It's been a while but Slingin' Quack is back. Sean and I have had some serious scheduling errors that have prohibited us from doing a podcast the last couple months but we should have that solved for this upcoming season.
I had a longtime friend join me on this podcast who wrote on the blog "Searching With Akili Smith" with me a bunch of years ago.
We start off the episode going over what we would like to see against UC-Davis this Saturday. There are some goals for the offense and the defense and what we want to see from some individual players. We both agree with Bill C. and Football Outsiders that the true test of a dominant team isn't necessarily how well they do against other top teams because a couple plays can swing the game, but how well the dominant teams do against mid and lower level teams where they should be able to dominate every phase of the game.
Then we look at the depth chart and some of the surprises that we see including Travis Jonsen. Is the argument that Oregon struggles to develop QBs a fact or a myth? Which players that are on the two-deep are we most excited to see? Of the players not listed as starters, who has the biggest chance of breaking out?
Looking at the rest of the conference we see some major challenges for teams like USC and Stanford and discuss how those factors could impact Oregon's run for the conference championship.