Ducks Overcome Slow Start, Crush Tennessee in Knoxville

Poole would make a great druid, by the way.

one of my biggest pet peeves when reading.

Jerry said “well be right back to Knoxville Kentucky after this” and never corrected himself.
I know that Rich Brooks coached there but you would think the giant T on the field would remind Jerry where he was.
Craig James was driving the UofO Bandwagon during the 08 Holiday Bowl.
 It’s funny how as soon as the “mo” changed to favor the Ducks, ESPN loves ’em.

I really think they were bad both ways. Tennessee played very well the first 20 minutes or so of the game. But you’d think they were the best football team ever the way they were talking about them. And then when the Ducks started scoring, it was the opposite.

It’s possible to praise each team for the good things they’re doing without completely losing perspective. Neither announcer could do that.

I commented on the 12-PAC thread about this. It gets so very, very old to watch the WWL (Worldwide Leader, for non-Deadspin readers) go into their, uh, foot-kissing mode. Today it’s the SEC, the new toy they just got from CBS. And think back; it was the same once upon a time with … the NHL… Arena Football … even the WNBA.

ESPN is Starbucks, Nike, and Microsoft; in the olden days, it would have been GM or US Steel. It will do whatever it needs to promote itself and its brand. Some of the time we can wink at it, for they do lead the way in a lot of sports programming. (Many times we can be thankful we aren’t watching Fox Sports or Versus, or Giansante.) Meanwhile, when we get ESPN, we are force-fed the storyline, and we ’re told to eat it and like it. Hence, Craig James. Whatever hypes the story, to get more people interested in watching ESPN, is what we will be told.

I’d always rather hear Jerry telling us his grandson turned 15, and being a homer; he’s OUR homer.

As his son is at football.

Yeah, teams with better passing games are going to make me lose my hair at 28. Once the UT o-line wore down in the second half, we were able to get some pressure. But we can’t count on better, more seasoned o-lines wearing down. Luck, Barkley, and Foles could do some serious damage if they have all day to sit in the pocket.

Agreed on DT. He made some questionable throws, but not too many, and without at least three drops I can think of, his numbers would have looked a lot better. He definitely did a great job of leading the offense. DT, Barner, and LMJ are a force to be reckoned with.

Dr. Teeth and Electric Mayhem FTW!

I thought Thomas under pressure was great. The way he stayed in the pocket and waited for the play to develop, then he would hit his receiver about to crush him. All night long, it was remarkable.

That’s our nico

that the announcers had way more confidence than I did. They kept saying things like, “but this Ducks team is not going to just lay down, Tennessee needs to keep playing.”

For all of the comments I heard about how bad the announcers were last night, I actually thought they were pretty good. I distinctly remember the refs missing DT getting tugged down by the facemask, and the announcers were all over it.

But that should’ve been tops. Was Justin Hunter’s catch that set up the Vol TD on there? Figured it wouldn’t be because he didn’t score, but it was a hell of a play.

Though he nearly got his clock cleaned on a 3rd-down scramble.

But I noticed that a couple of then were at a low trajectory, that could be a problem when the game is on the line.

tons of good pac 10 games:

Cal @ Nevada
Nebraska @ UW
AZ State @ Wiscy
Houston @ UCLA
Wake Forest @ Stanford

The play where he handed off to James on 3rd and short and James lost a couple of yards on their first drive. It looked like the mesh got screwed up and it slowed down James’ momentum, but either way, Thomas should have kept it and picked up the first.

it wasn’t Pleasant (although, he had some problems, I’ll come back to that) it was our OLB’s not getting leverage on the outside of the blockers and forcing the run back inside. Paysinger got totally pinned on the first long run to the left and Kaddu and Matthews were crossing on the second one to the right.

In the second half, Clay, Kaddu, Paysinger and Lokombo did an awesome job of getting contact in the backfield and making the RB cut before he was ready to. They really wore UT O-line down.

As for Pleasant, he looks really unsure of himself right now. He’s thinking too much. That’s to be expected where he’s seeing plays from a different angle for the first time, give him time. He looks tentative of trusting his reactions on some of the run plays (I think he’s really concerned about getting burnt on the play action) and he’s not making the plays at the LOS that he should be.

Personally, I think this will all come with time. He’ll figure it out, and he’s got Boyett helping. Speaking of Boyett, did anyone else see him get ROCKED right before the lightning storm. He was stumbling and walking like he got his bell rung. It was good to see Lewis come in some help him out. Man it’s good to be loaded in the secondary.

Was that really him or someone wearing his jersey?