Rose Bowl Open Thread

All times Pacific

Final Thoughts--EL--As I said below, if Pryor can pass well, it opens everything up for Ohio St. And he played a phenomenal game. His coming out party. I'm sure both Ohio St. and Oregon will be in the top 5 to start next season. Still can't believe Oregon attempted a 45 yard FG on 4th and 1--one of only 2 terrible calls Chip Kelly made all year.

5:20--LS--Sad as it may be for me, Pryor has played a phenomenal game, as has all of Ohio State. Congratulations, while I weep.

5:10--EL--I love Chip Kelly, but that was the exact wrong time to be conservative. 4th & 1 with your accurate but limited range kicker forced to try from 45? Terrible call.

5:08--LS--Good play, but seriously, those kickoff return reverses are dangerous plays.

5:05--LS--No doubt, that was brilliant football played by Ohio State. Go Ducks, they have plenty of time.

5:04--EL--Give Ohio St. all the credit--that was a world class drive against an Oregon defense that is playing very well.

4:55--LS--The offense sure is sputtering; this is considerably scarier than it should be.

4:33--LS--See Erik's pregame Note 4, below.

4:30--LS--Wow! James is such a brilliant runner, so much tougher than he looks.

4:27--EL--Next to "bend but don't break" in the dictionary is a picture of the Oregon defense.

4:26--LS--Pryor's starting to stare down Sanzenbacher. That's a good sign for the Duck defense.

4:21--LS--Lookin' sharp in those berets, OSU band

4:16--EL--What a love about that drive is not the awesome 4th down conversion (OK, I do), but bringing in Blount on the 1 and then faking it to him. Great play call. Give Ohio St. credit though--they are making Oregon work very hard to get their running yards. Give Oregon credit for being willing to shove it down their throats.

4:15--LS--The lead...finally.... A really nice drive, overall, and Erik's note on halftime adjustments is exactly right.

Halftime Update--EL--Not a huge deal with that last FG, but it hurts a little. Oregon was driving, tipped pass and pick. Down 16-10. Oregon has done an excellent job all year making halftime adjustments and dominating the 3rd quarter. They will need to do so again, particularly on offense. A bit concerned that Pryor is passing so well, though Oregon has gotten excellent pressure on him. I still feel very good about this game--Oregon gets the ball in the second half and I expect a good 2nd half from them.

3:47--LS--Some hot marimba work in this halftime show!

3:45--LS--Tough half. OSU is playing really strong, though that final Pryor pass was definitely grounding. Second half is Oregon's though, no doubt about it.

3:25--LS--Lucky to be 13-10, but that should have been a pick. A minute is enough for a TD. No fumble; no way.

3:10--EL--10-10. It doesn't take long for the Ducks to come back. Huge 4th & 9 conversion. Awesome pounding TD run for LaGarette Blount. Glad to see him have the shot to do it. Boom!

3:00--LS--Those are the exact kind of contain defenses we need to see. Make Pryor work for it.

2:49--Lyrad Simool--A good goal line stop, though, and now we're in the red zone...hook 'em Ducks!

2:46--Ohio St. offensive game plan also going very well. As I said earlier, if Pryor passes effectively, Oregon will have trouble stopping them. Indeed, that has been the case through one quarter. I kind of feel lucky to only be down 10-0.

2:40--Ohio St. clearly doing a great job. Again, it's very early and Oregon can score quickly, but the Ohio St. defensive game plan is working quite well. The Oregon offensive line is young and Ohio St. might be able to overwhelm them. If that's the case, things will be very difficult for Oregon.

This is the open thread for the Oregon-Ohio St. Rose Bowl. Perhaps Trend and/or Lyrad would like to join in. For casual readers, I am an Oregon alum and Trend is an Ohio St. partisan. Meaning that it's Civil War here!

A few notes to begin:

1. It's interesting--the nation believes in Oregon but Ohio St. fans are completely dismissive of the Ducks. The latter is interesting because Ohio St. can never win a big game and because it's reflective of their belief in football played as if it was 1954. That the country believes in Oregon I also find a bit strange because they are not the traditional power that the Buckeyes are.

2. The key of the game is the Oregon offense versus the Ohio St. defense. Neither team has faced an opponent like this. Ohio St. fans call Oregon's offense a gimmick. That's a perjorative, but whatever, we win with it. It's also in many ways a very traditional offense that just looks funny. Can Ohio St. maintain the discipline against the zone read for the entire game? No one else has except Boise St., which is a lifetime ago. On the other hand, Ohio St. does have a great defense, though against the "offenses" of the Big 10, I'm not sure what that means.

3. I think equally important is the play of Terrelle Pryor. That's the biggest wildcard. If Pryor can throw decently, it makes things much tougher for Oregon. Ohio St. fans have slammed on Oregon's defense by saying the Ducks give up a lot of yards, but that's the equivalent of relying on batting average to say who is the best hitter in baseball. Oregon gives up a lot of yards because the offense scores in 4 plays half the time. The defense is on the field the entire game. So we need a different set of statistics to judge Oregon. Oregon's defense is entirely decent and carried the team early on.

4. The other wild card are Oregon turnovers. Sometimes Masoli gets a little careless. Fumbles could be huge. But if Oregon falls behind 10-0 or something like that, the game is far from over. Oregon can score very quickly. Of course, falling behind to Ohio St. is not like falling behind to Arizona or Oregon St., but this team has come back before and I feel Ohio St. needs a 3 TD lead to feel comfortable.

5. Final score--Oregon 30, Ohio St. 24

Updates to continue throughout the game.

Oregon-Boise St.

The last time the Oregon football club took the field, in December 2008, some pretty awesome things happened. There was this:



And this:



And this too:



Whoa.

Tonight, Oregon starts their 2009 season with a revenge game against Boise St. Last year, Boise came to Eugene and beat Oregon, in part because of a cheap shot on QB Jeremiah Masoli that knocked him out of the game. That wasn't the only cheap shot either. Oregon has national championship hopes. Boise hopes to go the BCS. One of these hopes will end tonight. This is also the biggest name opponent ever to come to Boise. And it's the first football game of the entire college football season.

So it's kind of big. And I am very excited.

Historical Image of the Day

Oregon quarterback Dan Fouts, circa 1970

Dixon

If you had told at the start of the year that Oregon QB Dennis Dixon would be the frontrunner for the Heisman at the beginning of November, I would have suggested rehab to get off all the crack you were smoking.

Oregon-Arizona St.

Last week, Oregon defeated USC. This was a huge victory, both for its result and for the psychological impact of defeating the conference Goliath. This week's game however is equally large. Today Oregon faces #4 Arizona St. I don't know anyone who thinks ASU is the 4th best team in the country nor have I seen anyone pick ASU in this game. I'm not particularly concerned either. Except that I'm concerned over my lack of concern.

Dennis Erickson is one of the greatest coaches in college football history. He doesn't get seen this way because he's also nakedly ambitious. Unlike the commonly cited coaches of the last 40 years (Osborne, Paterno, Bowden, etc.), Erickson has not stuck with one school. Rather, he has moved around, always willing to cash a better paycheck. The only team he has stayed long enough to build into a national champion is Miami and then he began one of his 2 misguided NFL stints. But everywhere he has gone shows marked improvement immediately. Idaho, Washington St., Miami, Oregon St., and now Arizona St. He's the consummate winner. At the same time, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Nebraska give him huge money this winter to take over their moribund program. I would if I were Nebraska. They need the immediate improvement. Then when he leaves, they will be on top again and can get whatever coach they want.

Anyway, I'm assuming Oregon is not taking ASU lightly. I pick a 41-24 victory. ASU has a good run defense and they can throw downfield, but they are very inconsistent within games and have been on the verge of losing several times. Today, playing before the crazies in Eugene and facing Dennis Dixon and Jonathan Stewart, it will come back and haunt them.

Of course, we almost could not watch this game. It was not picked up by ABC or FSN before the season and therefore was destined only for regional broadcast in Oregon and Arizona before ESPN came to the rescue. Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel details what happened very well. Mandel rightly rips Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen. Hansen is a terrible commissioner. He has long doomed the Pac-10 to FSN broadcasts and third rate bowls because he doesn't want to travel. He forces networks to pick Pac-10 games before the season starts, which allows for situations like Oregon-ASU, neither of which were picked particularly high in the conference before the season, to develop. Right now, the #2 team in the Pac-10 goes to the Holiday Bowl and the #3 goes to the Sun Bowl. This is ridiculous. The Pac-10 needs to be facing the best of the SEC, Big 12, and Big 10 each year in the bowl season.

There is East Coast Bias in the media. But the lack of respect the conference gets also is very much of its own making and these problems lay at the doorstep of Tom Hansen. There is a Fire Tom Hansen website here. It's not much of a site, but it's a start.

In related news, what in the world do conferences think by starting their own TV networks? These have been completely disastrous. It's dumb enough to have a Big 10 Network. Did you want to see Wisconsin-Ohio St. today? Too bad, you can't. The assumption is that enough people want to see these games to force cable companies to include the channels, but so far that has not been the case. But the Mtn., for the Mountain West Conference, is even dumber. You can't see any Mountain West game unless you have this obscure channel. Guess what? The Mountain West has completely fallen off the face of the college football map. No one has seen their games in 2 years. This is killing the conference. I know Utah, BYU, and Air Force are trying to change things. But in the national spotlight, there is no question that the WAC has passed them because Boise St., Nevada, Fresno St., and Hawaii are on TV every week. The WAC is smart--they will play an ESPN game any day, any time. The Pac 10 and Mountain West? Not so smart.

Behind the Woodshed

Last year, Oregon's freefall started with a terrible loss at Washington St., a week after being defeated by a very good Cal team. Do you think the Oregon coaches reminded the team of this?

At halftime, Oregon is leading WSU 40-0. Dixon is 19-25-259-2. Fair to middling, don't you think? Oregon has forced 3 turnovers. WSU's run offense? 18 carries for 15 yards.

Sounds good to me.

Oregon 39, Michigan 7

Allow me to expand on Trend's Michigan bashing, since Oregon is my team and Trend couldn't actually watch the game.

1. Which statue of liberty play was better? The first, when Johnathan Stewart pounded over the left side for 20 yards, or the fake statue of liberty on the next possession, when Dennis Dixon faked it to Stewart, the entire Michigan defense bit, and Dixon ran for the touchdown. Awesome.

2. Does Michigan actually have a defense? They remind me of the worst Pac-10 defenses circa 2002 or 2003. Horrible. Dixon threw deep 4 times. He was 4-4 with 3 TDs.

3. I never would have expected Oregon to win both games of this Michigan series. Very nice!

4. When Oregon's offense is clicking, it's sick. I was just laughing through that 2nd quarter. All kinds of crazy things going on.

5. But Oregon also has a history of let downs. When they beat Michigan in 2003, the next week Washington St. came to Eugene and embarrased a totally unprepared Oregon team. Fresno St. is always tough and just lost to, a probably overrated, Texas A&M last night.

6. Best win ever? Certainly best road win ever, that's for sure.