Media Wednesday - Remember This Guy?

I think you raise good points. I only have one real disagreement with you.

Once your guys get the ground game going and productive, Masoli will once again be a potent weapon. But in the absence of that, he is not the guy to win a game for you with his arm. He just isn’t.

Oregon doesn’t ask their quarterbacks to win with their arms. They are asked to win with their decision making. When Oregon has done well, Masoli made plays when he needed to but he made the “right decision” most of the time. At Boise State, he didn’t make the right decisions nearly as often

I think there’s plenty of valid non-Duck perspective here, Oski. I doubt we Duck fans have experienced a more hot-or-cold QB, at least not one that I can remember. There’s no question, at least in my mind, that Oregon needs to run to pass. Jeremiah has some God-given talent, but not so much that he can carry the team alone.

Regardless of how he plays going forward, Masoli remains Oregon’s best option. He is more seasoned in the offense than Darron Thomas, and from what I’ve seen at practices, Masoli is a more accurate passer. And while Nate Costa might be a more pure passer, his presence on the field would likely be due to complete failure in the run game requiring a one-dimensional passing attack. Seeing he of three knee surgeries being blitzed mercilessly would be painful at best.

It’s Masoli or bust, unless the season becomes a complete disaster to the point the coaches decide it’s time to begin the Darron Thomas era. I really don’t see it getting that bad, but I wouldn’t say there’s zero chance of that either. Everyone on Oregon’s offense needs to play better than we saw against BSU. No one player is going to lift this team alone.

I understand those criticisms. I feel part of your opinion is due to not watching pretty every snap he has taken at Oregon. Make no mistake, he’s incredibly inconsistent. Some days, he will win games with his arm. Some days he won’t. Hopefully we’ll see some more consistency out of him in the future.

Masoli, for how well he ran the last 4 games of ‘08, wasn’t recruited to be the next DD or a run first QB. See his stats as a freshman JUCO QB at the College of San Francisco. 3,065 yards, 61.3% completion percentage and 26 TDs. Like JT said in a different post, his decision making was absolutely terrible against BSU.

Every QB in the PAC-10 or FBS for that matter, needs a running game to be consistent. I can’t think of a single QB that can win a game all by himself without an O-line and a running game.

Masoli’s strength has been a combination of his ability to run (inside the Ducks running game system) and make good decisions on passing coming from good play calling. The BSU game “exposed” that if you make Oregon (or any team) one dimensional you can force them into bad situations and bad decisions.

Hopeully the running game, the O-line, the play calling and the decision making all improve next game. That loss was not on Masoli alone.

The O-line has been a huge scapegoat during this entire mess. They were bad sure, but we didn’t expect great things. Unfortunately, the rest of the offense didn’t take advantage of the opportunities they were given when the line did it’s job.

Nor does it help that the Pflugrad household was the world’s leading producer of schadenfreude that night.