GeotechDuck

It still seems like every game I watched within the Cristobal era was a 1 score game until late in the 4th quarter. I know that is not the case, but it still feels that way. It is difficult as a fan to watch games and think, "are they going to find a way to lose this?". I think the turning point for me was the Cal game at home after the COVID year. Oregon won that game, but the offense was flat out terrible. The fans were booing the play calling and IIRC Mario was upset because he thought they were booing the players.

Nice article! I am so glad we somehow ended up with Lanning out of all this. It was worth all the nonsense from Cristobal and Taggart. "Do something"? What a joke that was! However, Taggart did have the offense humming. Oregon was averaging over 50ppg when Herbert was healthy that year and there were explosive plays all over the field. How Cristobal took that over and turned it into a pedestrian mid-30s ppg average for three years, will forever stink like low tide in my book. What a absolute waste of talent! I am probably the only one with this opinion, but if someone told me I had to pick between the two right now, I would probably still go with Taggart. At least the team was excited, showed emotion, scored points, and was not continuously dropping games to double-digit underdogs every single season. Oh...and actually running out the game clock when the opportunity arises, instead of fumbling the game away.

Huge commitment.

I am in line with this thinking. Iowa and UW are the two toughest games and are on the same list. Indiana will take a step back. USC still has major problems on both lines. And I am not convinced that Maiava can make a decent decision in crunch time. Ducks by 3 scores.

I don’t really have an issue with the rankings. Maiava made a ton of mistakes in crunch time last season. I am shocked he still had the job. I probably would have had Moore in front of him at 9.

Looking at last season: The 4 extra at large teams would have been South Carolina, Ole Miss, Alabama and Miami. That is 3 SEC teams that would have qualified for the playoff in the final 4 slots. All with 3 or more losses, all while only playing 8 conference games and a bunch of FCS schools. Because of the skewed rankings and 8 game conference schedule, those three SEC teams had a huge, unfair advantage over Illinois, who was also 10-3 but had to play 11 power 4 schools last year. Then Illinois went out and beat South Carolina in the post season. There is no doubt in my mind that Illinois was a better football team than South Carolina last year, but they would have been left out due to unbalanced schedule and media narrative. I won’t even bring up the fact that 8-5 Michigan beat Alabama. Or the fact that the SEC had a losing record in the playoff and has not made the finals in 2 years. Petitti should never agree to 5+11 without everyone playing 9 conference games. In a 5+11 model, the BIG in most cases is going to be on the outside looking in for those final 4 spots. They will go to the ACC and SEC with less conference games and overall losses.

Thanks for sharing. Hilarious. The data is all skewed by the subjective rankings. Somebody should tell this guy the BIG went 5-1 against the SEC in the post season last year (2-0 in the playoffs, and 3-1 in bowls). Props to Florida for playing Miami and FSU out of conference. They don’t need to change anything. The rest of the SEC though? I hope Petitti holds strong and sits on his hands and keeps the playoff in the current format. Because of the skewed rankings, it’s the middle SEC teams that will suffer the most if the playoff is not expanded to 16 teams. He needs to force them to play 9 conference games.

Tony just needs to sit on his hands, do nothing, and keep the current format. With the skewed rankings and the 8 game schedule, it will be the SEC that is missing out on the extra playoff spots. The pressure will mount eventually.

Three seems fair. Penn State returns a ton on both sides of the ball and gets Oregon at home. osu2 has a 90+% blue chip ranking. Seems right to me. If Oregon finishes 3rd behind osu2 and Penn State, that still likely means a playoff birth.

Yahooo!!! Need one more shooting guard and should be set.

Great to see some OL recruits finally in the class. That is one of the most important positions to recruit from HS, IMO. Now they just need to land Nacho and we are all set.

The way I see it, USC had no choice. They have been circling the drain for a while. They lost a bunch of guys to the portal that were starters or significant contributors. I would have done the same thing. Sign 35 kids by throwing money at them and see what sticks. Desperate times for USC for sure right now.

Agree. We need to close on a few of these OL guys. If we do that, I will be happy.

Gonzaga is now going to be Gonzaga State until the end of time for me.

I like the strategy, but what happens when a school like ATM, USC, or osu2 does both? They throw money at HS kids AND throw money to the transfer portal.