That's probably a good thing. OSU knocks off Stanford, the Cards drop to 14th or 15 and OSU climbs into the top 25. We want to play as many ranked opponents as possible.
I just think OSU is getting better and better and can pass so well. Stanford's defense is more about stopping the run.
Along those lines, very comforting to see Tennessee beat an 11th ranked SEC team. Volunteers should have beat #6 Georgia the week before. This week they travel to Bama.
None of the Ducks or Beavs opponents have a winning conference record. Well except San Diego State and Eastern Washington.
Good to see my Beavs are 25 in BCS. We always seem to rank better there than in human polls. We were ranked in the pre-season; if we had won the Eastern Wash game we'd probably be ranked in the top10 right now so it seems silly for voters to have us outside the top25. We've had some good Beav QB's last decade that made it to the NFL; Derek Anderson, Matt Moore, Sean Canfield. But I've never seen anyone have the impact Mannion has been having over half a season. Cooks has been the best receiver in the nation. Don't know how long we'll keep up these wins but its been fun to watch a classic dropback QB that towers over the line and throws darts. This next week all 4 ranked Pac teams will be playing in the state of Oregon.
Keep in mind, this is the team that lost to Eastern Washington. Mike Riley needs to clean this stuff up. This has been a problem since he took over years ago.
Mike Riley needs to clean what up? One or two losses? That is an unreasonable exception, the Beavers football program continues to outperform schools with more resources. Compare it to programs like WSU, Cal, both Arizona schools, even UofW. OSU basketball has the same resources and look at those terrible results over the last 20 years. I think some duck fans have lost their perspective. Its not normal to have a recent run like they are having and all those top programs eventually have poor seasons.
I think... At some point we need to start to see the Beavs make progression. This getting off to slow starts at the start of the season has been a problem since the day he has arrived. At what point in time do you expect to see this team take the next step?
It's not the fact that they lose games. Nobody expects them to be a perennial top 10 team. It's the fact that they always seem to start out the year light years behind where they should be, losing games to inferior teams. Riley may well be the best in-season coach in the country. But it's definitely arguable that he's not a very good pre-season coach.
Bah! It's been said before, but worth repeating. With all the OSU talent that ends up playing on Sunday, Riley may be the best coach at accomplishing the least with the most.
