Pac Power Poll and Week 1 Review

Overall a pretty solid day for the Pac 10 with only Arizona really being a disappointment by taking a loss to the Mid-Major BYU team but I can’t really call that result much of an upset. Cal’s impressive win over Tennessee was of-course overshadowed by what has to go down as one of sports biggest upsets ever in Michigan losing to Appalachian State.

1. USC (1) – I watched part of their game against Idaho, you’d probably expect more points for the offense but nothing should be a red flag here. It was a bit scary for them to see Brian Cushing taken off on a cart but it appears as if his ankle is just a sprain and he shouldn’t miss any games. USC has a bye week to prepare for the road test at Nebraska and mend up Cushing. I am assuming Carroll didn’t show much of his hand for Idaho and kept a tight reign on the offense. Those who took the under and Idaho with the points got a nice parlay.
2. UCLA (2) – No problems at all in their visit to the Farm. Beating Stanford is not really much to get to excited about compared to Cal beating Tennessee however UCLA didn’t do anything wrong so I can’t justify knocking them down behind Cal yet. A game at home against BYU should be a bit tougher as the Cougars shut down Arizona.
3. Cal (3) – Looked like they had all the explosiveness we’d expect from I would say could be the nation’s best triad of offensive players in Longshore, Forsett, and Jackson. Cal shouldn’t have too much trouble with Colorado State on the road because they just don’t have the speed to handle the bears. Of course going in to Fort Collins is never easy but this CSU team is not the one of the late 90’s that was the cream of the Mountain West for a bit.
4. ASU (5) – Didn’t see a lick of the game versus San Jose State but looks like Ryan Torrain had a very solid game with 123 yards on only 17 carries with 3 Tds. You probably can’t judge too much based on a home game versus San Jose State but the Spartans were a bowl team last year and have made some strides under Dick Tomey. The challenge should rise a bit next week with CU in town but I’d expect that the Sun Devils will throw in a lot of blitzing to try and confuse true frosh Cody Hawkins and the Buffs.
5. UO (4) – The good for Oregon was the rushing numbers and Dennis Dixon finding his short passing game in the second half along with much improved kicking and coverage on special teams. The Oregon secondary played fairly well save for some missed tackles. The bad news is that Oregon’s front seven was walked all over the field by a C-USA team with a QB playing his first game and the Ducks still lack the ability to complete anything other than short routes. Defensive coordinators should be stacking the box against Oregon and using press coverage to dare Dixon to beat them deep. Michigan losing to Appalachian State did nothing good for Oregon. The Ducks will face a bunch of embarrassed Wolverine’s with a good game plan for stopping Oregon. Interestingly enough App State and Oregon run a very similar system, this game should be a shootout and if the Ducks can avoid throwing picks and fumbling they can win. In the end I think Big Blue will mot lose twice in a row at home to teams not named Ohio State so the Ducks will come back to Autzen 1-1 for the match-up versus the always pesky Fresno State Bulldogs.
6. Oregon State (7) – The Beavs won a grind them out game against Utah who looked pretty solid early until they lost their starting tailback and quarterback to injuries and after that lost any offensive momentum they had. The Beavers are clearly raw at QB right now and dropped a lot of balls too. Bernard looked stellar and I’d expect them to ride him a lot this year especially if Stroughter doesn’t play. A solid win at home but this team has the look of a 500 squad to me unless there is some major improvement from Canfield and/or Moevald. A trip to Cincinatti on Thursday will be a challenge, going east is always hard and the Bearcats can put up points.
7. UW (9) – The big mover on the board the Huskies look great in a win that saw them have to travel all the way across the country for a 9 am Pacific start. Jake Locker looked about as impressive of any Pac 10 freshman QB I can remember in his debut. The schedule is probably too much to ask for Washington to make a bowl game this year but I could see them beating a few mid range Pac 10 teams this season and possibly get to 6 wins. Boise State is probably a bit much for UW to handle right now but there is, for the first time in many years, a reason to have hope for the future for Husky football and that is because of Jake Locker.
8. WSU (6) - No shame in losing in Camp Randall Stadium to a very good Wisconsin team but there are clearly some major issues with the Cougars defense that need to be resolved. With the next two games being against SDSU and Idaho I’d expect to see WSU be 2-1 once Pac 10 play starts and hopefully the experience they got playing in Camp Randall will help them prepare for their Pac 10 schedule.
9. UA (8) – I saw none of the BYU Arizona game but for the Wildcats to only score 6 points against a MWC defense is a very bad sign. They should mend up nicely with NAU in town this week but I warn the Cats to not look past their Championship Division brethren.
10. LSJU (10) – Glass half full thought is that they scored 17 against a Top 20 team in UCLA. Unfortunately they gave up 45 points and UCLA toyed with their defense all day. Harbaugh will make things interesting on the farm at least and that really can’t be said for any Stanford coach since the days of Bill Walsh and Dennis Green.

College Football is Back!

I won't have a chance to post my full season preview until Friday night I think but I wanted to at least put my picks down on the blog before the Oregon State - Utah game comes on. So here it goes:

1. USC 12-0 (9-0) BCS Champ game
2. UCLA 10-2 (7-2) Possible at large in Rose or Holiday
3. Cal 10-2 (7-2) Sun or Holiday if UCLA moves up
4. UO 7-5 (5-4) Emerald Bowl5. ASU 7-5 (4-5) Vegas Bowl
6. WSU 6-6 (4-5) Armed Forces Bowl
7. OSU 6-6 (3-6)
8. UA 5-7 (3-6)
9. UW 3-10 (2-7)
10. LSJU 2-10 (1-8)

Isn't she cute!

At Dinner
Originally uploaded by pete4ducks.

Summer is starting to roll down and I have to say it has been a good one outside of not getting much time away from the office. Evie is really at a fun stage where she is learning more and more each day. She is so close to crawling it could be any second now before something just clicks and she starts scooting around. The first half of the summer saw all of my immediate family visit us for at least some amount of time. Kurt lives in San Pedro, California now, Heidi is in Eugene but likely moving to Boston or Santa Fe soon and my folks are in Taiwan for one last year. Emily and I have been able to have some fun this summer, we've gone to 3 weddings, went camping and the last two weekends we have gone wine tasting because we have hit up every brewery in the area that is currently open so not any new ones to crank off that list. I am not as excited for Oregon football as typically but I am quite excited for football in general. The Ducks have the potential but who knows if they have the heart and tougness to do much better than 7-5. We shall find out soon . . .

NCAA 2008

Well been busy with work, new house and the little one lately. Emily was very kind to me and bough me a Xbox 360 for my birthday. The day it cam out I used a gift card to Best Buy to get NCAA 2008. The game is sick, I played a little bit of Campus Legend before my roster file was procured and I really enjoyed how it would sim until your player actually made it on the field. Well as for the game play I have to say this is the best job of making a realistic football game (or maybe even sports for that matter) that I have seen. The AI is out of this world, actually I should say realistic, makes for a more fun game. No longer will throwing bombs and constant sending 5 WR's then running with your QB every play work, the AI will adjust to your tactics. At the time it is realistic so if you show a certain tendancy then switch it up you can burn the defense. I've found this works quite well, pound the ball in the line a few times on runs to get the safties up then go deep on third and short, works well!

Well I will spend the next month or so playing the game, researching up on the 2007 season and then will do my preseason predictions in late August!

Tourney Time

Some thoughts on the 2006-2007 Oregon Ducks, the NCAA tournament and a sprinkling of randomness.

I’ve never been one to claim that Ernie Kent is the best thing since sliced bread. I’ve been continually frustrated with his inability to recruit a decent big man, his failures in close games and his, if you believe the rumors, hypocritical personal life while he claims the moral superiority of being a “good Christian” (not that this is anything new from what we have from men in positions of power). However, I think Ernie deserves a boat load of credit for this year’s run, I think the man took some personal inventory, took some major risks like signing Tajuan Porter and going to a small-ball line, didn’t play the blame game (paging Mike Bellotti you have a call on line 1) as much and became more human in the process to his players. This had to have rubbed off on the players a bit. The victories in the tournament may not have been as impressive as the 2002 run however, the talent level on this team is not at the same level and Oregon gave Florida a better game in 2007 than they gave Kansas in 2002. I have thought for well over a year that 2007 would be the end of the Kent era, whether that be from firing (Pat Kilkenny just politically can’t do that right now I think) or Kent leaving on his own to take a “better” job. I don’t think that will happen now. I think he will be here another two years at least but the bar has been raised again and not going back to the NCAA’s in the next two years could mean the Pat’s man Mark Few is brought in.
On another topic I have to mention that I was quite thrilled with the Duck’s run to the Elite 8. The Ducks played 4 very different teams and played all of them with pride, character and brought respect to Oregon from fans across the country. Many Oregon fans were a bit upset with the officials in the Florida game. I can see where they are coming from, on many of the offensive boards the Gators got, (Richard did this at least 3 times) there was contact between the shorter Duck defender and the taller Gator. One could say that the contact was the Gator pushing off, another view, which the officials took it that it was the Oregon player being out of position and forcing the contact. I thought the refs were full of excrement on at least three of these calls but at least they called them the same way every-time and what I most want from a ref is a consistent call. If something is a foul in the first minute it should be a foul in the last minute, that was the case in the game. That Oregon was in a deficit in fouls was not a surprise they were facing a tall and athletic team however the disparity reminded me of the 1995 Western Conference finals where in Game 7 the Sonics had something like a 73-12 disadvantage in foul shots over the course of the game and still almost won the game (this performance as well as the travesty of the final four games of the Mavs-Heat series last year is all the proof I need to have to show that the NBA under David Stern does what they can to influence who wins games, they don’t outright fix games but they sure make sure that refs they select fit the situation they want to see, ie extending series, having the more “marketable” team win, and showing up Mark Cuban). Refs arguably have more impact on basketball than any other major team sport due to the differences in interpretation of fouls and the speed of the action. It seems to me that in virtually every game this tournament the higher seeded team got the benefit of the doubt from the officials. Maybe that is the way it should be, who knows? This tournament was great in-part because the higher seeds advanced but try to tell that to Vanderbilt or Xavier both of who you could say pissed away surefire wins with their own foolish play down but also could argue that had a key call in the final seconds been called accurately would have advanced on to the next round.
Finally a personal note. Emily and I put in an offer to buy a house this week. If all goes well with the inspection we should be able to move in at the end of April. It is much bigger and I will have my own space to do my own thing from time to time which I really need. Our current abode is way to small for 3 people, letting alone two have any space, so this is a great thing.