David Marsh

I think we have seen the extent of what Moore is capable of I hate to say. He doesn't read the field in real time. He was rushing throws when the offensive line was giving him plenty of time and he was fleeing the pocket when he still had time. He also held onto the ball too long and got sacked. Which I would say wasn't entirely his fault because the offensive line isn't great but most of those sacks looked like coverage sacks if I recall correctly... Which I might not as I watched the game on multiple devices and had to work pretty hard to keep watching the game. This just looked like Moore at his worse last year and even last game. I haven't seen the growth I was expecting from him. Nix and Gabriel were amazing at improv and reading the field in real time. Moore does not seem to do that.

I'm HOPING it stays on Disney+ and I don't have to scramble and find a way to watch it. I'm still watching football on the cheap and avoiding subscribing to something until I need to. Today the game is supposed to be on ESPN and Disney+ (which we have because of the children) and hoping it stays that way.

I saw a statistical breakdown of Mestermaker that basically showed how bad he was under pressure. And the result was.... Really really bad under pressure. If the defensive line can get consistent push it's not going to be pretty for him.

I'm always too optimistic in my score predictions. Which is why I'm pretty much always wrong.

It's football eve! Here are just a few thoughts I have for the game tomorrow. Final Thoughts and Prediction for Oregon vs Oklahoma StateAs we gear up for another game tomorrow here are some of my final thoughts and things I’m looking for in tomorrow’s game.

Game 1 turned out to be a no risk game... So didn't see the youngsters and newcomers so much. Hoping to see them this week against Ok State.

Getting Bair involved will be big in this as he has the height and jumps to win most of those 50-50 balls. Getting Johnson down the field as well will help with a lot of these too. And Harrison! the dude is like 6'7'' and could absolutely win most of those 50-50 balls.

I don't bet ... and I wouldn't bet on the Ducks because Dan Lanning does not give a crap about the spread. He only cares about the win. I think here even if the Ducks did blow out the Broncos and the reserves did get some play, Boise State probably would have back-door covered anyways. Lanning would have seen he had the game under control and was giving his reserves valuable reps. Betting on a Lanning team to cover the spread is a risky proposition.

A lot of this comes down to using a strong run game to set up the vertical passing game. The Davison is a beast an averaged close to 6 yards per carry last year. First down run the ball for 6 makes second and 4. Taking a deep shot and a higher risk play on second down is now less risky because 3rd and 4 isn't bad. Obviously the better first down goes the more options open up. Gotta get this run game rolling too... but strangely the vertical passing game can open up the run as defenses have to decide where to place their safeties.

They are an extension of the run game. Getting a player into space with the ball in their hands. It worked fantastic for Chip and company but defenses have know how to defend in space and if they can tackle in space then it's easy to slow down an offense.. It also felt like there were some missed blocking assignments on the perimeter on Saturday as well. Lock down those assignments and I think they work better. But open up the vert passing game and the defense can't play so close to the line of scrimmage. I'm not advocating getting rid of short passes because sometimes getting small chunks is all you can get... But those vertical passes were deadly and we need to see more of them.

I agree.

Happy Labor Day Monday, Lots has already been discussed about the BSU game but I do believe this will be the x-factor the Ducks will need to take advantage of this season. The Ducks Need to Unleash the Vertical Passing GameOregon survived Boise State a team that seems to bring out the worst in the Ducks.

Probably sorted out against BSU on the field in reality. But the other side of things too comes down to how else Michigan performs. If Michigan is good, they'll look at that loss and ignore it due to the ref interference. If Michigan is awful then they still ignore the loss but it was a close game against a bad P2 team. Either way I think everyone of substance ignores that loss and counts it as a win for them but the context of what Michigan is will depend if that helps or hurts them.

Both have been coordinators before coming to Oregon and both we Co-coordinators previous years. Play calling needed fine tuning and it got better over the game. Offense needs to just line up and punch a lesser roster in the mouth, the offense was vanilla outside of the questionable 4th down calls and the double pass that almost worked. I think a portion of the offensive frustration were the underneath passes but frankly BSU liked to pressure at the LoS... The vertical game they didn't have much of an answer for besides PI and hoping for a misthrown ball. Defense felt less like a play calling issue and more of playing undisciplined. Coaches will be hammering this into the heads of these players for the rest of the season. Two touchdown were the result of Oregon penalties that kept the BSU offense on the field. That's still coaching but not play calling. I hope we'll see a cleaner game out of the Ducks and better play calling in the next two games.

If the civil war was yesterday we would have flattened them. Instead we played the Scrap-12 champs. Good to know WSU and OSU built a conference that they aren't competing for the top spot.

Let's see how things turn out in November. Every team sees a big jump between fame one and game two. Additionally... Remember Penn State dominated their first few weeks last year. How'd that turn out for James Franklin?

I didn't notice the long snapper. They must be good!

I remember some stuff coming out of fall camp that Davison was a little dinged up. The rumor was that be broke something but that turned out false ... But dinged up for sure. So I think the plan may have been to play Davison sparringly. He was more effective on his carries though as it kind feels like Hill, a back who thrives in space, is being used between the tackles that game ... Can't have him exclusively be the edges guy or the defense will ignore the middle but I feel he wasn't being used to his full potential. I also think the line is a bit dinged up as well. Iuli was also supposedly injured (minor) in camp and didn't participate as much as you would have wanted .... Again I think the goal was to keep him out for the game but they did end up putting him in later. The offensive line wasn't bad but it wasn't good either.

Defense held Boise to under 3 yards per carry that's pretty good. BSU didn't rush for 100 yards (but some sacks in there influenced these numbers as well). It just wasn't consistent and Boise scored on drives we helped with penalties.

We were so close to grabbing all the momentum and shutting this game down at multiple points throughout the game. We just couldn't manage to do it on both sides of the ball until the fourth quarter.

Well... should have been 14. But apparently the refs can't notice something obvious. I walked in the room and saw the replay and was like... "oh kick-catch interference... no big deal for the Ducks, we still have the ball." "wait... whhhaaaaaaaaa???? How is that not kick-catch interference?" In short... it was kick-catch interference. The refs just had a flare for the dramatic.

I feel the bigger problem was them working together as a unit. Compare this to 2024 and that offensive line and this one was much much better. Gabriel waa getting demolished against BSU. I have faith because that offensive line was worked out. There are two games to sort out this line before it gets tested for real again.

I think the play calls in the second half were MUCH better. The fourth down play calls were awful. But so much of the bad play calling came when the Ducks got cute rather than good ol straight up football. When the Ducks played straight up it tended to go well... Vertical passes and running the ball with Davison. Play calling must improve.

Threw together a quick little article on some of my initial thoughts on the game... couldn't help myself. A win is a win but that was ugly. Quick Quacks - Oregon v Boise StateOregon beat Boise State 34-27 and here are a few quick take aways on the game.

Ok... So I had to look it up. Driving from Boise to Eugene is 7 hours and 40 minutes ... About. The plane trip is 1:40 minutes... Then Eugene to Portland is 30-50 minutes but with all the other delays let's just rack that up to an hour. So plane time wise let's say 2 hours for Eugene and 1 hour to diver to Portland, including getting from campus to the Boise airport. So we are at 3 hours. Normally Eugene to Oregon is 2 hours... So 4 hours round trip. But but but... It's a Friday night with some rain and these are busses we're talking about and not cars. So the waiting and travel from PDX to Eugene is probably closer to 5 hours. Whole travel total is probably around 8 hours for them today. They might as have driven from BSU to Eugene.