OhioDuck

I'm not as impressed with Franklin as you are. He had all the resources he could possibly want at Penn St. plus a constantly sold out 110,000 seat stadium and couldn't get over the hump to win the big games that would have made them a national championship contender. He's going to have okay resources at Tech and a rabid if smaller fan base, but it's not Penn St. Tech needs to win with innovation, as I hinted above like Oregon does, not with the conservative philosophy of Franklin. He may recruit okay there, but he will not dominate the ACC at Tech. I doubt at this point he will even dominate UVA (like they did not too many years ago). He beat who he was supposed to beat at Penn St. often with vastly superior talent. He won't have that advantage at Va Tech. I see Franklin as very similar to Cristobal.

Part of me is saying VATech could have done better. Tech was once a pretty descent program. To some extent they went the opposite direction as Oregon for the opposite reasons. Oregon was all about innovation and VaTech was all about, well certainly not innovation at least not in football. Right now in the NIL/portal world of college sports they are ill equipped financially to compete at the highest levels. That's too bad. It used to be a game at Lane Stadium was probably second only to Autzen in game atmosphere.

Ha, from one college mountain town otherwise in the middle of nowhere, to another (even smaller, yay verily tiny) college mountain town in the middle of nowhere. Welcome to Bleaksburg coach! Actually I really like Blacksburg, it's beautiful (not unlike Eugene, just smaller than Eugene) but it is tiny and kind of remote (not to be confused with Remote, OR, just 12 miles east of Myrtle Point).

With healthy receivers this team becomes one of the kinds of teams that is so hard to defend. Some teams set up their passing with their running game. Others set up their running game with their passing game. The Ducks can do it both ways. When a team loads the box against the run, this team can go down field with efficiency (a lot of teams pass down field trying to get lucky, not Oregon), when the D is playing off the line, trying to stop the pass this team can punish them with the run. Being able to do both of those makes this team very hard to defend.

I went to all but one of the Beavers home games that season. Our church (I was the pastor) had several OSU alum members and any time someone had an extra ticket I was invited. Those were certain heady times for Oregon State. I have contended all along OSU should have gone to the national championship game. If they had, I'm pretty sure they would have won it. A 12 team play off, they just might have won also. As I've gravitated to rooting for the Ducks, reasons I've shared in other threads, I still haven't become "hostile" to OSU. I had a lot of good times rooting for them and back then Reeser was rocking!

Ducks win 31-13 2 3 215

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