David Marsh

This is why I'm giving Mehringer a bit of a bye at the moment. The play calls could be better but frankly there are players open. How long until we are calling for Riola at this rate?

Lanning and co made a choice to bring back a ton of NFL ready players for another year. This meant bigger payouts for them. It also meant that those sitting in the second string needed to make a choice... stick around and continue to be second string (and be paid as such) or leave and try to leverage themselves into starters (and potentially a bigger payout). Which led to the loss of players last season. The compensation to keep all those second stringers would be too much. Additionally... they gotta think about the next year's recruits and the budget there too.

I think Lanning is going to have to make some real big decisions at the end of the season around his staff. The only way he gets out of that is if Oregon wins a National Championship but doesn't seem remotely realistic.

Defensively we retained most of it! All but 1 of the defensive front 7... yeah the loss was Bryce Boettcher whose leadership is greatly missed. The defensive backfield lost Theinaman ... but otherwise brought everyone back. Loss of leadership hurts. I suppose no one has stepped up to fill the leadership void. But with everyone back... the pass rush should be better and the secondary coverage should be better.

I think the departure of Tosh Lupoi is being felt here more than anything else to be honest. Lupoi was an incredible motivator from what I read and was able to get his guys focused and revved up for the game. I don't think anyone is filling that role. Lupoi was a huge piece of the Lanning culture and he's gone now and I don't think that's a void that anyone has stepped up to fill. Beyond that... I think Mehringer's play calling has been ok. I think most of the problem is on player execution and mindset. Dante Moore threw high on a fourth down to Dakorian Moore. He forced to rush his throw as the pass protection was there for him but he rushed the pass. Instead of putting that ball on Dakorian's number where Dak would have potentially taken it for a touchdown at that point in all honesty... he threw it high and just out of reach. Could Dakorian have caught that pass? Potentially yes... but he wouldn't have gotten any yards have catch (but it would have been a first down). And speaking of the receivers... they have been AWFUL at blocking. I know we all hate those bubble screen lateral passes but the reality is they exist and they usually pick up a chunk of yards because of other blocking to spring the runner free. That hasn't been happening as receivers blocking on the perimeter have been beaten in their blocks. I feel the bigger problem right now is on player preparation and positional coaching. There were more examples of Moore just throwing off target on Saturday to receivers who couldn't make a play on the ball because it was off target. There were also plenty of instances where receivers also dropped the ball too. The offensive line is a mess. As individuals they often look ok but as a unit they are coming undone. Pass protection is better than the run game, I think that is in part because the line can usually identify and pick up rushers and they are good enough athletes to take on their guy. But run blocking requires more team effort and coordination. Pulling linemen and getting into the second level is what pops big runs. There is no team right now... there are 11 guys on the field running around and doing things. This goes for both sides of the ball. I think the defense needs a change in scheme to be honest... only ever rushing four puts a lot of pressure on the back end to hold up long enough to create pressure. But this is Lanning's base defense we have been since he got here and though I think it needs to change, we've seen it so far better than this in previous years. Just some additional thoughts.

They did. They ramped the heat up last week. But probably not the humidity enough.

Morning everyone, Not a happy article and also I didn't post anything after the game. After a loss, especially one that bad, it takes time to process. Also I don't have cable or a streaming service that has ALL the ESPN variants needed to watch the game. But I saw enough for this. Let's hope we start to see some life out of this team. Where’s the Team?Seriously, where are the Oregon Ducks?

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.