SI's 10 Favorites to win title

[greenyellow]

Oregon pops in on SI's list for top title contenders. Amazing that Oregon is there after only entering its 3rd year of existence.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/b ... ?eref=sihp

[karlhungis]

On a side note, vegas has us as the 2nd most likely team to win it all in football next year. 8-1 behind 6-1 Bama.

[oregontrack]

I don't know about winning it all, that seems to always come down to who's the hottest team in the country come June. OSU's second championship came after a 5th or 6th place Pac-10 finish, they just caught fire late. Same with Fresno, South Carolina last year, etc.

The biggest thing to our success last year was that we were always in position to win a game because we could throw Anderson, LaTempa, and Thornton on weekends, and Kuedall/whomever on weekdays. LaTempa and Thornton graduating, for all we know, could be bigger factors than we all realized. Boer looked amazing, and I think he'll do outstanding this year, but do we have at excellent Sunday punch like what we had last year with Thornton? Plenty of candidates to shift through (Jones, Kuedell, etc.), but no guarantees.

[greenyellow]

I don't know about winning it all, that seems to always come down to who's the hottest team in the country come June. OSU's second championship came after a 5th or 6th place Pac-10 finish, they just caught fire late. Same with Fresno, South Carolina last year, etc.

The biggest thing to our success last year was that we were always in position to win a game because we could throw Anderson, LaTempa, and Thornton on weekends, and Kuedall/whomever on weekdays. LaTempa and Thornton graduating, for all we know, could be bigger factors than we all realized. Boer looked amazing, and I think he'll do outstanding this year, but do we have at excellent Sunday punch like what we had last year with Thornton? Plenty of candidates to shift through (Jones, Kuedell, etc.), but no guarantees.

Jones didn't look that good against Hawaii in his first start but he has the stuff to be a good starting pitcher; he just doesn't have enough starting experience after battling through injuries and the Ducks having a set rotation in league play last season.