Oregon/Mizzou State Review

Maui Brewing Company
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As expected Oregon/Missouri State was a blowout. What was not expected was Missouri State driving the ball down the field on the opening drive and putting up seven points on the Oregon defense. Clearly the Bears defense was extremely undermanned against the Ducks but their offense was decent early and put up some relatively nice rushing totals. If Oregon can’t do a better job of stopping the run they could drop a few games in the Pac 12 regular season particularly to schools with mobile QBs (Stanford, UW and Cal area all coming to mind). Darron Thomas looked like he was playing on the JV level in NCAA 2012 because his receivers were open at will but deep and short. LaMichael James averaged over 12 yards per carry and Colt Lyerla is showing off some of the potential that made him such a high level recruit. It appears as if Rashaun Vaughn is showing some chemistry with Darron Thomas and he may end up being that missing outside threat the team lacked against LSU. Cliff Harris again sparingly played and is reported to have some type of wrist injury. I think it is very likely he takes a lot of snaps versus Arizona as the Cats will be throwing a ton on Saturday. DeAnthony Thomas continues to show why he is one of the most exciting offensive players in the country. Oregon actually had Missouri State re-kick after their kicker launched a ball out of bounds. Thomas proceeded to take the kickoff back to the 44 yard line bettering Oregon’s yardage by four yards over what the penalty placement would have been at.

Oregon vs Missouri State

Trip to Gearhart
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Oregon versus Missouri State is clearly just a glorified scrimmage. For the Ducks the main goals will be avoiding injuries, working out the kinks in the running game, integrating Cliff Harris back in to the defense and seeing what they have from some of their young players who haven’t had much game time. I’d expect a score of around 63-0. Missouri State will likely not have as much time of possession nor rushing yards that Nevada was able to put up and Oregon will probably try to run slower drives in the second half to eat up clock. I’d expect to see Bryan Bennett play most of the second half at quarterback and for LMJ to sit down early as well. I don’t see any reason to risk the health of Kenjon Barner and Josh Huff so I think they will sit out as well and try to get healthy for Arizona in eight days.

The Top 5 Oregon Non-Conference wins of the pre-BCS Pac 10 era

Kahana Sunset
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Aside from the improbable Rose Bowl/Cotton Bowl run of 1994 and 1995, the Oregon Ducks in the pre-BCS Pac 10 era (1978-1997) were the definition of mediocre. Terrible no, their counterparts up the road in Corvallis can take that title. Oregon was a slowly building program under Rich Brooks that typically played just well enough to lose to the better teams in the Pac 10 and would pull a home upset from time to time but typically found themselves in the bottom half of the Pac 10 and on the outside of the bowl picture. Oregon typically followed the model of playing one team from the Big 10 or Big 8 and two teams from western part of the country to round out the OOC schedule. Here are my picks for the Top 5 non-conference wins by the Oregon Ducks from the pre-BC S Pac 10 era:
5. 1995 Oregon 34 Illinois 31 – Illinois was certainly no juggernaut but they did have two future NFL draft picks in their linebacking core in Kevin Hardy and Simeon Rice and were a consistent bowl participant in that time. This was a close exciting and a bit higher scoring game they perhaps would have been projected with Gang Green facing off against the illini. This back and forth game was won by the Ducks when safety Jaiya Figueras forced Illinois to fumble and then recovered the ball in the endzone. This was the first of Mike Bellotti’s many home wins at Autzen Stadium in a season that saw Oregon go to the Cotton Bowl.
4. 1994 Oregon 40 Iowa 18 The Iowa Hawkeyes had some glory years under the legendary Hayden Fry but at the time of this game were a mediocre program as Fry’s career came to its end. No one expected anything out of Oregon who had gone 5-6 in 1993 and had just lost back to back games to Hawaii and Utah in pretty convincing fashion. The Ducks put together a 40-18 win that not many around the country would notice. The win over Iowa did however turn around Oregon’s season and the players gained a lot of confidence from the solid win over a traditionally strong Big 10 team. The next week the Ducks would be noticed by the entire college football world as they would go down to LA and knock off the heavily favored Trojans and would go on to their first Rose Bowl since the 1950’s.
3. 1989 Oregon 44 Iowa 6 – Iowa did not have a very good 1989 season however the next year they would find themselves in the Rose Bowl and in the previous 7 years before that they had been to bowls. This era was probably the height of the Hayden Fry era and for that 1989 game to start the Hawkeye’s season they were ranked in the Top 5 of the AP poll. Oregon was coming off a very disappointing 6-6 campaign that had stared out great for the Ducks. They had climbed as high as 12th in the poll and had a 6-1 record with only a close loss to #2 in the country USC. However, Oregon would lose a 22-21 game at Autzen to Arizona State and in the process also lose star QB Bill Musgrave. Without Musgrave the Ducks never won another game and had no national expectations for much success as they had not played in a bowl game since 1963. To almost everyone’s surprise the Ducks went on the road to Iowa City and pulverized the Hawkeyes who were one of the few teams to ever be ranked in the Top 5 to start a season and not have a winning record. You could say Oregon ruined their season before it even started. The Ducks on the other hand took the momentum from this game and ended up winning their first bowl game since 1963, an Independence Bowl win over Tulsa. In the 26 seasons previous to 1989 Oregon played in zero bowl games, since 1989 Oregon has only failed to play in a bowl game 4 times.
2. 1987 Oregon 10 Colorado 7 This low scoring affair was played in Boulder, Colorado to start the 1987 season. Oregon had just seen their best QB since Dan Fouts, local boy Chris Miller move on to the NFL as a first round draft pick of the Atlanta Falcons. In his place stepped in a freshman from Colorado that virtually no one had ever heard of named of Bill Musgrave. Musgrave lead the Ducks to a win over the steadily improving Buffs in his very first start. All of a sudden Oregon fans had something that had been lacking since the days of Mel Renfro and that thing was hope. The Ducks would finish 1987 with a winning record but were denied a bowl bid mainly because of a mid-season four game losing streak.
1. 1990 Oregon 32 BYU 16 – BYU was on top of the college football world of beating then #1 and defending national champion Miami the week before in Provo. Perhaps they overlooked the Ducks or perhaps it was Musgrave and Autzen magic at play but the favored Cougars were physically beat down by Oregon in this game. Ty Detmer would have over 400 yards passing but BYU could not get any running game going at all and Detmer would throw five picks three of them to Darryle Smith. I am still not sure that Autzen has ever been louder than it was for this game. The game was shown to a large audience on ABC and gave great exposure to the program nationally.

The Girls of Summer

The Girls of Summer
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Collage of the little ladies enjoying their summer!

Oregon/LSU Pre-game Notes

Inflatible Duck
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1. This game will be decided by Oregon’s interior offensive lineman versus LSU’s young defensive tackles. For anyone who watched the BCS title game you’ll know that Nick Fairly’s ability to penetrate the interior of Oregon’s offensive line caused the Ducks a ton of problems in the run game and made them one dimensional. To Oregon’s advantage Auburn’s shaky secondary gave up a large number of yards to Darron Thomas and company but Chip Kelly perhaps stuck with the run a little too long. LSU is pretty young at DT and as far as we know doesn’t have anyone who is at the level (yet . . . true freshman Anthony Johnson may turn in to a Nick Fairly type player but I am not expecting it in his first college game). Oregon is replacing 3 offensive line starters yes however the only truly green player on the line will be Hroniss Grasu who has earned the starting center position after a very tough fall competition with both Hamani Stevens and Kerrington Armstrong. Most folks are pointing to having to replace Jeff Maehl as Oregon’s biggest question mark but I think replacing Jordan Holmes is bigger. Because Oregon takes virtually every snap from the shotgun Grasu is going to need to concentrate on getting off the snaps correctly every time while still dealing with some very talented young defensive tackles.
2. I see both Jarrett Lee and Terrance Mitchell being challenged early. Despite all the memories many fans around the nation have of Jarrett Lee throwing 7 pick sixes as a freshman he was a fairly accurate thrower in his junior year. 89 passes with only 1 interception shows that he can be an accurate thrower. He won’t be asked to throw the ball 40 times to win, what he we will be asked to is make 7-10 key throws throughout the course of a game to extend drives. I think Oregon will try to sell out to the run early and this will give Jarrett Lee a chance to go deep with a play action attempt perhaps on the first or second drive. Look for LSU to test Terrance Mitchell early as Cliff Harris will not be playing. If Jarrett Lee can throw at the 65% completion rate on say 24 attempts I think that LSU will likely win the game.
3.Who do the intangibles favor? LSU played their last game in Dallas so the whole “huge video screen” factor should not be a problem for them, could it distract Oregon? I think the turf favors Oregon a bit as LSU doesn’t often play on that surface but LSU played there last year in the Cotton Bowl so it is mitigated a bit. Fan wise I am expecting a more than 2 to 1 advantage for LSU, the stadium will be loud the beer will be flowing and you can expect 50K+ crazy LSU fans to do their best to disrupt the Oregon offense. Oregon has been no stranger to controversy over the last few seasons so I am not expecting the Willie Lyles/Kiki Alonzo/ Cliff Harris dramas to really have any effect on the team. LSU however has kept their nose surprisingly clean the last few years before the bar brawl. Will they be able to handle the media scrutiny and will Lee be accepted as a team leader in place of Jefferson? Finally will the roof be open? Oregon’s players are not used the humidity so I think they’d prefer a closed roof situation while LSU would prefer it to be open and for it to be a muggy night.
4.27 Points. If the winner of this game has 27 points or more I’d expect that winner to be Oregon. If it is less than I see LSU winning. The Tigers will try to eat up clock and ideally get an early lead and kill clock. Oregon’s habit of slow starts on offense before bowl games and early season games versus decent (ie non New Mexico) could cost them yet again in this game. Going back to Kelly’s time as an OC the Ducks have struggled in the first half on offense in games with long layoffs before them. LSU has the best defense that Oregon has likely faced in Kelly’s time so if the Ducks aren’t crisp on offense early it is going to put some massive pressure on Oregon’s defense to keep the score close until the offense can find it’s rhythm. In the end I think Les Miles finds a way to win this won in a game that will remind many of the BCS Title Game. LSU 24-UO 22.