AnotherOD

If you are planning to go on 4th, with a timeout, a run on 3rd to me seems like a strong play.

Ugh. With a timeout left, I would have loved to see at least one rush. James has been really good in that spot this year.

Keep running the ball.

Road games in the PAC usually make me a bit nervous (and this is a big spot for the UW). It likely won't be easy on the road (though I've been unusually confident all week). Let's do this Ducks.

Whoa. Potentially huge.

What a great drive with about a minute ten left in the game by Oklahoma. I'd guess OU jumps to about 5, Texas maybe about 9-10 (depending on the outcome of other games today of course). I would imagine Oregon and UW both land ahead of a one loss Texas, further upping the stakes for the game next weekend? Texas probably settled into that "highest rated one loss" team?

Masoli+Boise+State+hit - Google Search WWW.GOOGLE.COM Did anyone else think back to this play (replay at 0:48 second mark)?

The OL has been fortunate over the last several season it has had groups that have largely came in together (or within a season), and had a year to work together as a second unit, then largely played together for several seasons. The Throckmorton/Lemieux/Hansen/Aiello group came in and redshirted together before becoming a core group of OL that played together (along with some other guys: Sewell, Crosby, Womack, etc.) for four seasons. Their final season (2019), Oregon had Alex Forsyth, Ryan Walk, Aumavae-Laulu, George Moore, and Steven Jones all together as a second unit. They added JC Bass for 2020, then essentially formed another unit that played together in 2020, 2021, and 2022. I don't know how one pencils such a thing too much better. This season, we have a kid who was playing for Rhode Island last year, a kid who was a true freshman last year and mostly played in goal line packages, Steven Jones, who missed most of the year with injury, Jackson-Powers, who has played well when not banged up his first two years as a rotational guy (about 600 snaps and three OL starts); and, Marcus Harper, who started 10 games and played solidly last year largely filling in for Jones. I agree with the posts suggesting it may take several games for this unit to gel (I don't think it even was completely together for spring with injuries and late transfers). (As noted in other posts, it hasn't helped that Angilau appears to not yet be recovered from the injury that kept him out at Texas last year; and, Strother, who had been largely healthy at ECU, hasn't been available for his first two games as a Duck as well).

I'm the tiniest bit surprised there have been no comments on Tosh earning exactly 1 million more than Oregon State's Trent Bray. 1.7 million versus 0.7 million.

There appears to be some evidence the AD had interest in JW as Duck head coach and he decided to stay at Cal -- soon after signing an (at least) $28.5 million dollar six year extension there. I would suggest that is pretty strong evidence he isn't about to do a complete 180 -- and become a DC here. Understand the thought though. Oregon's AD wasn't afraid to come up with a pretty sizeable DC salary for Lanning's new staff According to Football Scoup, 2023's highest paid DC: 1. Jim Knowles (tOSU): $ 1.9 million 2. Glenn Schuman (Georgia): $ 1.9 million 3. Kevin Steele (Alabama): $ 1.9 million 4. Matt House (LSU): $ 1.9 million 5. Pete Kwaitkowski (Texas): $ 1.7 million 6. Tosh Lupoi (Oregon): $ 1.7 million 7. Tim Banks (Tennessee): $ 1.5 million 8. DJ Durkin (Texas A&M): $ 1.5 million 9. Brad White (Kentucky): $ 1.5 million 10. Morgan Scalley (Utah): $ 1.4 million 11. Phil Parker (Iowa): $ 1.3 million 12. Tony Gipson (NC State): $ 1.25 million 13. Blake Baker (Missouri): $ 1.1 million 14. Scottie Hazelton (Michigan State): $ 1.1 million 15. Adam Fuller (Florida State): $ 1.1 million 23. Brian Ward (ASU): $ 950,000 24. Peter Sirmon (Cal): $ 910,000 30. Trent Bray (OSU): $ 700,000 34. Johnny Nasen (Arizona): $ 650,000 36. William Igne/Chuck Morrell (UW): $ 625,000

Funny things have happened to the Ducks in the desert. 27-48 at ASU in 1996 31-52 at ASU in 1997 3-38 at Arizona in 1998 14-59 at ASU in 2003 24-34 at Arizona in 2007 16-42 at Arizona in 2013 35-37 at ASU in 2017 15-44 at Arizona in 2018 28-31 at ASU in 2019 Since 1996, Oregon has gone 15-9 at UA and ASU. Over that period Oregon has gone 242-97 (0.714) and UA and ASU have gone a combined 330-320 (0.508). That 0.714 win percentage (according to Stassen) is good for 8th place in the FBS. The combined percentage for UA/ASU (0.508) would put them 65th in the FBS (out of the 127 teams Stassen lists as qualifying from 1996-2022). Tough place to play against a good opponent. Thumbs up.

Interesting discussion. My first thought is maybe there are some misconceptions about the "mint defense"? Maybe? (At least from my - limited - understanding). It isn't really considered to be a pressure heavy sack and TFL defense. Now, elite talent will produce good numbers over a season in those stats; but, the "mint" defense (I've read) is designed to first and foremost shut down the short to intermediate pass. These short/intermediate passes that have replaced what once were runs in college football. The "mint" is on those schematic decisions. It also puts an extra body when needed to keep a medium play -- from becoming more. In the "Aliotti Tradition", no big plays. It's not necessary a pressure and sack or TFL offense. Most of the "plays" at the LOS are depended upon elite talent doing their thing. My only worry (I typed a whole post about it on Sunday and decided to delete it) is whether the LB Corps is there yet. I think the talent up front and the back end is absolutely good enough to make the thing run. If the LBing is there, I think it can be top 40-50 good (there are some tough teams offensively on the Duck schedule this year). Really looking forward to Jestin Jacobs taking the field and being healthy. I saw Devon Jackson play a lot early against PSU (and look a bit like a guy seeing the field for essentially the first time). Seems like a "mint" LB if he (soon) puts it together.

I think Texas Tech at Wyoming will be on CBS at 4:30. Might be worth a watch.

Nebraska and Matt Rhule got to be a bit worried about 0-2. Colorado home crowd gonna be amped next week.

Whenever the preseason "depth charts" are released, I tend to pull them up and take a look. One of the lists which seems to be fairly on the ball from what I can tell (OurLads.com) is listing 5 new starters at DB. Now, the STAR has graduated but there are 4 other guys returning who are currently listed as back-ups, including two sixth year seniors, a fourth year guy, and a third year guy (3 out of the 4 nationally rated #40, #106, and #231). Now, who knows how accurate it will prove to be; and, even if so I'm sure those guys will play and will be a massive wealth of depth at those spots. But, if indeed the new guys have displaced the veteran core? That's interesting. I'm not sure how you read it other than a sizeable influx of talent.

Ok. It came to me. It was 540 pounds and Brandon Tett in 2010 and Arizona Western CC. Spent two years in the arena league and two in Canada. Gresham Oregon kid. Number 95.

Casey Rodgers benched 505? Holy cow. That is Haloti Ngata and Igor Olshansky territory (and I believe would be top 5 all time in Duck strength and conditioning bench lore). A guy (who I thought) really came on a bit towards the close of the season. There have been a number of years (reported) that the whole Duck squad only had about a handful of 400 pound bench pressers. Of course, the Duck football all-time leader in the bench press was a guy (whose name escapes me) benched something crazy like 585 in a tested powerlifting event prior to enrolling at Oregon ... only played something like 10 snaps in his one year in a Duck uniform.

Interesting to run into this morsel of info, as just the other day I did a (short) internet dive into this topic when I saw somewhere UCF was reported to have 70,000 on campus in-person students. Holy cow, 70,000 students attending on campus and in-person? I didn't see any 2024 numbers (but the list I saw was 2023 US Department of Education 21-day enrollment figures based on the "Common Data Set Program"): 1. Texas A&M 74.8 2. UCF 68.4 3. Rutgers 67.6 4. Florida 61.1 5. tOSU 60.5 6. ASU 57.6 7. Illinois 56.6 8. Florida Int. 55.7 9. Minnesota 55.0 10. Texas 52.4 UW was just behind at 52.3. I didn't realize it was so big either, nearly top ten. The UO? 23.2. UCF seemed crazy big then I saw Indira Gandhi National University (New Delhi) reporting an enrollment of 7,140,000 (and it was time to step away from digging).

Saw this out there on the WildWestSports Football board, for what it is worth (from Ohio State guy):

Absolutely agree. The need to launch an app, find your program, and launch it, makes jumping around much, much more difficult. I think that jumping around actually is a "thing" for college football fans, and it will continue, except WITHOUT a lot of jumping into an app, back to linear TV, back to the app, etc. Mostly it will be in between linear programming games. And I have to simply wonder, if streaming is the thing, why isn't everyone else jumping in at this time? A game here and there (like I guess UW and MSU on Peacock)? Sure. Most to potentially nearly all your games? Doesn't seem to interest the SEC, Big 12, Big 10, ACC, etc. Maybe I'm missing something? We are supposed to believe on one hand they need to be applauded for their lucrative media contracts; but, then to need to be criticized for not being heavily streaming? Seems off.

If it is 20 million AND mostly streaming? Ugh.

Isn't the list just Power 5 teams listed in order of the record their 2023 opponents had in 2022? I don't think it is a particularly good method to do this; but, it's hard to get on PFF, they are just doing the math and putting up a list, not expressing an opinion. I haven't done the math; and, I would say it's pretty silly not to list the winning percentages of the future opponents, if that is what your list is based on. But, I imagine Oregon makes the list because Portland State only won 4, Hawaii only won 3, Stanford only won 3, Cal only won 4, Arizona State only won 3, and Colorado only won 1, that's seems to be all.

I'm optimistic as well; but, wow is it likely the Ducks will be breaking in a lot of new players this season? On paper, it could be argued, the Ducks might be expected to only return 11 starters (6 offense/5 defense). Now there are a bunch of new guys who either transfer in with plenty of talent/experience or were young last year and should be expected to be even better this year. Many names like: Tez Johnson, Holden, Bryant Jr., Conerly, Powers-Johnson, Angilau, Cornelius, Strother, Popo (injury), Burch, Jacobs, Soelle, Tysheem Johnson, Khyree Jackson, Evan Williams, Nikko Reed, Florence, Uiagalelei and others. All of which probably could be argued push to start or at least be penciled in to have a big role this year, and that's a pretty big list of names. How fast does it come together; and, do all the new pieces being added bite the team at least once in the first 7-8 games of the year before they settle in? If the OL comes together, Nix stays healthy, and Stein continues his ascension as a play caller and OC (Dave Bartoo of College Football Matrix had him as a top 5 first year OC at UTSA last year), it's hard to not see a top 20 offense (very possibly better). Bartoo points to a possible Nix Effect with Dillingham last season (not having a top 50 offense the previous two years at FSU then having a huge first year at Oregon, Stein very well may have a similar second season at Oregon with a talented and healthy veteran QB to plan around). On defense, no where to go but up? While a few of the advanced statistics aren't absolutely horrible, simply hard to suggest much past the simple "eyeball test" (and it seemed to me some of the much discussed late game choices to "go for it" on offense could be argued were less about the young staff gambling and more just about a lack of confidence in the other side of the ball). I like the additions on all three levels on defense and while it is always not good to not read too much into the spring game, it was encouraging. With hopefully a bump going from year one to year two with the new defensive staff, I would have to think anything much higher than 50 would be a bit disappointing.

Shough has had his share of injuries since arriving at TT (not counting one game he was knocked out very, very early) has only played in 10 of 26 possible TT games in 2021 and 2022. While it seems like he has been around college football forever, he has only attempted 10 or more passes in a game in his college career 16 times (for comparison Nix in the same number of career seasons has done it 47 times). Of those 10 games, only 2 have been starts against power 5 opponents that finished the season with a winning record, and in those games had NCAA passing efficiency ratings were 78.9 and 117.0 (1-1). While likely the default starter at TT, and while having overall a good winning percentage in games he has started and played significant snaps in (8-2), he really hasn't "wowed" too many TT fans over the last two years (if checking out fans opinions in a couple TT forums is a fair representation). He's a guy who brought a lot of optimism with him to TT, who seems to generally been the QB who just has been a tiny bit better on paper and gotten the nod. TT fans appear to be somewhat split on how much the injuries should be weighted in their QB debates. On paper, Oregon would have to appear to have a pretty big advantage at QB. One little bit I found interesting was that TS in his one starting season at Oregon (COVID year) was pretty solid with his legs, in 7 games rushing 66 times for 271 yards. In his first 7 games at TT, he rushed 28 times for 19 yards. However, in his last 4 games where TT went 4-0, he (again) rushed 60 times for 264 yards (maybe his game opens up a bit when allowed more opportunities to run, rather than sit in the pocket?) Might be something to keep an eye on?

Should we look at this as there may be some concern about the (projected) health of the kid from Texas? Is that off base? Absolutely excited when he joined the UO and was disappointed to read he mostly was on the shelf (due to injury) this spring. Interesting to see if the staff had maybe 3 rides leaving spring they appear to have gone CB, OG, and WR. Jones, Harper, and Angilau already appeared on paper to be 3 starters for two spots with the 3rd guy being rotational. Looking to a potential 4th guy with the remaining spots? Interesting? Jones maybe though to perhaps be penciled in to play some OT this year?