general. The east coast doesn't get the west coast and frankly the west coast does get the east coast and that's why they moved to the west coast. Hope you understand what I'm saying. Ad in that when the east coast thinks of the west coast 99% of the time they are thinking LA, ugh! The PNW is virtually non-existent.

Here's the deal with me. I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and I'm a VCU basketball fan. I also lived in Portland for several years, wish I had never left. As one of my Portland friends told me when we moved back east, "You'll be back, you're not one of them anymore." He was joking but there's also some truth in there. I am a strange critter in that I actually root for both of the Oregon power conference schools, I don't say that too loudly on this forum. I am sick over what has happened to the PAC and how OSU has born the brunt of that. Gradually I trended more toward the Duck, because I love how they do things without a box, not outside of the box but the box simply doesn't exist. So, I'm a Ducks fan for the past twenty or so years and will be the rest of my life. Here's my point. I'm also a VCU basketball fan and we don't have a football team, so I can be all in on the Ducks. When we VCU basketball fans talk football, we can't talk VCU football, so we talk about other teams and how we are fans of other teams. As far as I can tell of the several hundred fans on the RamNation forum, I'm the only Oregon Duck fan, but for those who follow college football with some knowledge of the game the Ducks are pretty well known and respected. It's the casual fan that formed their opinions decades ago and will never change them that really don't get what is going on in Eugene, Oregon right now. The ducks are a national power now, and they are here to stay. In a year or two Indiana will lose a coach, they will go back to being Indiana... 'nough said. But Oregon has gone through coaches and continued to improve, to innovate and build a solid program and a very solid athletic department overall. I believe Dan Lanning is here for a while, but if he left, we'd make another good hire and the program would continue to be a national power. We know something about that at VCU, where we go through bright young coaches and launch them on their careers elsewhere regularly, but we keep winning a lot of basketball games. We've come to believe it's as much VCU as it is the brought young coaches. Oregon is the same. Yes, the bright young coaches are great, but IT"S OREGON! Finally Oregon is at least on the verge of being a destination job. Why not? You can coach at a national power and live in Eugene. Who would want more?

Down field early, punish them for loading the box. Use Moore's mobility, move the pocket, roll out, half roll out, use the threat of him running without him necessarily looking to run. Save the cutesy stuff for the fourth quarter if everything else is not working. Too many of the cutesy plays have turned into wasted downs early in the game. We don't need wasted downs. A fast start would be wonderful, I'd love to see us up 14-0 after our first two possessions. Make them play from behind, change their game plan.

Ducks 28-17 1 3 260

Yes to the more play action. Remember the run can set up the pass and the pass can set up the run (I think that happened Saturday at the end of the second quarter).

Yeah, I'm not sure Onio State is that far ahead of everyone else. They look really good, but so does Indiana. Something I haven't heard anyone mention at this point is the toughness of the Big 10 schedules. Oregon has 6 of the (at least present) top ten B1G teams on their schedule, Indiana 3 and Ohio State only 2. I think maybe the Buckeyes are still living off of their season opening win over then #1 Texas, that hasn't proved to be all that good as the season has gone on. All of the teams have some flaws.

So, is Oregon beating Indiana in a rematch in the playoffs Indiana's worst nightmare? I recall Oregon beat the eventual national champion in the regular season last year. Then in the playoffs... Stranger things have happened.

yes, yes it would. It would have been 38-7 and I would have won the prediction contest. LOL

I said some of this during the game, but the slow starts seem to me to be partly caused by play calling. Too much cutesy stuff, not enough down the field in the passing game. A few passes down field later opened up the running game. It seems to me Stein is overly attracted to the nickel and dime short game when he has the weapons to do much more. If I can see that, you can bet the scouts and game planners for the other teams see it and plan accordingly. Let's see what happens at QB, if Moore is good to go their is no reason not to open up early. That would make for a better start. If Moore is not ready to go, then a little more conservative calling in the passing game might be understandable.

Just as we're (me too) talking about not starting Whittington.

Let's go Ducks, stick it in the end zone now.

Yep, they throw a few down field and now the running game is opening up.

Wisconsin can't throw against the Ducks, crowd the line and make them try to beat us throwing it. and open up the offense, one throw down field so far was complete for 15-20 yards. More of that. Stop the cutsy stuff.

As a smaller guy he already had excellent running ability for a QB, add the bulk and make him hard to bring down when you do catch him and hard to bring down in the pocket if you get to him. There is a lot to like there. If he can be anywhere close to an elite D1 passer (he seems to have those tools too) he will be one exciting player to watch.