Oh man.... that's a tough one.... I think he's talented enough to do it, but there's so many factors. Will Chip stay? How will our offense play next year? Football is too large for one person. I think he presents our best chance yet.
Overall, I really liked what I saw of him. He's a terrific system QB and so long as we can keep continuity of the system (with or without Chip) and catch a season relatively injury free he has a real chance to deliver one. I think the X factor is his ability to run. He is deceptively fast and I like the fact they don't run a lot of plays just for him. His opportunistic runs are very good. He exceeded my expectations and I think he has a real chance to lead his team to the promised land.
of course the odds are heavily stacked against any single team winning a NC in the following 3 seasons. With or without MM and/or Chip, the Ducks are in the mix of teams that could win... but again, longshot STOMP
I'd love to say yes, but everything has to go right in a given year to win a national title. One slip up, one blown tackle, one hard sack and the season can be brought to a crushing halt. I like the odds if chip stays because of how quick an attack the ducks lead with him. It allows for a few slip ups with the pace played.
That's just one of many reasons I don't blame the loss on the kicker. We had many opportunities on turnovers, offensive plays, missed tackles... and kicking was just a part of it all.
For the Ducks, this is approaching a perfect storm of suckatude. 1) Rumors of NCAA sanctions. Never mind that the Duck "violations" would be laughed at in the SEC. 2) Rumors of Kelly leaving. He will be an utter failure in the NFL...but will probably go anyway. 3) In this case 1 + 2 = 3. Even at the best of times the Ducks are middle of the pack in recruiting, and events are going to scare talent away. If the Ducks can't win with their current talent - how can they win with lesser talent? 4) What happens if their bowl opponent actually watches tape of the Stanford game? A bad loss will only make things worse. In summation, why are we even talking about the Natty?
fify... Stanford's D was leading the country in lowest yards allowed rushing going into that game. I'm sure that as well as that game, their opponent's coaching staff will also go over every game this season and past season losses too. Seems to me that they'll come away with thinking their front 7 will have to dominate/play pretty much flawlessly and hope that the stars align preventing Oregon's offense from clicking. If Oregon is executing they'll be down to just prayers. I know that drowning in pessimism is your gig here, but your conclusion is pretty over the top funny. A bad loss in a BCS bowl game would mean they'd finish somewhere around #10 or so. If I didn't know better I'd swear this was from a bandwagon fan. For longtimers like us, Oregon finishing #10 used to be a pipe dream and it would certainly go down as one of the top 10 final rankings in the program's history. Thats bad to worse STOMP
It seems to be we have as good a chance to win a natty as any other top tier team. We run a system. We don't necessarily need 5 star players at every position for that system to run well. Year in and year out we have plenty good enough players to compete at a very high level. And, we have a very solid team returning next season.
I guess I didn't make myself clear - so let's try this again. Compared to the past, a top 10 finish is a successful season. That wasn't the question. The question was whether we can win the Natty in the next 3 seasons. All the BS surrounding the program right now is going to hurt recruiting. With all due respect to BP's argument, you don't win without talent. Even if Chip stays, his system is not invincible. I'm sure Chip himself would tell you that having the right personel to run the blur is critical. If recruiting falls off, our window slams shut. Mariota is not going to single-handedly carry the team to the Natty. What part of that do you disagree with?
We got to the Natty before without an All-Star roster. We can do it again..... not that I'm saying we will, but it can be done.
lots of it. Nate noted that the Ducks made it to the 2011 game with a roster that was filled with guys who were unheralded as recruits. For an overview of this, rivals ranked the 5 preceding classes that made up that roster at #13, 32, 19, 11 & 49. I'm sure you can also recall that a high % of the top recruits Oregon used to land on recruiting day under Bellotti ended up as academic washouts never making it into school. Not only has Kelly been landing higher rated recruits of late, but he's getting good students who enroll & eventually graduate, which is why their current classes are smaller. One could speculate that recruiting is being hurt/falling off by "the BS surrounding the program", but there is no actual evidence that this is so... in fact I'd argue that they're doing great. They've about the same number of verbals now as they've had the past couple of years at this time (btw... rivals rated those two classes #16 & 9), and the guys on board seem to be another outstanding bunch on and off the field. Oregon has typically done a lot of their recruiting in the final months of the cycle, and there are a lot of top rated guys taking & scheduling visits. Even if they somehow fall flat in this years close, Mariota will be surrounded by bigger/faster/more highly rated guys then Darron Thomas enjoyed just two years ago because of the quality in this class and the recent past. Did you read the rivals NCAA-Recruiting article that Wheels posted yesterday? STOMP
If anybody is proof that landing 5 stars doesn't mean everything, it's USC. Yes, they have some amazing players but how did they do this year? They were supposed to compete for the Natty......and fell flat. There are simply too many factors that cancel out talent. Coaching Injuries. Schedule. Weather. Referees
