Come Out and Play

THANKS COUGS. WE NEEDED THAT.
The Ducks' tight 38-31 victory over WSU was good for them. The Cougs passing through Oregon's porous defense. The seven sacks on Mariota. Oregon's struggle to get the running game going. . . .

They escaped with a win and a ton of film to watch. The coaches are confident that all the mistakes and failures in that game are reviewable and correctable.

Despite being sacked seven times,
Mariota threw 21 out of 25 for 329 yards
and five touchdowns.

One area that obviously needs to get better is the offensive line. Injuries to three linemen resulted in the coaches emergency hole-plugging by freshmen, walk-ons, ball boys, a drunk guy throwing pretzels at the TV insisting he could do better . . .  but enough about me.
Hamani Stevens, Oregon's veteran right guard, was personally embarrassed by the line's performance at the Palouse. But it didn't shake his confidence. Said Stevens in this Oregonian article.

"They think the offensive line can't bounce back and be as productive as we were, but I think we have the capability and ability to be that high-producing offense and give it all our best," Stevens said.
For Stevens, encouragement came in the form of Oregon's bye week practices where he said the line made "strides and great improvements" behind closed doors.
"We've just been practicing our tails off," he said. "It was embarrassing for us to give up that many sacks in the Washington State game and we took that with a grain of salt and we have to work on it. We worked on it, and worked on it in the bye week."


What's this? It has to be none other than what
happens when this Cougar dude was the first one to pass out
at a Friday night kegger in Pullman. I'm guessing his bro's 
delivered him at least 10 miles from campus.

Oregon as a team came away from that game very unsatisfied and wanting to get better. The offensive line, the defensive secondary, even Thomas Tyner. The sophomore running back has yet to have "his kind of game". Thursday night would be a great time to start.

WHEN DUCKS AND 'CATS MEET
Oregon - Arizona games are always brutal. Winning and losing is far less predictable than other matchups. Hard hits and injuries are not uncommon. Mix in the fans, and it becomes clear that these two team don't really like each other.

When these two teams meet, they're like two brawlers standing toe-to-toe tied to each other's shoe laces. And then each guy takes a turn throwing a haymaker into the other guy's jaw.

Two years ago Oregon blanked the Cats 49-0 in AZ Coach Rich Rodriguez's rookie season. Last year Arizona came back with a vengeance, literally. It was Coach Helfrich's rookie year, Mariota was a little hobbled, and 'Zona swallowed the Ducks whole, 42-16.


Last year.

All of Oregon's major bowl hopes were dashed that night. And they were left all this time to wonder what happened. Helfrich has said the team's preparation for the Wildcats started with reviewing the depressing films of that awful night. What they came back with was confidence. When asked in the Oregonian about whether last year's game motivated the veteran players, Helfrich played it cool:

 Well, I think again, anytime you don't give somebody your best shot, that should leave a bad taste in your mouth. And I think there were some guys that felt that way and certainly looked that way on film. So again, hopefully that contributes to fuel the engine of your process. It doesn't mean like we don't try to kill the Arizona game this year, it means we work that much harder in the offseason to never let off the gas, to never let that even enter our mindset for anybody. And so as you prepare for Game 1, and then Game 2, and so forth, it just reinforces everything that we stand for. Again, when we watch this film, do we feel good about it? No, we don't. And if that contributed to our guys lifting more weights last spring, then great.

Reading between the lines, I think what Helfrich is saying is that the whole team is mad as hell and wants to KILL Arizona. But it goes the other way too.

Coach Rich Rod's team was glad to put the great cover boy Marcus Mariota on the turf last year. Just yesterday, RR had this to say about MM:

 "There are no negatives, I'm talking about none. And everything is not just a positive but it's a high positive. That's why I think he's the Heisman front-runner and maybe the first pick in the draft." -- Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez on Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota.

Reading between the lines, I think what Rich Rod is saying is that his whole team is mad as hell and wants to KILL Marcus Mariota.

Here's what Arizona did last week against Cal to preserve their perfect record. Down by 2, the last play of the game. Their only hope was a hail mary . . .



Here's how the scouting report looks:
UO offense vs. Arizona defense: The Ducks' offense isn't expected to be troubled by Arizona's unconventional 3-3-5 stack defense, which is one of the nation's worst in the passing game and has just one defensive lineman with a sack this year. With just one turnover this season, Oregon has been superb at limiting its own mistakes, which will be a key factor -- UO had five turnovers last year against Arizona -- in stopping a second-straight Wildcat upset. Watch for whether a Duck can gain 100 yards on the ground, too, and snap UO's four-game streak without a century-mark rusher.

UO defense vs. Arizona offense: A Ducks defense that limited top-10 Michigan State to just three second-half points has come under fire after allowing 31 points to Washington State thanks to missed tackles and breakdowns. The good news for Oregon is that even though it'll face a Rodriguez-designed offense -- he's a pioneer of the spread-option -- the key players tasked with executing it amid a hostile Autzen crowd are freshmen. Quarterback Anu Solomon has 13 touchdown passes and three interceptions. The offense is balanced by running back Nick Wilson, who averages 120.5 yards per game.

That was a good shot in the jaw last year, 'Zona. Now come to Autzen and do it again. Let's go. Come out and play . . . .


Gametime 7:30 Pacific on ESPN.

--KB

For Cougs, It'll Only Get Worse

BAD NEWS FOR WSU QB CONNOR HALLIDAY
HE'S GOING TO GET PICKED AND SACKED A LOT
From the Oregonian:

UO's defense hopes Washington State throws early, often and into mistakes

EUGENE – Unlike No. 2 Oregon, whose offense perplexes opponents with the duplicity of its read-option attack, teams coached by Mike Leach aren’t coy about their all-out passing strategy.
In his second season at Washington State, and despite an improved offensive line and running back corps, Leach still directs an offense living up to its “Air Raid” nickname. Even when defenders know what’s coming – in 2008 his Texas Tech team won 11 games while throwing 67 percent of the time -- it works.
No team has attempted more passes than WSU’s 339 this season, and the Cougars are 4-2, including a 2-2 Pac-12 record that started with a stunning road upset of USC.
“It’s one of those things that’s confoundingly simplistic,” Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said. “They can lock you into something and they’ll do it till you bleed.
“When they’re rolling, they’re rolling.”
When the one-dimensional Cougars hit trouble, however, they come to an immediate halt.
Though WSU quarterback Connor Halliday is as prolific as any Leach quarterback – he’s the only person in FBS to throw for 500 yards in a game this season – he’s more error-prone, too, by throwing an FBS-worst 13 interceptions. During Leach’s 10-season run at Texas Tech, his quarterbacks averaged 2.2 interceptions per 100 passes. Halliday’s interception rate is 3.8 percent. Forcing him into continued turnovers is a key for Oregon’s defense.
“Against Oregon State he was fine just chunking along, taking short-yardage gains and maybe taking a shot down the field once in a while and as soon as Oregon State got up, that’s when the wheels kind of fell off,” said Brian Anderson, a contributor to the WSU blog Cougcenter.com, which has detailed Halliday’s season in detail. “They were ‘what are you thinking?’ kind of balls.”
Halliday’s three interceptions on consecutive possessions against Oregon State last week turned just a seven-point deficit into a rout but were only the most recent examples of how his struggles are exacerbated when trailing -- and oddsmakers expect the 39-point underdog Cougars to trail a lot Saturday.
When trailing, his interception rate jumps to 6.5 percent as his completion percentage dips to 52.3 percent, symptoms of what Anderson calls “hero-ball.”
“He tries to score 14 points on every pass, and it’s just not possible,” Anderson said. [Can you blame a guy for just wanting it so bad?]
It started in the season-opening loss at Auburn. After the Tigers kicked a field goal to take a seven-point lead into the final quarter, Halliday led the Cougars within eight yards of a tying touchdown with 4 minutes remaining. Then he threw an interception. He’s thrown four picks this season when down seven points or fewer.
That trend offsets Halliday’s otherwise positive developments this season. His overall completion percentage has never been higher at 63.9 percent, and an incredible 10 WSU receivers have catches in five straight games. Vince Mayle and Dom Williams are Halliday’s go-to targets when throwing deep, but Gabe Marks is the all-around favorite, Anderson said.
“You can look at a route and say wow, that was not the right throw but maybe the guy broke the pattern off completely,” Helfrich said of Halliday. “He’s been a very efficient passer from what we’ve seen from him in the past.”
Though at times Leach has chastised the QB in postgame press conferences doing too much, he defended Halliday after the OSU loss.
“We had adversity, and it certainly wasn't just Connor,” Leach said. “He played two-thirds of the game real well. If he can play two-thirds of the game, he can do it a full game."
UO’s secondary starters have been tested a full game just once, though all-American candidate cornerbacks Terrance Mitchell and Ifo Ekpre-Olomu are up for the challenge.
Mitchell has three interceptions this season, and this week Washington coach Steve Sarkisian called Ekpre-Olomu “probably the best defensive player we've seen this season." The UO secondary has drawn a pass interference penalty in each game but one. Ekpre-Olomu said the receivers’ precision on tricky, shorter routes make this a particularly difficult group to cover.
“The secondary is going to have a lot of opportunities to make big plays,” Ekpre-Olomu said. “If we have a great pass rush and good coverage in the secondary we’ll be able to make a lot of plays but if we’re only doing one of those, Halliday is good enough to make us pay.”
So long as the Cougars aren’t trailing. [Oh, they'll be trailing.]

-- Andrew Greif

WORSE NEWS FOR HALLIDAY:
HE'S GOING TO GET PICKED AND SACKED A LOT BY GUYS WEARING PINK.
 

The Ducks will be wearing pink for breast cancer awareness.

 

 

Game time: Saturday evening 7pm Pacific on FoxSports1
--KB

Cal Throws Caution to the Wind, Gets Blown Away.

Photos from Oregonian, San Jose Mercury News, and Getty.

A busy night for Marcus Mariota.

Cal holds Kenjon Barner to only 65 yards rushing? Fine . . .

Oregon rushed for 426 yards two weeks ago against USC. Last Saturday, Cal worked to shut that down.

They successfully stopped Oregon's powerful running game, limiting the Ducks to 180 yards -- barely half their average.  No one loaded up the box and shut down Barner this year better than the Bears. But they only dulled one edge of Oregon's sword. And suddenly, the downfield was Marcus Mariota's paradise.

. . . So Oregon will Huff . . .

. . . and Huff . . .

. . . and Huff.

Mariota threw, completing 27 of 34 for 377 yards, six TD's and no interceptions. Nine receivers caught at least one pass. DeAnthony Thomas and Josh Huff both received for over 100 yards. Seven of Oregon's eight TD's were pass receptions. Huff had three.

"Cal just filled the box and gave us an opportunity to throw," Mariota said. "I had a lot of fun throwing it around."

One announcer noted that any Stanford players watching the game must have felt pretty giddy about their chances when they saw Cal's early success against the run. But then no future opponent of Oregon's must have felt too good when they saw Mariota light it up like a southpaw brawler suddenly landing right-handed haymakers.

"After what they did last week to USC, I thought we did a good job (defensively) in the running game," [Cal Coach Jeff ]Tedford said. "But you've got to pick your poison against these guys."

The real drama was with Oregon's defensive line -- not a starter among them. Injuries and perhaps other things kept them all either on the sideline or back home in Eugene.

Cal frightened the beegeesus out of Duck fans as they looked like they were going to have as much success moving the football as USC did last week.

From the Oregonian article: Freshmen Arik Armstead, DeForest Buckner and Alex Balducci shore up Oregon's D-line . . .

Oregon's D-line has been hit hard by injuries recently. Dion Jordan (shoulder), Isaac Remington (ankle), Ricky Heimuli (knee) all suited up, but did not play. Wade Keliikipi (injury unknown) was not in uniform, leaving the Ducks without four regulars on the D-line. Taylor Hart left Saturday's game with an unspecified leg injury, though Oregon coach Chip Kelly said after the game that he was doing fine.

Alex Balducci had to shed his red shirt. Buckner and Armstead looked a little lost out there at first but started putting more pressure on Cal's QB in the second half.

And then manchild Arik Armstead will blow your house down.

So how good are these Ducks when Cal shuts down their bread and butter, so they simply switch to cake and cream cheese? And to add insult, the Bears could only ring up 17 points at home against a defense half patched together with second and third stringers. Don't forget, Oregon lost another safety too. Avery Patterson will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL.

WELL I'LL BE DAMNED, ALABAM!!!
Look what happened to you! With your stunning loss to Johnny Football and the A&M Inbreds, things just got much more difficult for Nick Saban.

You may recall that Saban was on a mission to protect America's children from the harm that might befall them should this wicked and ungodly no-huddle/spread-option movement catch on and spread from Oregon -- the most unchurched state in the Union!

"People might get hurt," he said. Now who is going to stop them if not you, Saint Nick?


HELLO KANSAS STATE, YOU NEVER RETURNED OUR CALLS, BUT THAT'S OK. WE'LL JUST FIND YOU . . .
KSU's longtime coach Bill Snyder, who nixed the contract to play a home-and-home against Oregon this year and last, is now facing the real possibility of facing those same Ducks on the biggest stage . . . . just like he planned it, I'm sure.

In the BCS, KSU is first, Oregon second, and undefeated Notre Dame is third. The next two weeks buzzes with a thick plot line.

Notre Dame's coach, Brian Kelly (or as Oregon fans refer to him: Imitation Coach Kelly) made his case at a news conference that the Irish deserve to be in the Natty because his team has the lowest scoring defense in the country.

Doesn't he know that when you pitch your case for a particular bowl game in front of a microphone, it looks pathetic and merely demonstrates that you definitely do not belong in that bowl? Aside from that, he makes a compelling case.

Not since 1987 do I recall the #1 offense meeting the #1 defense for the championship when Penn State played Miami in what was billed as the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

Oregon and Notre Dame? I'd love to see it, never mind that Penn State's immovable defense won that day, 14-10.  

BY THE NUMBERS
The AP and Coaches polls love the Ducks, #1 in both, with the majority of first place votes. Sentient beings with anatomical eyes attached to organic intuitive intelligence centers clearly see the Ducks are the best team in the nation.

It's the silicon based entities that still have trouble recognizing Oregon. The stingy BCS computers just want to know two things. Who have you played? Who have you beaten?

Simply put, despite skipping Oregon this season, Kansas State has played more ranked teams. So has Notre Dame. But that is about to change.

With two weeks of the regular season left, the schedules of these three teams go like this:

Kansas State plays unranked Baylor, then finishes against 15th ranked Texas.

Notre Dame plays unranked Wake Forest, then travels to L.A. to play 18th ranked USC. By the way, that means N.D. and Oregon will have both played Stanford and USC this year. Everyone will be eager to see how both teams fared against these common opponents.

After these two weeks, both K. State and N.D. are done, having just played one ranked team each.

Oregon, meanwhile, starts off against the highest of all the ranked opponents in #13 Stanford. Then they play the Civil War against #16 Oregon State. OSU may be ranked even higher by then assuming they get past Cal this Saturday -- which brings up a little message I have for them.

Hey Beavs, is it too much to ask that you try not to suck so much this Saturday?  I mean, what do I have to say?  You know how you usually are? Try not to be that way against Cal. OK? Have your QB's tape up their ankles, rub some dirt on it and get back out there. Take a PRIDE pill, Beavs. Take two. They're small.

But here comes the kicker. After those two games, the Ducks will have the Pac-12 Championship against one more likely ranked team. Right now it's looking like UCLA or USC, currently ranked 17th and 18th respectively.

Even #4 Alabama's remaining schedule is weak. Next week they host the Western Carolina Catamounts. Regardless of the score, they should drop in rank just on the general principle of scheduling such a patsy so late in the season. The following week they play the surprisingly very very unranked Auburn Tigers. The SEC Championship follows; but will it be too late by then?

The bottom line is this. Oregon will play three likely ranked teams while the other Natty hopefuls will face one at best. So the question I have should Oregon win out: What would keep them from not only playing in the Natty, but also passing Kansas State to #1 by December 1st?

IS THE TRUTH LEACHING OUT IN PULLMAN?
What is going on at WSU? From the Oregonian story:
Marquess Wilson, Washington State's career-leading receiver suspended by the football program last week, issued a letter Saturday afternoon saying he's done at the school and alleging "physical, emotional and verbal abuse" by Mike Leach's first-year coaching staff.


WSU hired Mike Leach about two years after he was fired from Texas Tech. A Huffington Post article explains the back story . . .
Leach was fired from Texas Tech after the 2009 season for an incident in which he was alleged to have ordered a player with a concussion to sit in a storage shed during practice. Leach disputed the allegation and it was not proven. Leach has sued Texas Tech, contending he was fired so the school could avoid a large payment due him at the end of the year.

Washington State hired Leach late last year to revive a moribund program, paying him more than $2 million a year. The hire energized the fan base, but it has been a tough initial season, as the Cougars are 2-8 with two games left.

Leach has raised eyebrows with his comments lambasting his team after some games. He has said some of the seniors display an "empty corpse quality," said the team's performance in a loss at Utah resembled a zombie convention, and said the play of his offensive and defensive lines in that game "bordered on cowardice."

Leach appears to be the kind of person who runs on the theory that sometimes a coach has to be a prick to be effective. But what if your team is 2-8, sliding on a six-game losing streak? Apparently he's not being effective. So what does that leave? He's just a prick.

More about next foe Stanford later.

--KB