#3 Oregon @ Stanford (Oct. 2, Sat 12:30 PM ABC)

[Duck07]

100%. We have so much talent, yet we just want to grind teams out instead of putting pressure on them to execute.
We have four 5* TEs on the roster. That group had 1 catch for 11 yards yesterday.
Devon Williams is open every play. That dude would be a 1000 yard receiver in any decent offense.
Without the Pittman catch and run, AB barely has 100 yards passing yesterday

I have no idea why guys like Franklin, Thornton, Williams, and McGee are coming to Oregon. To maybe get 1-2 targets at 5-15 yards per game? Not to be a $&@@, but those guys should be in the transfer portal yesterday.

We're a young team that is stacked with SRs at the skill spots. Next year is different in that regard at least and I'm ready to see TT and JB each get a chance against Cal because if we don't, it means that one of Mario's biggest areas to improve - qb development - will go another year lacking.

Having seen the replay now of the end of the 1st half, AB never even gave the option play a chance at 4th and Goal and I was wrong thinking the backer crashed hard because he never even looked that way to see it long enough. There are too many of these type of mis-reads for him as the veteran QB - they are supposed to be why he's the Starter and when he doesn't make them it raises that very question of why not play the younger guys.

I'm also tired of this Pete Carroll approach to grinding out wins and I've come to realize that watching Oregon football isn't that fun. Part of that is on the offense yes but it also speaks to the style of play under Mario. Grinding out wins doesn't lead to reps for younger players either, which is what this team has been needing and what used to be a team strength. The Defense is playing great in spite of all the injuries and they were about to be the reason we won but this style of Offense is just boring to watch and that was with Justin Herbert at QB too.

I can't believe I'm even entertaining the idea of Mark Helfrich as an OC and I know plays are there on the field under Moorhead that aren't being made by the QBs, but this offense isn't exciting in any way and when people reminisce about Chip, it was because the team was fun to watch. Our offense doesn't scare anybody except our own fans.

[northbeachsf]

I agree. AB made a bad read on 4th and goal. But doesn’t that just reinforce my point (and the point you are making too)? The offense is such that if AB makes a couple bad reads, it costs you the game against a team that on paper you should beat by 4 TDs.

Let my just pile on a little bit to make my point about philosophy. I don’t think AB is the best QB to play at Oregon, but you also can’t just lay all the blame there. He is not a horrible QB. There is a reason he was able to start for three years at BC. His junior year at BC, he was averaging 9.1 yards per pass attempt and was completing 60% of his passes. He was able to stretch the field and make some plays and his QB rating was 154.

It’s the offense that Oregon is running is making him look worse than he actually is.

[droop10]

I agree. AB made a bad read on 4th and goal. But doesn’t that just reinforce my point (and the point you are making too)? The offense is such that if AB makes a couple bad reads, it costs you the game against a team that on paper you should beat by 4 TDs.

Let my just pile on a little bit to make my point about philosophy. I don’t think AB is the best QB to play at Oregon, but you also can’t just lay all the blame there. He is not a horrible QB. There is a reason he was able to start for three years at BC. His junior year at BC, he was averaging 9.1 yards per pass attempt and was completing 60% of his passes. He was able to stretch the field and make some plays and his QB rating was 154.

It’s the offense that Oregon is running is making him look worse than he actually is.

Small sample size on that 59% completion percentage (which is still not good), as he got hurt pretty early in the year. Tell me an offense that would better fit his skill set? What could they do differently? I can only remember 1 deep ball all season that he’s connected on, and there have been guys open repeatedly. Since he can’t hit the deep ball, defenses don’t have to worry about them going over the top. He is limiting the offense, not the other way around. He seems like a good guy and I’ll still root for him if he’s starting, but just lacks the talent to start for a top tier team. Starting at BC doesn’t mean much. Not like there’s a lot of competition in that QB room.

[chapelhillduck]

We had receivers open all the time for the entire game. Brown made bad reads, hogged the ball for nil gains, threw inaccurately, or somehow did not see the open receivers. Why is he playing?

Williams had two steps on the defender for what would have been a 70 yard touchdown. But the ball was 5 yards over him


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[chapelhillduck]

Have we hit on a deep 50/50 ball yet this year? Everything is just an overthrow somehow


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[northbeachsf]

I agree. AB made a bad read on 4th and goal. But doesn’t that just reinforce my point (and the point you are making too)? The offense is such that if AB makes a couple bad reads, it costs you the game against a team that on paper you should beat by 4 TDs.

Let my just pile on a little bit to make my point about philosophy. I don’t think AB is the best QB to play at Oregon, but you also can’t just lay all the blame there. He is not a horrible QB. There is a reason he was able to start for three years at BC. His junior year at BC, he was averaging 9.1 yards per pass attempt and was completing 60% of his passes. He was able to stretch the field and make some plays and his QB rating was 154.

It’s the offense that Oregon is running is making him look worse than he actually is.

Small sample size on that 59% completion percentage (which is still not good), as he got hurt pretty early in the year. Tell me an offense that would better fit his skill set? What could they do differently? I can only remember 1 deep ball all season that he’s connected on, and there have been guys open repeatedly. Since he can’t hit the deep ball, defenses don’t have to worry about them going over the top. He is limiting the offense, not the other way around. He seems like a good guy and I’ll still root for him if he’s starting, but just lacks the talent to start for a top tier team. Starting at BC doesn’t mean much. Not like there’s a lot of competition in that QB room.

So you believe that Ty Thompson or Butters will fix this problem? It won’t.

[rockthief]

Have we hit on a deep 50/50 ball yet this year? Everything is just an overthrow somehow


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Therefore there is no reason for the opponents to worry about the deep because it does not exist. They can stack the line. It's a wonder we have a running game with those couple extra defenders in there.

[northbeachsf]

Have we hit on a deep 50/50 ball yet this year? Everything is just an overthrow somehow


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When you take one shot a game past 15 yards, it might be difficult to make that throw on a consistent basis for any QB

We had a all world QB in Herbert in 2019 and somehow his YA was a full point behind Brown at BC that year. Again, not a player issue, it is a philosophy issue.

[Duck07]

I agree. AB made a bad read on 4th and goal. But doesn’t that just reinforce my point (and the point you are making too)? The offense is such that if AB makes a couple bad reads, it costs you the game against a team that on paper you should beat by 4 TDs.

Let my just pile on a little bit to make my point about philosophy. I don’t think AB is the best QB to play at Oregon, but you also can’t just lay all the blame there. He is not a horrible QB. There is a reason he was able to start for three years at BC. His junior year at BC, he was averaging 9.1 yards per pass attempt and was completing 60% of his passes. He was able to stretch the field and make some plays and his QB rating was 154.

It’s the offense that Oregon is running is making him look worse than he actually is.

I'm agreeing with you in that regard - AB is supposed to be there to make the routine play ala the Point Guard style QB. Make the right run reads, get the ball out quick and don't make mistakes. Once those mistakes start piling up, the margin between his value and the upside of the "backup QB" becomes smaller.

This is the week to make a change if we're going to. Bye week followed by a Friday game at Home against a weak opponent before going on the road against an average team.

While I agree in general that I don't like the offense (based largely on our run schemes) I disagree that the Offense is making him look bad when its clear the plays have been there for him he just hasn't made them often enough and that's why this is an issue.

[droop10]

I agree. AB made a bad read on 4th and goal. But doesn’t that just reinforce my point (and the point you are making too)? The offense is such that if AB makes a couple bad reads, it costs you the game against a team that on paper you should beat by 4 TDs.

Let my just pile on a little bit to make my point about philosophy. I don’t think AB is the best QB to play at Oregon, but you also can’t just lay all the blame there. He is not a horrible QB. There is a reason he was able to start for three years at BC. His junior year at BC, he was averaging 9.1 yards per pass attempt and was completing 60% of his passes. He was able to stretch the field and make some plays and his QB rating was 154.

It’s the offense that Oregon is running is making him look worse than he actually is.

Small sample size on that 59% completion percentage (which is still not good), as he got hurt pretty early in the year. Tell me an offense that would better fit his skill set? What could they do differently? I can only remember 1 deep ball all season that he’s connected on, and there have been guys open repeatedly. Since he can’t hit the deep ball, defenses don’t have to worry about them going over the top. He is limiting the offense, not the other way around. He seems like a good guy and I’ll still root for him if he’s starting, but just lacks the talent to start for a top tier team. Starting at BC doesn’t mean much. Not like there’s a lot of competition in that QB room.

So you believe that Ty Thompson or Butters will fix this problem? It won’t.

I think they have better long-term potential, so one of them should be the option. They aren’t winning anything of merit this year anyway, so get the young guys experience rather than wasting reps on a guy that is limited to begin with and doesn’t really add anything to the offense. Do I expect Thompson to come out game 1 and start slinging it around? Not at all, but it’ll help the team’s long-term prospects more. I do think they took more downfield shots with Shough last year, because despite everyone’s qualms with him, he has better arm talent and throws a better deep ball than Brown.

[northbeachsf]

I was in school at Oregon in the early 1990s, so I know what really bad looks like. However, I think the fact that Chip was so good at utilizing his talent, especially at the skill positions, to just beat the piss out of inferior teams, that it makes it that much more difficult for us to watch these types of games under Cristobal. Therefore, we get overly critical at times after a loss.

The bottom line is that I don't like our offensive philosophy of grinding it out, praying that we don't make a mistake that costs us the game, and hoping teams get tired in the 4th quarter so we can pull out a 7 point win, assuming we execute perfectly in the 4th quarter. I know this probably makes me overly critical at times.

IMO, it makes no difference who Oregon starts at QB for the rest of the year. You can get Ty some experience for next season, but they will still drop a game just like this next year (see 2018 Stanford, 2019 ASU, 2020 Cal and OSU, and this year Stanford) unless they change the offensive philosophy and improve clock management. Again, they had a lot of these same problems with Herbert, so is Ty really the answer to all the problems? I was hoping that Moorhead would help the situation. The Ohio State game looked promising at the time.


Next question: If the coaches know that AB can't make downfield throws, then why all the 4 receiver sets yesterday? Who were they trying to fool? Don't you just put 2 TEs in the game, go large and line up and run it down their throat?

[dthomas=ddixon]

I was in school at Oregon in the early 1990s, so I know what really bad looks like. However, I think the fact that Chip was so good at utilizing his talent, especially at the skill positions, to just beat the piss out of inferior teams, that it makes it that much more difficult for us to watch these types of games under Cristobal. Therefore, we get overly critical at times after a loss.

The bottom line is that I don't like our offensive philosophy of grinding it out, praying that we don't make a mistake that costs us the game, and hoping teams get tired in the 4th quarter so we can pull out a 7 point win, assuming we execute perfectly in the 4th quarter. I know this probably makes me overly critical at times.

IMO, it makes no difference who Oregon starts at QB for the rest of the year. You can get Ty some experience for next season, but they will still drop a game just like this next year (see 2018 Stanford, 2019 ASU, 2020 Cal and OSU, and this year Stanford) unless they change the offensive philosophy and improve clock management. Again, they had a lot of these same problems with Herbert, so is Ty really the answer to all the problems? I was hoping that Moorhead would help the situation. The Ohio State game looked promising at the time.


Next question: If the coaches know that AB can't make downfield throws, then why all the 4 receiver sets yesterday? Who were they trying to fool? Don't you just put 2 TEs in the game, go large and line up and run it down their throat?

This discussion almost deserves it’s own thread but the other aspect of this is the way we abandon that philosophy in “big” games. The staff clearly has two separate approaches, depending on the opponent. For example, how do we lose to a bad beaver team then hammer USC in the conference championship game last season? Same thing the year before; limped into the conference championship game then blew the doors off of a really talented Utah team. We came out with an obviously different offensive philosophy that was opened up, taking chances and running Herbert. It’s an obvious pattern, and we saw the same thing with the tOSU game this year. We are two different teams depending on the opponent.

Mario clearly believes that you can play not to lose against inferior opponents and not have it bite you in the butt. As anyone in sports knows though, playing not lose lose will always result in you losing. It’s an arrogant philosophy that’s proven to result in failure. As a fan, it’s maddening to watch your team purposefully hamstring itself. It’s to the point that even the national sports media knows we play “down” to opponents.


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[woundedknees]

I was in school at Oregon in the early 1990s, so I know what really bad looks like. However, I think the fact that Chip was so good at utilizing his talent, especially at the skill positions, to just beat the piss out of inferior teams, that it makes it that much more difficult for us to watch these types of games under Cristobal. Therefore, we get overly critical at times after a loss.

The bottom line is that I don't like our offensive philosophy of grinding it out, praying that we don't make a mistake that costs us the game, and hoping teams get tired in the 4th quarter so we can pull out a 7 point win, assuming we execute perfectly in the 4th quarter. I know this probably makes me overly critical at times.

IMO, it makes no difference who Oregon starts at QB for the rest of the year. You can get Ty some experience for next season, but they will still drop a game just like this next year (see 2018 Stanford, 2019 ASU, 2020 Cal and OSU, and this year Stanford) unless they change the offensive philosophy and improve clock management. Again, they had a lot of these same problems with Herbert, so is Ty really the answer to all the problems? I was hoping that Moorhead would help the situation. The Ohio State game looked promising at the time.


Next question: If the coaches know that AB can't make downfield throws, then why all the 4 receiver sets yesterday? Who were they trying to fool? Don't you just put 2 TEs in the game, go large and line up and run it down their throat?

Great idea, assuming your tight ends arent as fragile as bone china...

[duck023]

I will say on second thought the one person I'm having a harder time blaming now is Brown. I've always known Brown is who he is. Look up my topic about the spring game I said it then and I'll say it now Ty Thompson and Butterfield are much better throwers. It's not just a football if you gave them all baseball's I think Brown would do the worst. At the same time Brown won that game if Cristobal(still big on Cristobal but he is charitable to the other team sometimes)didn't call that pass play and the refs didn't throw a phantom holding with 0 seconds left. Although it's not pretty he is winning and he should have won that game even without many passing yards.

[OregonFan4Life]

I think the posts about the offensive philosophy are dead on. I was worried about the JM hire for two reasons, first I never like hiring someone that was just fired compared to an up and comer, I believe an up and comer will be more motivated. Second, I thought that JM might be like Mike Leach, someone that does great at a mediocre school that struggles to get talent and will make them relevant. His offense doesn’t seem to match or suit the recruiting classes we’re bringing in and if the offensive philosophy continues to waste talented QB’s and WR’s then we’re going to start seeing our recruiting rankings drop. Today’s game needs a dynamic offense with a downfield threat, Saban realized this and changed the offensive philosophies and brought in great offensive minds to help him. Obviously we should all want Mario, if he leaves or gets fired it’s hard seeing Oregon get better than him, but I do believe Mullens and Knight need to have a sit down conversation with him and basically tell him this offensive philosophy and playing down to the level of the opponent is unacceptable.