Duck Fan 76

WSU got disrespected in the polls, that is going to put some extra burn in the WSU players for Saturday. USC is #7 after beating Rice, Stanford, Fresno State. I'm circling the October 15th game USC @ Utah.

Playing in Pullman is going to be tough but I think Oregon's primary opponent will continue to be Oregon. By that I mean Oregon should win by the number but Oregon has to continue to execute at a high level to win this game. From an Oregon defense point of view and looking at the WSU film for this season their offense has some real weapons and their combination of playaction/RPO hitting crossing routes is very effective at exposing zone gaps. Christian Gonzalez is an absolute stud but we are still looking for a #2 corner to step up. To limit their pass options we need to either have effective pressure against Ward or get our DBs into a lockdown mode. So far this year we haven't consistently done this. I expect this weeks practice to focus on this. The WSU run attack led by Nakia Watson has been pretty effective. So far all three Oregon opponents have been attacking Oregon's edges and running away from the middle with Noah Sewell and Justin Flowe (when healthy). I don't think WSU will change that gameplan much but will likely mix some Watson runs into the center for spice. From an Oregon offense perspective we're firing on all cylinders so WSU will have their hands full. They play a smaller faster front that is designed to get pressure, I don't think they will succeed against a very good Oregon O-line and an athletic Bo Nix. The danger here is if Oregon's success in the past two games results in players loosing sync. I think at this point Oregon's offense has only one major opponent and that's Oregon. Note that this week is the last full practice week before school starts. Since the Georgia blowout Oregon has practiced in pads (hitting hard) almost every practice and that's why there are so many dings on the squad. It's also why the tackling and offensive evasions have significantly improved. They are mostly healthy but they have been playing very very hard the last few weeks. I can't imagine the coaches will take their foot off the gas this week since it's proven to be successful on the field. Oregon is playing excellent fundamentals football right now and the coaches want to cement that for the rest of the season. Next week I expect practices will change dramatically. The current rules limit the team to only 20 hours of player participation a week when classes are in session. That doesn't mean the players will only practice 20 hours as Bo has been working with the TE and Receiver groups outside of practice. The team emphasizes a player led approach and that I hope will be the secret sauce for the remainder of the season. Players coaching each other and holding the focus on playing sound football.

I agree 100%. You can hear that theme in the pre and post game interviews. The players and coaches are focused on practicing hard and focusing on clean fundamentals. The scheme was good today but the players were just executing really well. Some of today was skills advantage from Oregon's recruiting but the fundamentals were there and that allows the talent to shine through. The danger is going into Pullman next Saturday. The Cougs are playing some ball and Pullman is an atmosphere. If the maturity is there the players will take what the coaches are teaching about playing 1 down football and keep focusing on execution. If they do, Oregon will handle the Cougs. If they don't...

I agree, the quality was definitely there. Something to think about for the Oregon brand, advertising takes a hit during recessions and entertainment spending changes character. Think about how you will choose to watch football if things get financially tough. If you had to cut your entertainment budget would Amazon prime make the cut?

They work for me on desktop Chrome.

I agree with your assessment and general wariness. I thought the focus on practicing fundamentals and the reduced scheme complexity helped Oregon play a much better game. In general I like this offensive scheme quite a bit. If we develop a true deep ball threat then it will be potent. For the offense Bo threw a clear interception that ended up as an Oregon touchdown and made a couple other poor reads. Bo still needs to work in general on his reads and patience but he showed why he came out of HS with 5 stars. If the coaches keep working with him (a likely prospect) and they get enough repetitions in for him to reliably recognize a bad situation then he will have a solid command of the offense. He's just not there yet. I'm afraid that in big games or if we get behind he could regress. I haven't scouted BYU yet but the highlights showed a decent defense against Baylor. With the defense I hope Oregon continues to emphasize sound tackling, getting off blocks and swarming defenders this week. David Marsh pointed out that our secondary played more man coverage with pressure from the line and that really helped keep pressure on the EWU passing attack. That seems a likely approach unless we face opposing receivers that can blow the top off our defenders. I know from last year that BYU's power-spread offense can be very capable so this week is a real challenge to the still forming Oregon defense.

On paper alone Oregon SHOULD beat BYU but BYU will be pass heavy and attacking our edges. Oregon's pass defense is still finding itself but BYU will not be able to rush anywhere near the middle. I saw significant improvement from Oregon on fundamentals but more work is absolutely needed. I'm really excited to see what the coaches can correct/adjust this week. Bo still made some bad decisions and that just can't happen. When he played smart and trusted the next down he played really really well. I saw more than a few broken tackles for Oregon's offense but that was more about talent gap than scheme. Still, it had to be a great confidence booster for the skill players. I loved watching the EWU game but Oregon better play solid fundamentals football against BYU and let the talent gap and scheme do its work. I have solid hopes that the coaching is taking hold and the players are cleaning up the fundamentals and slowly building out the playbook.

On the VERY plus side, the smoke has blocked out most of the sun so instead of the 99 degrees that was forecasted it's currently about 80 degrees here in Eugene.

When I watched Bo's interview after the Georgia blowout he looked pretty defeated. If he begins to really listen to the coaches and learn to avoid his instincts to play sandlot football then he can be a good steward of the offense. If he continues to give in to the instincts to make stuff happen I expect KD to sit him. It's really hard to NOT trust your instincts but he's picked up a bad read skillset that has to be trained out of him through repetition. It can't happen overnight but it begins with him playing the plays as designed. I think it's a 30/70 chance that he's able to make real progress against those habits this year. It will be easier against Eastern Washington due to the talent gap but the BYU game could go badly for Bo.

Hindsight is 20/20 but so too can be introspection. I can see now that what we saw at the end of last year wasn't just a motivational downturn due to perceived coaching exits. What was exposed by Utah was instead a real structural weakness in the teams mechanics & composition. I was blinding myself to this reality with the notion that spring & fall camp would give the coaches time to correct what they saw and turn out an Oregon team meeting its full potential. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was the 2021 Oregon football team, plenty of effort was in the ground before DL's staff got to Eugene and began diagnosing fundamentals. How I thought the new staff would be able to come together, establish their program, install a new offense & defense and then coach the flaws out of the 2021 team in that short of a span was in hindsight, naïve. These players have several years of development (and habits) already and in some cases underdevelopment has lowered their potential. We can't flip a switch and correct all of these points in a 4 week fall camp. After the Georgia game freed me of my illusions there was the usual emotional down turn. Having read more than a few posts on this site and others I think we as a fanbase are in a better place with the 2022 season and importantly we are focused on continuing to lend support and encouragement to the new program. Classes start after the Washington State game and at that point the players will be restricted to about 20 hours a week (I believe) of official team practice time. Until then the program has their full attention and will be working hard to build the core fundamentals they need to not only be successful this season but in the next and the next... This is indeed a building year. I believe we are going to have a successful season and likely much better than the 50% mark. I have real hope for the offense and I believe the defense will make strides with pass protection. They now have a clear focus on tackling fundamentals and scheme adjustments that allows for bigger defenders to find success against the pass. I've stopped worrying about the top tier of CFB for this season and I'm going to take it one game at a time and one play at a time. I'm going to learn to love to watch the team grow. That means I'm going to accept some bad plays and dumb throws (please God, not too many!) and focus on watching players develop over the season. That seems a healthier relationship in general with CFB.

Agreed, and we have to trust that the coaches are going to start the QB that gives the team the best chance to win. The staff felt Bo gave us the best chance, so he got the start. The offense made big mistakes against a great defense and a held to 3 points is what we get. That being said, the defense is what made that game an embarrassment. If Bo had a 'Heisman night' we wouldn't have been in that game and we would still be talking about an embarrassing defensive performance. I don't know what the strategy is to help the defense get this right, there's plenty of talent but missing tackles like that will get you sat down on a high school bench. The open spaces in passing lanes was GLARING. I think Bo get's the start against Eastern Washington and hopefully we blow it up on the offense side to 1) give the defense the time they need to figure stuff out and 2) Get the #2 in the game to figure his stuff out. If Bo struggles to make good decisions against BYU, I'm sure the staff will send in the backup and we will see what's what.

Great article! How the players and coaches react will determine the outcome for this season and likely help shape the next 4 years of the program. Remember, there were a bunch of very young players on the field for Oregon this Saturday and they got really embarrassed. There is real program value in having that happen as long as the coaching is there to shape the fuel into fire. Justin Herbert's first game as a starter was a 70-21 blowout by Washington at Autzen in 2016. (I'm NOT comparing Bo to Justin... In this scenario Bo is likely Dakota Prukop) What did Justin do with that loss? He turned it into work ethic... Oregon will be building this season, we need to see coaching that shapes shame into work ethic.

There is absolutely some wisdom here. I completely misdiagnosed the Auburn film with Bo and the reality is QB is the most important position on the field as they make nearly all of the critical offensive decisions that lead to success or failure in a game. We don't know what Bo (or TT or JB) show in closed practices. Bo might be an utter genius in explaining to the coaches every aspect of the offense and defense but gameplay is the judge of play potential and what evidence we have there is that he makes poor decisions when it really matters. Forget the fans, DL and the staff owe it to every player on the Oregon team to reevaluate every single decision that has been made to date. Starting QB is certainly one of those decisions. I do have faith in the young staff, but that faith is tempered with data. We need to see skills development as JOB #1 and those skills need to be demonstrated during the games. One thing is for sure, we need much better offensive play immediately because it's going to take some time to put the defensive house in order.

So we currently have a 5-star QB that is extremely athletic but at his core is a scrambling QB. This seems to make a lot of sense in the KD offense where mobility is a key piece to the explosive offense. That being said our best recruit this cycle is Dante Moore who is THE elite pocket passer for this class. How does KD's offense change with a pocket passer? KD recruited Moore so we have to believe he has a solid plan that he shared with Moore. Does Jay Butterfield move ahead of Ty Thompson in the depth chart to see this transition? At this point I believe all things being considered field vision and pressure judgement need to be the definitive characteristics at QB. Secondary thought, how does the Oregon offensive line have to change to support KD's offense and Moore in the future? Do we need to recruit a much more agile lineman for the dynamic pressure schemes? Obviously that idea fits well with Josh Conerly. Can Oregon have more luck building the O-line from speed than power?

Excellent point, we have to trust to the coaches to make sound personnel decisions. We have some carryover bias from last year that doesn't necessarily apply with new coaches and a new transfer QB. We certainly learned that last year the system had a significant contribution to the QB problems and Ty's experience was in THAT system. That being said there's no way to color some of Bo's throws other than really poor judgement... I for one will be looking to some film analysis to get a better idea of just how bad (or not) Bo's field vision was.

"The error 0x80070643 message is usually the result of system settings that were configured incorrectly... or old versions of programs that weren't removed correctly when a new version was downloaded" So, I think we can assess from the difficulties with coverage and edge containment today that the new defensive install didn't go as well as hoped. There were clearly some "issues" that will need to be teased apart in the film to identify where the players will need the fundamentals of the defense clarified for them. I think that's the least of our worries however. My biggest concerns from the game was the poor tackling. I mean watching it at game speed many of those missed tackles looked absolutely terrible. I heard DL acknowledge that the tackling had to improve as well as the coaching. When he was asked about Bo in the 4th quarter he said he wanted to see if the offense could build a rhythm to take out of this game. He then said "Bo's our quarterback". I know we're gun shy from last year but I have to imagine that showing improvement against BYU in week 3 is Bo's only hope to keep the job. We will most likely learn nothing next week but it's an opportunity to practice some fundamentals.

Agreed, Georgia looked great and really executed well. As for us? We may need to make a few adjustments to this week's practice.

Agreed, maybe some tackling drills this week before Eastern Washington hangs 28 on us?

Ok, burning the bandwagon... I'll eat major Crow on this game.

At least there's plenty of us to share the crow with. Dawgs looked great, hats off to Georgia!

I share this view 100%. Oregon needs to get Georgia's offense into a pass necessity state. There are some specific challenges with that and they are some of the best TE's in CFB. On the Oregon offense side Oregon needs to throw the ball well to open up the run. This is a lot harder than going the other way. The specific challenge with that is the disguised pressure scheme. You can double team a known threat, how do you cover pressure you don't know is coming? The RB can pick up some but not if he's sent on a wheel route. The answer I think is make Georgia use it's spy for tackles. If Bo picks up the unblocked pressure staying in the pocket is also called a sack unless he can throw just before getting hit. Do that enough and you will eventually throw a pick or three. Sometimes your best bet is to take the little that's offered and play for the next down where you might pick up the pressure and connect downfield.

Oregon 35 - 31, 2, 2, 350

We'll see tomorrow...

Some Auburn fans will be rooting for Oregon tomorrow. If Bo plays well it helps Oregon recruiting in the deep south. Goodman: All eyes on Bo Nix to start the 2022 football season WWW.AL.COM Welcome to the college football season where everyone in Alabama can cheer for a quarterback at Oregon.

Considering Georgia isn't quite sure who they are playing on Saturday I would expect the first defensive series to be a bit cautious and designed to feel out Oregon's offense. Considering Oregon isn't quite sure how the offense will execute on Saturday I would expect the script to settle some nerves and build rhythm in the offense. What does Oregon call for the first play? Counter into the B gap.