http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings 3 other 5-1 teams ranked ahead of the Ducks, including MSU. I wonder how many spots that 4th quarter cost them? This is still a beauty contest guys - and there are no points for Ms Congeniality.
Yup. Unfortunately most of the voters probably don't watch, so they just look at the final scores. If we would have beaten them 40-10 or whatever, that would have been much more convincing.
I wouldnt worry too much about "beauty contest" I get that, thats your shtick, but if you honestly feel that garbage points are what's keeping Oregon behind names like Alabama, Auburn... then I dont know what to tell you. Oregon could have won with only giving up 10 points, and still would have been behind them with the same record. But There are still losses guaranteed in there with Miss St still playing Bama and Ole Miss, Ole Miss still playing Auburn and Miss St, and Auburn and Bama still playing eachother (which guarantees a 2nd loss)
right, not disagreeing. Going undefeated while playing this league was always going to be tough. Just was pointing out, that others will lose some (since they play eachother) but we can only control what we have, not what others who are ahead of us do. a one loss Oregon would be very hard to turn away imo
I'm not totally sold on the whole reason for Oregon's success was because of Jake Fisher. He's good but Coach Frost called a FAR better game then he has pretty much all season long. With that aside, I do think that whether real or not, a case can be made for the injuries to the O-line by the bowl committee members and take that under consideration. Oregon just needs to win out and that may be easier said than done.
according to coach Greatwood, the difference between the OLine's performance from last week to this was "vast"... thats what my eyes saw too. One week they lost the Line of Scrimmage all game, the next they dominated a much more heralded DLine. Their running game was back up averaging over 6 yards per carry vs last week averaging under 4... their basic bread & butter IZR/OZR gashed the Bruins consistently. Greatwood claimed all his guys had a great focused week of practice and that it carried over but that getting Jake back in the mix allowed them to rotate Pierson and Crosby at RT keeping them fresh. He doesn't deserve all the credit as it's a team game, but his addition directly improved the play at two positions. On the other side of the ball, I'd point out that Pellum making a halftime adjustment putting Hardrick as Hundley's shadow pretty much shut down his running which was huge. It was a great win for many Ducks. STOMP
I know it's nothing to get worked up about now, but seeing Michigan State ahead of us in the polls makes me so mad. We destroyed them
I agree with your reference and validate your reference but in the overall picture, I wasn't really concerned with UCLA. I was more concerned with Arizona as my prediction in the beginning of the Arizona game thread points out. What I saw was Frost with more sideline to sideline calling and more rhythm in his calling while less long developing plays that put Mariota at risk. If I am going to blast Frost last week for his play calling in the Arizona game (Which was bad) then I better be ready to give him credit against UCLA (In which he got back to the Oregon way). Also lets put this in perspective, UCLA was last in the conference in sacks (7.0) last in yards sacked for loss (30.0), Tied for 8th for interceptions (4), and tied for 6th in fumbles recovered. I was not worried about UCLA getting to MM very much if at all. With that said, I would like to see the Ducks up against Washington who has a very aggressive defense on the opposite side of the spectrum from UCLA. And please, let us not gloss over the 20 points given up in the 4th quarter. I don't care if the game was over schematically, we still gave up 20 points that was from bad special teams play and defense. To me, if your players are playing the scoreboard then that's a coaching problem and the lack of the coaching staff keeping the players intensity level up where it needs to be. Don't play the scoreboard, play the ball. Beating UCLA was a decent win but I expected us to win with or with out Fisher. Now lets see how they do against Washington.
The O line crushed it this weekend and that gave Marcus extra time and Royce and Tyner bigger holes and the results were clear. Sure hope we give Brown a steady helping of TE passes this next week too!
