The Kickoff: Oregon and USC peaking as they prepare for top 20 matchup

LMJ couldn’t hold on to the ball to save his life his freshman year. And he rarely fumbles anymore, unless he’s fair catching the ball apparently.

He hit him so hard he re-hurt himself and didn’t return to the game. I think all of our backs would have fumbled that ball.

But what will help us is the recruits seeing true freshman (especially DAT) getting so much meaningful playing time. There are other things, but I would imagine the chance of seeing the field right away is a big factor in their decision making.

I don’t know, we’ll have to see after this week. If Oregon wins soundly, who deserves to be 3 in the human polls, Oregon or Alabama? If USC were being ranked as they usually are, they’d probably be up in the top 15. Oregon beating the #4 and say, #13, teams on back-to-back weeks would look pretty darned good. Instead, a win over USC won’t look all that great to humans.

I’m glad the robots will think it’s sexy.

I think they are more objective (unless you think someone is massaging the data). They’re just crappier.

The players aren’t the only ones who improve year-to-year. Last year there’s no way we grind the clock through the late-third and entire fourth quarters against UW and ‘furd. Why this year? Fusks and Trees need time to grind out points. Racing up and down the field plays into their game plans. This year he’s playing their own strengths against them by slowing down and grinding the clock. Playing a numbers game. Keeping the ball out of their hands. And that’s beautiful, because THEY can’t play at OUR pace, but WE can play at THEIR pace.

Gives our young corners some help. They’ve improved a lot since the Cal and Arizona games, and Mitchell looks tremendous. Hill and Ekpre-Olomu have their rookie moments, but they’ve come along as well. They’ve gotten to the point where Cliff is an after thought, because for as many good plays as he makes, he’s gotten burned a fair amount. We can’t afford that against the two SC receivers. Our young DBs are all sure tacklers, which will be key against Woods and Lee. Those two are scary good with room to run.

The running game is good, but not great enough to have to bring Boyett down like we did against Stanford. We’ve faced a better offensive line in LSU (and possibly Stanford, especially in the run game) already this year. Barkley is prone to getting rattled when he gets hit a few times (and he will get hit); he isn’t very mobile. And for as many yards as SC has racked up, they aren’t great in the redzone. SC kept it competitive against Stanford, but Stanford looked like the physically superior team in that game. This isn’t the SC of old, they don’t have the depth.

I see your point though. In terms of balance, SC’s offense is the most balanced in the conference. And balanced offenses typically do well against our defense.

It has rounded into form a little of late, but against the Fuskies? The jury remains out. Woods and Lee are by far the most dangerous part of their offense. If we can put anything like the pressure on Barkley as we did on Luck and Price, and limit their running game anything like we did against UW and ‘furd, we have a good shot at avoiding a track meet. Papa Kiffen hasn’t had much success defending the spread, and certainly hasn’t defended an offense with as much speed as the Ducks have, so I’m not worried about putting up points. I just would rather not HAVE to be scoring late.

Divide-by-zero swallows the entire Earth whole.

I root for that anyway.

But so weird. Vegas is the polar opposite of BYU. When we were there in 2006 there were no lines for beer at the game, and as a result there were no lines for the restrooms at halftime.

While BYU might love playing football in Vegas, I think Vegas might hate BYU.

The Ducks have done an amazing job this year – especially in the last 2 games – of slowing the overall offensive tempo with a lead in the 4th Q and putting together long, clock-killing drives. In addition, on critical downs/situations they can throw in a quick snap, catching the lulled-into-a-slower-pace defense totally off guard. (I believe this happened at least once on a 3rd or 4th down play on one of the last drives.)

Once we are up 2+ scores, the offense goes straight to the “see me” system, drains seconds off the clock, and only throws it if absolutely necessary. How many times last year did LMJ sit out the entire fourth quarter, regardless of the score? This year, particularly after LMJ’s elbow injury, Chip is more likely to throttle down, and shorten the game. As the new players have gotten more acclimated, the pace on offense has picked up, which occured in the UW and Stanford games.

You may have a point about controlling tempo and forcing teams to abandon the ball control strategy, but the Ducks’ TOP numbers don’t bear that out. Further, it seems anethma for Chip to go away from the high pressure tempo system while the game’s in doubt.