Oregon/Arizona Game Review

Snorkeling Trip to Honolua Bay
Originally uploaded by pete4ducks.

I am really going to miss Mike Stoops. Say what you want about the guy but his teams have always played hard and you have to love the guy because he is so entertaining to watch on the sidelines. However, it is clear his tough guy act has started to fall on deaf ears with his players, the fans, refs, his assistants, recruits and likely innocent workers in the fast food and roadside coffee industry who you have to imagine have felt his wrath when they forgot to add pickles to his Big Mac or put two pumps of espresso instead of three in his morning vente. The one person though that we are not sure about is his boss, Greg Byrne and ultimately I think Greg is going to make a change at coach this year, whether that be in October or December it will be happening. Going in to the season I had a good feeling that Arizona would start out roughly because face it playing Ok State in Stillwater on 4 days rest then playing back to back games versus Stanford and Oregon is the September schedule equivalent of the Bataan Death March. I don’t think any team in the country would have gone 3-0 in that stretch and very few would have won even one of those games, Arizona’s record is exactly what I thought it would be at this time. The key to them salvaging their season will actually be how they play in their next two games, at USC and Oregon State which certainly look like they may be easier than we would have thought a month ago. If the Cats can win those they all of a sudden put themselves back in to the Pac 12 South race. Well on to the game, I am a Duck fan and if you are reading this you probably want to read about the Ducks and not Mike Stoops and Arizona. Saturday night was a fun game, Oregon’s offense was in beast mode in the first half and LaMichael James had a historic night. Darron Thomas didn’t really even have to throw so I wouldn’t worry about his lack of stats in the passing game. That’s not to say I am not worried about the Ducks on the other side of the ball however. Oregon got pretty lucky in the first half because Arizona consistently shot themselves in the foot with both stupid penalties and dropped passes. The Cats left 14 points off the board by dropping long TD’s and then extended an Oregon scoring drive after a stupid penalty on a third down where they had stopped Oregon from getting a first. Right there folks is a 21 point swing and instead of a blowout you could have had a 28-24 game if Arizona eliminates those three stupid mistakes. Once Arizona got behind they had no choice but to abandon the running game and this led to a ton of pressure on Nick Foles from the Oregon defensive line (kid has a ton of heart and plays with no fear and I’d put him at worst the third best QB prospect in the 2012 NFL Draft). Foles did a very nice job of throwing the ball down the field particularly in the third quarter but it was really too little too late. With a very green offensive line he took a ton of shots and he has to feel let down by his usually reliable receiving corps. This game really should have been a bit closer than it was, how often does a player the quality of Juron Criner drop an easy touchdown reception? The Ducks clearly have to feel better about their running game so I think they will spend the bye week figuring out ways to getting DeAnthony Thomas involved in the passing game and working on establishing Josh Huff and Rashuan Vaughn as deep threats for Thomas. Defensively Oregon needs to get better in man coverage as they will be facing some QB’s this year who can sling the rock in the next month. Helmet sticker to LaMichael James who put himself right back in to the Heisman discussion with his performance on Saturday. LMJ I feel has made himself some nice money by showing to NFL scouts he is a well rounded player. Mel Kiper even took notice of this praising his play on special teams in the return game and his ability to both run between the tackles and to be a factor in the passing game.