Cal @ #8 Oregon (Oct. 15, Fri 7:30 PM ESPN)

[DCfeatherbutt]

Can’t stop the Stache’

Dye for the win.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Love Dye.

Anyone who looks like an extra from a Cheech and Chong movie is OK by me.

[alxtw]

As previous posters pointed out, with two weeks prep against a 1-4 team and this is the best our offense can be...

I've been on the don't throw QB2 into the picture until we are out of the playoff train and thinking AB will be better and had one bad outing against Stanford. But now i'm realizing his performance against Ohio State was against an usually bad Ohio State defense. We will have at least another loss with AB against mediocre-good teams in the Pac12. Might as well throw in the freshmen QB to get his feet wet. Maybe not against UCLA in LA but in one of the cupcake games.

[buckmarkduck]

Either we make a move at QB, or admit the coaches failed at evaluating the current QBs. Then they go all in on Spencer’s Rattler or whoever else transfers this off season. Because in no universe do you roll with Brown all year, if you have a QB who is worth a damn backing him up. QB is the only thing stopping us from making a playoff run.

[nogerO]

Mario is ego-blind. To make ZERO adjustments to an offense playing like this means he has no answers and his ego is too big to make any sort of deviation from his plan.

Mario is an amazing recruiter. As a head coach he is what he is-a lineman. Run the ball. Don't take chances. Play conservative. Play not to lose. Convince me otherwise.

Eventually he wakes up and hires coaches and lets them coach, or eventually people who matter get tired of this unwatchable crap and playing down to every other teams abilities even though you have better talent all over the field will start asking WRI?

GO Ducks!!!

[pezsez1]

Glad we won, and thankful that Brown made some big plays in the fourth quarter to put points on the board.

That said, I'm disappointed in the coaching staff for not having the guts to start TT in the second half. That would have been the perfect time to do it -- maybe the most opportune moment we'll have all year. We had a lead, our defense was playing great, and there's no way he could have played worse than Brown did up until that point (and through the third quarter). He could have won the game while taking valuable reps.

Instead, we're rolling the dice again with Brown, only next time we'll face a hungry Chip Kelly on the road.

A few random thoughts on the game:
- Our possession at the end of the first half was so bad. We got the ball with 3 mins left and then burned 2 mins to go 10 yards. Capped it with a careless fumble. It's as if we literally weren't trying to score.
- We finally got to see another RB enter the game. Cardwell had two or three excellent carries and looked every bit as talented as Dye or Verdell, and he's only a true freshman. Dye played great, but why can't players like Cardwell get more reps? Same thing with TT... why can't he at least get in for a few designed plays? I just hate that Cristobal is so reluctant to develop the team's talent.
- The offense isn't great at anything.
- Loved how our defense closed it out. I think Cal would have lost had they scored and gone for 2.
- Anthony Brown showed heart for rebounding with a strong fourth quarter. He deserves credit for that.

[OregonFan4Life]

Just got back from the game, what a horrible and boring first 3 quarters, probably the most exciting thing that happened during the first 3 quarters was a college girl on the screen pulling her shirt up, though she did have a bra on. If she didn’t it probably would’ve been the most exciting thing all game. But these games are rough, not sure why Oregon continues to wait 3 quarters to play football but if this team knew how to play a full game we’d be ranked #2 and 5-0 right now.

First I want to address Brown, yeah he’s not very good, he’s inconsistent, and throwing it 2 yards on 4th and 6 is mind numbing bad. BUT, he is not the biggest issue on offense. To me there is a three headed monster that greatly inhibits the offense. First is Mario, the playcalling until the 4th quarter was absolutely atrocious. While Brown was bad the play calling did him no favors. My friend and I all game long were calling for a screen or something to spread the defense and it did not come. The coaches insisted on running it through the tackles against 8 defenders in the box or running a conservative passing play with the same routes over and over and over and over. RB goes to the flats, TE does a 5 yard hitch, slot receiver runs a short crossing route, one WR streaks, and the other WR runs a slant. Over and over and over again. Cal defended the receivers well cause until the 4th quarter I swear Oregon ran the same 2 or 3 passing plays. At this point, it has to be Mario. We can blame players al we want for taking forever to show up but when the coaches run such a pathetic, vanilla, and predictable scheme, why should we expect the players to play inspired football? The players will play inspired when the coaches provide inspired coaching and we didn’t get that til the 4th Qtr.

2nd monster (bad kind) on the offensive is George Moore. My gosh he’s awful, and he shouldn’t be. If fans were to boo a player he should’ve been the first one booed tonight. Literally got beat almost every play. His technique and effort is absolutely pathetic and I can’t wait for him to be gone. He doesn’t deserve to wear the jersey with pathetic efforts like that.

And the final Monster is Brown. He’s so inconsistent and doesn’t seem to grasp the idea of a first down. He loves the check down way to much on 3rd and 4th and long and it’s just pathetic and doesn’t give the team a chance. Also his progression is non existent. While the playcalling was bad I could not believe how many wide open receivers he missed that you couldn’t see on TV. He makes his mind up where he’s throwing it before the play starts and it appears he’s running through his progressions but he’s just starting at his receiver hoping they get open. He killed the team again but woke up in the 4th Qtr. I’ve been on the start TT boat, but until Mario and the offensive coaching staff behave like P5 coaches a young QB will be set up to fail, and that could really damage their long term development. I hate to say it but TT should’ve gone somewhere else, he made a mistake deciding to play for Mario.

As for the defense, I’m all aboard the fire Ken Wilson bandwagon. My gosh the LB’s are so awful at pass defense, they don’t even bother trying. They let TE’s and RB’s waltz right by them uncovered as they stare at the QB like a spectator. No matter the down and how many to go, if you try to pass 5 yards to a TE running a hitch route or a RB on the flats, you’re guaranteed to get at least 5 yards. Wilson may be a good recruiter but we need to bring in someone that can actually coach up LB’s cause that’s clearly not happening under Ken Wilson.

In the end a win is a win, but its very frustrating seeing this team continue to drastically underperform.

[GoDucksTroll]

I did a deep dive before last season into Penn State football with Joe Moorhead’s offense.

This is the Joe Moorhead offense. Per game stats comparison:

2016 Penn State: 16/28, 260 passing yards and 175 rushing at 4.6 YPC. 66 plays 435 yards 37.8 PPG

2021 Oregon: 16/28, 219 passing yards and 214 rushing at 5.0 YPC. 69 plays 433 yards 35.8 PPG

2017 Penn State was his best total offense at 460 yards, but 2020 Oregon was his best per play offense at 6.8 yards per play. Those Penn State teams did have Saquon Barkley, Chris Godwin, Mike Gesicki. If Anthony Brown was more consistent of a passer and could actually throw the ball down field this would be a dangerous offense. Take Shough’s arm and give him Brown’s caution and you have a team.

The offensive play calling is good enough, Brown’s accuracy beyond 10 yards in the air isn’t there, and the team makes an incredible number of mistakes that leave points on the board: Hutson fumble, Brown fumble, #71 Sala holding on a first down that made it 3rd and 14 instead are potentially up to 17 points they didn’t get.

You can win with this offense if you don’t make dumb mistakes. The problem is the defense is on the field for 82 plays per game, that’s 127th out of 130 teams. USC is at 63.5, Arizona is 65, Colorado at 66, ASU 69, Cal 71. Penalties, inability to get off the field on third down. 100th in third down conversions allowed, 120th in first downs allowed by penalty. Last year it was turnover margin, this year its this.

[OrTDuck]

Last year was a preview, Duck offense averaged 61 snaps per game and defense had to defend 76 snaps per game. The bowl game being the ultimate example, 46 offensive snaps and 85 snaps defended.

Sluggish inconsistent offense that often yields 3-and-outs or short possessions paired with a bend-but-do-not-break defense that gives up a lot of ground allowing teams to go up and down the field (hoping they sputter somewhere along the way), ends up being a difficult combination. Who would have thought?

[Alan]

Either we make a move at QB, or admit the coaches failed at evaluating the current QBs. Then they go all in on Spencer’s Rattler or whoever else transfers this off season. Because in no universe do you roll with Brown all year, if you have a QB who is worth a damn backing him up. QB is the only thing stopping us from making a playoff run.

X2, I could not agree with this more! Are the backup QB’s that bad? Brown is!

[dthomas=ddixon]

“But in terms of Anthony handling himself in the game, he made a lot of good plays tonight, a lot of big plays. He showed a lot of poise. He made some plays with his feet, with his arm. I thought we stretched the field better in the first half and then a couple in the second half. I thought our passing game improved a bunch. Obviously, a lot of those throws were good and he used his feet. Overall a really good performance.”

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this is the brand of football MC wants, and it’s why we aren’t seeing any changes or adjustments. He just wants a cleaner version of what we’ve seen against Fresno St., Furd, and Cal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[OrTDuck]

"I hate to say it but TT should’ve gone somewhere else, he made a mistake deciding to play for Mario."

I think TT is following the "Herbert Plan."

You play in Mario's odd, QB unfriendly offense, and after 2-3 seasons, when you get to the NFL, playing QB there seems easy.

[buckmarkduck]

The O actually moves the ball with ease, from 25-25ish. Then fir some reason we start blocking guys in the back when you shouldn’t even be blocking. Or we hold, false start or something else really dumb. Same with D. Get them to 3rd and long, and get called for something not even needed or just don’t tackle. AB isn’t great, and we have almost zero chance of completing a pass to a we wide open 25 yards downfield. But coach needs to stop throwing things, and teach basic football to these guys. I still remember to this day, my first practice as a kid being told, stop blocking when the ball is passed you. You will do something dumb that isn’t helping the play otherwise. And for goodness sake, stop being conservative all game, except on 4th down inside the 30. Kick the FG, please, I beg you Mario. 27 each of the last two games, makes it far less stressful at the end of games.

[ducks5ever]

What I find odd is that the stat lines for the offense look completely fine. The only negative are the two fumbles which probably made the game a lot closer than it should have been. A QB with a 71% completion rate and an RB averaging 7.5 ypc is typically nothing to complain about. As sloppy as the game looked, if CMC can find ways to get rid of the dumb penalties and ball security issues, we should be fine?

The defense. The Ken Wilson comment is unmerited. We're playing 3rd string guys so they're obviously not going to meet expectations at times. I dont know if its the ILB's that are holding the team back but the defense just doesn't look that great. Again I'm not sure what the exact issue is but that first Cal TD (like that first Stanford TD), was way too easy. The defense is playing a lot of snaps and it's not completely due to the fact that the offense is turning the ball over. The defense isn't helping itself at all on 3rd downs.

[EncinitasDuck]

On a positive note, I liked the pressure we had on their QB. Got him scrambling a lot and he was very inaccurate on the run. KT is a beast. Hope he can stay healthy and no more targeting calls. He's the poster child for making those around him look better!

I'll take the win. It was ugly, but as they say in golf, there's no pictures on the scorecard. 5-1! Go Ducks!!!

[lmduck]

What I find odd is that the stat lines for the offense look completely fine. The only negative are the two fumbles which probably made the game a lot closer than it should have been. A QB with a 71% completion rate and an RB averaging 7.5 ypc is typically nothing to complain about. As sloppy as the game looked, if CMC can find ways to get rid of the dumb penalties and ball security issues, we should be fine?

The defense. The Ken Wilson comment is unmerited. We're playing 3rd string guys so they're obviously not going to meet expectations at times. I dont know if its the ILB's that are holding the team back but the defense just doesn't look that great. Again I'm not sure what the exact issue is but that first Cal TD (like that first Stanford TD), was way too easy. The defense is playing a lot of snaps and it's not completely due to the fact that the offense is turning the ball over. The defense isn't helping itself at all on 3rd downs.

Totally agree about the Ken Wilson comment. He is hamstrung at the moment with injuries.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk