The amount of celebration by the rest of the PAC12 over our loss to Stanford. It's almost like we've reached a USC-like status among the other fanbases. It really shows an inability to see the big picture though. Losing to Stanford gave all the SEC honks a reason to think we're a joke.
The SEC or ya mean BAMA? The rest of the SEC as a whole isn't better than the Pac-12 by any means. Bama saying ..... "We want ourselves!" is classic! Oregon isn't quite ready to beat BAMA and that's okay.... We are playing against a 100 years of tradition, but we are getting CLOSE!
Right now, I'm not convinced Bama would do better than Stanford. They've never played Oregon before. The damn Cardinals know us, they've played us many times, and they know how to beat us. I'm not so sold on Bama.
Bama plays Auburn Nov 30th. BCS Championship is Jan 6th. That's a lot of time for Sabin & co to do their homework. If we caught them in the middle of the season like A&M did last year - maybe. But it's hard to imagine after what Stanford did to us, and after watching what Bama did to LSU . . . we very well could have been this year's Notre Dame/sacrificial lamb. If Stanford could run it down our throat, and shut down our offense, you don't think Alabama could? They bring everything Stanford does to the table, plus a lot more.
I don't think Oregon would have any trouble beating Stanford if we played them again. Just about everything that could do wrong did in that game, and we still were only 6 points down. On an ordinary day I think we beat them by 2-3 touchdowns.
I'd like to believe that. In fact, I think I said the same thing after last year's game. But honestly, if weren't for a fluke blocked FG/TD & a conversion on 4th and goal from the 12, it's not really a "we did everything wrong & still lost by only 6 points" type of game. We did A LOT wrong, but we caught a few breaks late or that game isn't even close. And I hate to admit that.
Same situation here though. DAT fumble on the 4 or 5 yard line. PI on the Ifo interception which really shouldn't have been called. Those two plays cost us 14 points, plus there's the unknown factor of MM's injury. He definitely didn't look like himself, so who knows how different it would have been with a healthy Mariota.
I don't think Aliotti will ever second guess going with a big package defense against Stanford again. A 3-4 is a wet dream to an O line that good! Stack the box and make that very average Stanford QB pass the ball, and let our lock down secondary do its job!
That's what I keep coming back to. I watched the game again last night on Youtube. In the first quarter Hogan hit that big 50 yard pass play to Rector that set up their 1st TD. They had a few other positive plays (horrible Ifo PI call) throwing the ball downfield. But so what? Even if Stanford hits a few more big plays, guess what? We get the ball back! I'll take a shootout with MM vs Hogan any day. We already saw last year what happens when Stanford holds the ball for 6,7,8 minute long drives! LOAD THE BOX NICK!! Give our offense those extra possessions! How could you let them play keep away from us AGAIN? I have such mixed feelings about Aliotti. Love his passion, and the way he's so loyal to our kids/the program. Never really thought he was a great X/O guy though. Maybe it's time for a change?
Agreed, you can have all the love for the program and still not be that coach to get your team over the hump. I'm willing to wait and see what he can do with a few super sized DT's first though. In the interviews I've seen with him following Stanford, I think he knows he better get this crap fixed or he will be replaced. When you have guys like AA and Buckner on the line and they're getting worked, the scheme needs to be reworked.
I don't. Stanford played their best game in a decade and we responded poorly and had a couple of tough calls go against us from the refs. It was a perfect storm situation. As to "Bama, I don't concede anything. Until we play them (well, not this year), they may or may not beat us.
