CFP SF: #5 Oregon v #1 Indiana (Jan. 9, Fri 4:30 PM ESPN)

[Everythingsducky]

Will soon see where some of the defense lands.

[dd10snoop28]

Dante Moore's pocket presence is bad and it really costs us a lot. Similar to first matchup.
- There were 2 sacks in the first half that ended drives. The O-line gave him a moderate amount of time to make a decision, but his total lack of pocket presence led to sacks which capped our momentum.

Our O-Line pass-protection was shoddy at times so it's not completely on Dante, but I'd give him 70% of the blame on some of the sacks. Similar to first matchup.

Our DB's held their own, but they still got torched by an elite QB/WR combination (VERY similar to first matchup). Hope this is motivation to kick it up to another level next year, but they defended admirably.

The offensive play-calling at the end of the game was completely embarrassing. Stein (or whoever) completely tanked the rest of the game. From a competitive standpoint, that's unacceptable.

I absolutely loved Amauri Washington's effort to dive to stop Mendoza on his scramble in the 2nd quarter. Mendoze got away, but amazing effort. Glad he's back.

Jamari Johnson is a stud. Will be an all-american next year, no doubt.

McClellan is also very good. Our TE/WR is in great hands next year.

As my notes indicate, this game played out quite similarly to the game in Autzen. I know the scoreboard makes is seem otherwise, but if you remove the crazy plays (fumble, pick 6, block punt) and remove the 7 false starts by Indiana in the first game, no difference. The only difference in this game is that Stein actually called a good game through 2.5 quarters (took deep shots), unlike the first matchup which had bad playcalling.

[GrantDuck]

Dante Moore's pocket presence is bad and it really costs us a lot. Similar to first matchup.
- There were 2 sacks in the first half that ended drives. The O-line gave him a moderate amount of time to make a decision, but his total lack of pocket presence led to sacks which capped our momentum.

Our O-Line pass-protection was shoddy at times so it's not completely on Dante, but I'd give him 70% of the blame on some of the sacks. Similar to first matchup.

Our DB's held their own, but they still got torched by an elite QB/WR combination (VERY similar to first matchup). Hope this is motivation to kick it up to another level next year, but they defended admirably.

The offensive play-calling at the end of the game was completely embarrassing. Stein (or whoever) completely tanked the rest of the game. From a competitive standpoint, that's unacceptable.

I absolutely loved Amauri Washington's effort to dive to stop Mendoza on his scramble in the 2nd quarter. Mendoze got away, but amazing effort. Glad he's back.

Jamari Johnson is a stud. Will be an all-american next year, no doubt.

McClellan is also very good. Our TE/WR is in great hands next year.

As my notes indicate, this game played out quite similarly to the game in Autzen. I know the scoreboard makes is seem otherwise, but if you remove the crazy plays (fumble, pick 6, block punt) and remove the 7 false starts by Indiana in the first game, no difference. The only difference in this game is that Stein actually called a good game through 2.5 quarters (took deep shots), unlike the first matchup which had bad playcalling.

Our DB's were great against bad/average WR's and mediocre against good/very good WR's. They played so well against average WR's that you almost forget 3 of the 5 secondary guys were freshmen! You'll notice Indiana didn't even bother testing Canady in the playoff. Mostly went after Flowers and Ify. (although Finney got burned once). Finney still needs to work on his top end speed a bit more and his press against guys he doesn't outsize as much. Anyway, if they keep developing, we will see them make more plays going forward.

[OregonFan4Life]

For those that are more curious about the game, Hythloday came out with a 2 1/2 hr podcast (It Never Rains on this Podcast) where he and another editor on his site evaluated both the Orange Bowl and Peach Bowl. Interesting stuff, but the biggest takeaway I have is that from Hythloday’s perspective Dante isn’t near as much to blame as Will Stein. For whatever reason Will is not calling good games or not showing the ability to adjust based on what the opposing defense’s skillset and tendencies are, and at times this can put Dante in a poor position where he takes the blame.

For example on that opening pick six, Hythloday believes that it was a designed throw and that the call has Dante only look at one side of the field which is why he didn’t look McLellan’s way. Indiana knew exactly what was coming which is they didn’t bother to cover McLellan leaving him open and they baited Dante into that pass, but in reality that never should’ve been called by Stein especially since Indian DB’s are strong at covering the outside. Plus as we saw from Indiana’s postgame comments they knew Will was going to call that play as that was his tendency which Stein admitted after the game when he said they like to start the game off with that call cause it’s easy.

Not saying this is all factual just sharing a very brief opinion from the podcast cause I found it interesting.


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[AutzenMember]

Stein admitted after the game when he said they like to start the game off with that call cause it’s easy.

Pretty easy to hand the ball off to start the game too. My beef with all the screens is that Stein never used it as a setup. Imagine if they would've pumped that first play, and thrown to Sadiq running a flag behind the crashing S/CB's. Instead, the screens get crashed for little to no gain...or a pick six if you're playing a good defense. Stein showed very little creativity (unless you call multiple different styles of motion to run the same play over and over again creative), and made it easy for a D coach to find tendencies.

[rockthief]

I am glad Stein is gone. Hopefully the cute calls are gone with him.

[OregonFan4Life]

QB11 came out with his podcast today, somewhat of a different tune than Hythloday, not much blame, overall said it was an inexcusable performance but didn’t really blame anyone, just said it was a series of unfortunate events:

-Coordinators weren’t focused on the game, Indiana’s had nothing else but the game to focus on.

-Losing Whittington and Davison really hurt. Appreciate Jay Harris’s effort but he’s a “5 yard back”. Whether the play is blocked for 3 or 30 yards, he’s getting 5 yards. Some good run blocking early that he wasn’t seeing.

-Tackle play was unacceptable to start. He thinks World wasn’t 100% and shouldn’t have played along with Iuli who was also injured and Harkey was simply outmatched. Fox Crader was great and will start and be a solid tackle in 2026 and Rogers looked good too, but said even if we get Seaton he thinks Crader will start at either LT or RT next season.

-Dante needs to get rid of the ball quicker but he was not being helped out. On one of his fumbles Harkey got beat right away and Dak ran a bad route. If Dak doesn’t get injured maybe it’s a good route but Dak had the opportunity to get open he just ran a poor route.

-Once World got benched and Harkey moved to RG, pass protection was good, but it was simply too late.

-Overall said Dante took too much blame, does he deserve some, yes, but it was a group failure.

-Defense was actually fine, offense just kept putting them in bad situations and Mendoza threw some unstoppable lasers on big 3rd downs which you can’t stop, but they at least put Indiana in 3rd and long situations.

-Two criticisms of the defense, redzone defense was terrible all year. Ranked near the bottom of the nation. Indiana had 5 touchdowns in all 5 of their Redzone trips. QB11 and Doug didn’t try to explain why it’s so bad just said it is and you can’t win a natty with Redzone defense that bad.

-Indiana’s OC clearly scouted that Flowers was weak in coverage and they kept exploiting that and the defense never countered. Yes Flowers needs to grow but for a coaching staff that preaches defense, they should’ve found a counter for that.

-2026 is still the year, this team was young and it was a rebuild year, still was tough to watch this team implode. But he said all season we waited for Oregon to play their best game and they never did, the offense couldn’t get out of their way and he thinks that’s due to youth. Both expressed a lot of optimism for 2026.

-Only coach QB11 criticized was Dan, didn’t criticize Tosh and Stein at all. Said that it’s clear Dan shouldn’t have let Stein and Tosh call plays cause they weren’t focused, but he did and that’s probably cause of recency bias and expecting them to have the same level of focus as he did at Georgia. But now with the 12 team playoff there are more games making it more difficult whereas Dan did it when there was only a 4 team playoff. And this I thought was the most interesting, QB11 said it was clear that Tosh and Stein did not respect Dan’s rules like Dan respected Kirby’s rules. Whether that is on Dan or Tosh and Stein he did not say, but I thought that was a very interesting quote.

Like I said, different tune than Hythloday that had no issue throwing blame around, especially at Stein. QB11 seems to feel like it was just a combo of things revolving around bad luck, starting with distracted coordinators to portal distractions and injured RB’s. I’m sure both have a bit of truth in how they’re reacting to the Peach Bowl.


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[spacefrog13x]

QB11 came out with his podcast today, somewhat of a different tune than Hythloday, not much blame, overall said it was an inexcusable performance but didn’t really blame anyone, just said it was a series of unfortunate events:

-Coordinators weren’t focused on the game, Indiana’s had nothing else but the game to focus on.

-Losing Whittington and Davison really hurt. Appreciate Jay Harris’s effort but he’s a “5 yard back”. Whether the play is blocked for 3 or 30 yards, he’s getting 5 yards. Some good run blocking early that he wasn’t seeing.

-Tackle play was unacceptable to start. He thinks World wasn’t 100% and shouldn’t have played along with Iuli who was also injured and Harkey was simply outmatched. Fox Crader was great and will start and be a solid tackle in 2026 and Rogers looked good too, but said even if we get Seaton he thinks Crader will start at either LT or RT next season.

-Dante needs to get rid of the ball quicker but he was not being helped out. On one of his fumbles Harkey got beat right away and Dak ran a bad route. If Dak doesn’t get injured maybe it’s a good route but Dak had the opportunity to get open he just ran a poor route.

-Once World got benched and Harkey moved to RG, pass protection was good, but it was simply too late.

-Overall said Dante took too much blame, does he deserve some, yes, but it was a group failure.

-Defense was actually fine, offense just kept putting them in bad situations and Mendoza threw some unstoppable lasers on big 3rd downs which you can’t stop, but they at least put Indiana in 3rd and long situations.

-Two criticisms of the defense, redzone defense was terrible all year. Ranked near the bottom of the nation. Indiana had 5 touchdowns in all 5 of their Redzone trips. QB11 and Doug didn’t try to explain why it’s so bad just said it is and you can’t win a natty with Redzone defense that bad.

-Indiana’s OC clearly scouted that Flowers was weak in coverage and they kept exploiting that and the defense never countered. Yes Flowers needs to grow but for a coaching staff that preaches defense, they should’ve found a counter for that.

-2026 is still the year, this team was young and it was a rebuild year, still was tough to watch this team implode. But he said all season we waited for Oregon to play their best game and they never did, the offense couldn’t get out of their way and he thinks that’s due to youth. Both expressed a lot of optimism for 2026.

-Only coach QB11 criticized was Dan, didn’t criticize Tosh and Stein at all. Said that it’s clear Dan shouldn’t have let Stein and Tosh call plays cause they weren’t focused, but he did and that’s probably cause of recency bias and expecting them to have the same level of focus as he did at Georgia. But now with the 12 team playoff there are more games making it more difficult whereas Dan did it when there was only a 4 team playoff. And this I thought was the most interesting, QB11 said it was clear that Tosh and Stein did not respect Dan’s rules like Dan respected Kirby’s rules. Whether that is on Dan or Tosh and Stein he did not say, but I thought that was a very interesting quote.

Like I said, different tune than Hythloday that had no issue throwing blame around, especially at Stein. QB11 seems to feel like it was just a combo of things revolving around bad luck, starting with distracted coordinators to portal distractions and injured RB’s. I’m sure both have a bit of truth in how they’re reacting to the Peach Bowl.


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I usually hate to call out individual players... But by my count Flowers gave up 4 TD's and was partially responsible for a fifth on the TD Finney gave up. It looked like he had responsibility over the top and was no where to be found. I think Thieneman covered a lot of mistakes on the backend this year. Another year of seasoning for Finney, Ify, etc is going to do wonders. I dont think we are going to get much improvement from Flowers and he kind of is who he is. I think our safety combo next year is probably McNutt and Perich, if I had to guess.