Ducks Attack Message Board Forum

With Pac-12 Media Day tomorrow, the pre-season media poll has been released and USC is the conference favorite. Oregon is picked 4th behind UW and Utah.

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Didn’t we beat Utah with a one legged QB? Unless Nix gets hurt again, we will beat them by 10+ in SLC

I can't argue with Oregon being 4th. The conference is stacked and we're on the road at UW and Utah. I do think we'll beat USC at home, but results matter and starting at 4th seems right.

That said, it's time to start ranking Utah at #1. They're the two-time conference champs, QB is returning, and they gave USC the business twice last year.

I'm also not sold on USC. Wasn't last year and not again this year. As controversial as this may be, I'd rank the top 5:

1: Utah
2: Washington
3: USC
4: Oregon
5: OSU

But how do I FEEL it will shape out in the end? Probably:

1. Oregon
2. Utah
3. Washington
4. OSU
5. USC

Bo Nix was too good to deny up until he got hurt. Oregon looked like a playoff team at midseason. I'm counting on us returning to that form but with a significantly improved/retooled defense.

Utah keeps finding ways to win so I've got to put them up there. I just love Oregon in that matchup (or any matchup).

Washington had a few strong games last season but Penix was inconsistent. I didn't see enough to believe in the Huskies.

Oregon State finally has a QB with a pulse and they're going to win a lot of games.

USC is great, but again, I didn't see enough last year to really believe it. They should have been crushed in Corvallis and they lost twice to Utah. The conference is going to be dangerous this year and I just don't see USC playing well enough on both sides of the ball to repeat what they did last year.

The conference needs to show up for early out of conference games. It’s embarrassing how often the PAC loses early OOC games on the national stage.

I know Utah is defending champs, but they lost a ton of talent. They will not be top 3 this year.

UofDuck wrote:The conference needs to show up for early out of conference games. It’s embarrassing how often the PAC loses early OOC games on the national stage.

Agreed, duck fans can’t expect the PAC-12 to get respect until they start regularly winning nonconference games, and I’m not referring to the mid to low teams, but the top teams. In 2018 and 2019, the PAC-12 champs (Washington and Oregon) lost an OOC game to Auburn who both years in the bottom half of the SEC, that alone makes it hard to respect the PAC-12.

GrantDuck wrote:I know Utah is defending champs, but they lost a ton of talent. They will not be top 3 this year.

I agree, but I also think that every year haha.

The off-season does weird things to peoples brains, and teams inexplicably get worse or better in people minds. I think UW will need a ton of good fortune to repeat last year’s performance, which really wasn’t that impressive, and Riley’s teams always have some fatal flaw that bites them in the butt.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see USC at the top of the heap but I think Utah, Oregon, and OSU will also be battling right to the end for a berth in the championship game, with a combination of injuries, officiating, and random luck being the thing that pushes one ahead of the other two.

greenyellow wrote:With Pac-12 Media Day tomorrow, the pre-season media poll has been released and USC is the conference favorite. Oregon is picked 4th behind UW and Utah.

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This is fair. No one has any idea how the offense will even be this year. The offensive coordinator barely has any experience so it could easily go either way. We played fine last season but I dont recall an Oregon roster having this much turnover in the last 2 decades. They were technically mostly upgrades but still lots of unknowns - especially how well these new pieces can fit together.

For the first time in a decade, there will probably be players on the field who I will not have an inkling of knowledge on.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this. I just read hytholoday's write up of the team. Anyone understand what's going on at ILB? I always thought that our best defenses used run-stoppers at ILB, but the ILB's this staff plans to employ are all coverage guys. Gives bad memories of the 2013-2016 era when we had a bunch of converted secondary players who couldn't stop the run (Malone/Leiato to name a few).

ducks5ever wrote:Not sure if this is the right place to ask this. I just read hytholoday's write up of the team. Anyone understand what's going on at ILB? I always thought that our best defenses used run-stoppers at ILB, but the ILB's this staff plans to employ are all coverage guys. Gives bad memories of the 2013-2016 era when we had a bunch of converted secondary players who couldn't stop the run (Malone/Leiato to name a few).

https://www.addictedtoquack.com/2023/7/ ... 23-preview

On Offense what comes to mind is the lack of proven depth behind Nix and Ferguson but the abundance we have at RB, WR and what looks like a solid OL IF Conerly holds up at LT. Nix making fast decisions on Offense will help them out, like he did last year.

I think this is an important thing to remember about our Defense (from another article of his)

Philosophically, the main insight of the Tite and Mint defenses is that in modern football the pass is more lethal than the run, and so they devote as much of their resources as practical to stopping intermediate and deep passing without totally surrendering their rush defense. The secondary typically plays zone coverage though will switch to man on 3rd downs, but that’s common to a lot of defenses.

As for the defense and stopping the run, I think we'll see natural progression from our DT/NT rotation inside as well as the return of Popo replacing Riley as the more natural NT. They have to be able to control the inside gaps from the snap.

I think that the most likely primary backups are Winston behind Burch on the weakside, Uiagalelei behind Dorlus on the end, and Tuioti behind Funa on the strongside. A couple of true freshmen that high in the lineup is a bit eyebrow-raising – this group needed to be turned over though the confidence the staff showed in prep guys instead of more proven portal or Juco additions is a remarkable gamble – but Uiagalelei’s talent looks like the real deal and the technical development from the coach’s kid appears ahead of schedule.

I think Tuioti is going to be one who really stands out as a pass-rusher for us. Maybe not this year, but we'll see the potential a few times.

...and the two freshmen recruited by this staff are completely different body types at 6’2” and 215 lbs than those recruited by the previous staff. That appears to be in keeping with the Mint defensive philosophy of spilling instead of stuffing the run and maximizing defensive resources on stopping the pass first.

I think Bassa and Hill are much better players than those past iterations that concerned us all, but it is an obvious area of weakness until shown otherwise.

Too often it felt like the big runs against us were because of bad reads or gap integrity breakdown than it was because someone went LMJ or Bush against the defense. It wasn't just the rush defense at ILB but the coverage over the middle that seemed to be lacking as well, so if Bassa/Jacobs can hold their gaps while making a mess of passing lanes in the middle of the field, we'll see the success the team is schemed for within the confines of "bend but don't break."

USC will always get the preseason hype because that gets hits and goes for a good story line. Dont know why UW is getting hyped. They were very lucky last year. USC and UW are both an injury away from having mediocre seasons.

Utah should be getting more love and respect. They have a much better team culture of tough nose, hard fighting culture. They also develop and get more out of less talent than any other team in the pac.

Duck07 wrote:snip

thanks this is helpful. As long as the OL and coach Stein do just an adequate job, this team should be able to hang with any team in the conference with just the offense.

I'm most looking forward to seeing how the defense looks (out of curiosity). Dan Lanning is supposed to be a defensive minded coach so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I might be wrong but it seems like the defensive line plays an outsized role in Lanning's defense. It's been a very long time since we've seen dominant defensive line play.

Other than Colorado, everything seems ballpark right so far.

UOducksTK1 wrote:Other than Colorado, everything seems ballpark right so far.

I'd probably bump Oregon over Utah