What a weekend. The Ducks made it out of Tucson alive, though barely. It's always tough to go on the road, and this Oregon team has struggled to find consistency away from Autzen. However, the Ducks were able to pull it out, basically willing themselves to victory despite a number of mistakes and setbacks.
- First of all, Jeremiah Masoli. It's not always pretty, but he gets the job done. His improvement from his early season problems has been the main reason for the Ducks offensive success, and he's earing lots of national recognition. He's being called a winner and unflappable by Ivan Maisel. George Schroeder has a column on him as well. Masoli, more than anything else, has learned to just allow the game to happen, and take what is there. He rarely makes bad decisions, and when he does, he doesn't let that affect his future play (like Dennis Dixon did in the early days). In a tough road environment where things hadn't been going well, Masoli and the offense came through when they needed to.
- We're not the only people praising Nate Costa. Sporting News named his hold the play of the day. For a play as routine as an extra point, Costa and Flint handled the poor snap like pros, and allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief after a half second of sheer terror.
- Both Masoli and LaMichael James set record this weekend. Masoli set the record for the highest scoring QB in Oregon history (passing Joey Harrington), while LMJ set the Pac-10 freshman rushing record, surpassing Jacquizz Rodgers' record from last season.
- Jeff Maehl is also earning some well-deserved praise. He's received a lot of unwarranted criticism this year, but his rapport with Masoli was huge in moving the chains during the final Oregon drive, and the throw and catch for the first OT touchdown was a thing of beauty.
- Ken Woody's blog on the game is an excellent read, as always. He's not as positive as many of us are, but that just means that there are some good things to work on in the week and a half ahead.
- Arizona President Robert Shelton apologized to UO for the behavior of the Arizona fans. Hopefully this will be a lesson to Arizona and all other Pac-10 schools, and some of these issues can get cleaned up.
After the jump, a couple of videos on the game, including player reaction. As always, leave any other links in the comments. GO DUCKS!
Masoli, James, and Maehl react after the win
Inside the Pac recaps the weekend and looks forward to the Civil War