Triphibius

Stewart was hit on the hand by the defender. That is not interference?

Possibly the chemical enhancement is unnecessary, considering that the fetching Jordan has, as Jerry Seinfeld put it, "many of the qualities that appeal to the superficial man."

The raucous celebration begins around the seven minute mark. Wait for the trombones at the end.

Thanks for the post. I saw the replay. What an amazing comeback. Inspiring.

If the B1G needs to expand to 20, bring in Stanford and California. Most of the men at Berkeley need a haircut, anyway.

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking But now, God knows Anything goes Good authors, too, who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words Writing prose Anything goes We need a little Cole Porter on this forum.

Extra credit for the Cole Porter reference.

My intuition tells me this is for the best. Geoff Schwartz says that Crader is going to be a good player. If we had added Seaton, my fear is that Crader would have entered the portal. The one thing DL needs to do differently, IMHO, is build an OL that plays together more than one year, as the Ducks had as recently as the Alex Forsyth cohort.

Allow me to say something in Beck's defense. He may have been aware of the safety's presence and thrown the ball earlier than his receiver expected. A film clip of the play available on the internet showed the received running with his head down to the endzone as the ball arrived. If the received had turned to look for the ball, he could have contested the catch with the cornerback who was behind him. Given the situation, Beck made a reasonable decision. He may have underthrown the ball, but an alert received could have competed for the ball. It is to Beck's credit that he did lay blame on his teammate. I do not have a dog in this fight, but Beck has taken more than his share of blame in these parts (Atlanta, Georgia) in the past.

Yes, I also admire what OBD accomplished against OSU in Eugene in 2024, but I am not sure the same approach would have succeeded against IU this year. The reason: our 2025-26 tackles may not have been as good as last year's in pass protection. Evidence: the opinion offered on X (and quoted by someone here) by Geoff Schwartz, who knows a thing or two about playing offensive tackle.

I am still in denial, I have not reached anger yet. I had a nightmare last night that Oregon turned the ball over three times in the first half inside their own thirty, spotting Indiana 21 points. Funny, how your drowsy mind plays tricks on you. What time is the game today, anyway?

Thanks for your thought-provoking assessment. Why did the Ducks play no better or worse in the second game in these three cases. I am going case by case, and draw conclusions empirically. The score was nearly identical in the second game against UW because the Huskies were a good offensive team that made it to the final, because we had kicking issues, and because of injuries in our secondary. I also thought the play calling on crucial downs left something to be desired. Ohio State had an abundance of talent, and was problem for everyone when they played their best game. I do think their coaches got the best of us on both offense and defense, but the injury to Stewart, who was critical to our previous success, was damaging. Oregon had the bye, which was a curse of death until IU broke through. I thought Oregon was winning on first down on both offense and defense early in the game. Without the turnovers, it looked as if the game would have been competitive. Our QB was responsible for the first and third. He took responsibility for the second, but that may have been good character. (Possibly the mistake was Hill's.) We did not have a bye, but our two coordinators were both burdened with their new duties. It is plausible that this affected practice and preparation. Oregon did look sharp on the successful early drive, however. I think the loss of control at the line of scrimmage may have been caused by the demoralization induced by the repeated offensive errors. In each case, there were confounding factors: injuries, the bye, and the departure of the coordinators. An alternative explanation would be that Oregon was good, but the opponents were better. a. In Washington's case, better because of our injuries at corner and our kicker's struggle. b. In Ohio State's: their receivers were better than our secondary; and their DL and LB Downs were better than our relatively good OL. c. In Indiana's: their QB may or may not be more talented, but he is more highly developed; our corners were close to their receivers but defeated by ball placement; one of our safeties was beaten repeatedly; Geoff Schwartz suggested on X that our tackles this year were not championship caliber (my phrase not his). Apart from QB play, Lanning needs to recruit safeties who can defend championship quality receivers (the incoming guys look promising) and OL men who can play together for more than a year to build teamwork. Again, the recent recruits look promising. Thanks to anyone who persevered for your patience in reading this.

I always appreciate Solar's comments. I have been thinking along the same lines. The reasons for last year's fiasco and this year's are different. DL "can't win the big one" is simplistic. Early in the game, the Ducks were winning on first down on offense and defense. Mendoza is so good at converting on third down, that sometimes that was not enough. His ball placement defeated good coverage. However, Wyatt's strip and sack was very encouraging. If this had been sustained, we would have had a reasonable chance of winning. The reason that it was not sustained was turnovers, which not only led to easy scores but eventually demoralized our defense. The miscue with Hill was the turning point, and I don't know if that was Dante's fault. It may be that Hill did not do enough reps because of the RB situation. Regarding the OL, Duck Territory said that Iuli was playing hurt. I also noticed that World disappeared (a rather bizarre concept) and was replaced by Crader at some point. Longer term, I wonder whether it would be better to develop our OL in house rather than plugging in portal guys every year, allowing them to play together more than one year, even if there are some growing pains. The incoming linemen may be multi-year starters. I expressed some thoughts on Dante in another thread. PS Solar's advice yesterday was good. Be grateful for the 13 wins.

I, too, like Dante as a young man, and wish him the best. However, on a discussion forum like this, perhaps a question ought to be raised. By analogy, is he Justin Herbert, Dennis Dixon, or Ty Thompson? Herbert? "The NFL is not a developmental league," one pundit says. On the contrary, a good QB coach (with the Chargers, not Mario's Ducks) developed Justin, and he is now a pro-bowl player. Dixon? An introvert prone to self-doubt, a bit of an ugly duckling, but one who somehow transformed into a Heisman quality player in his senior year. Thompson? Dante has some good personal qualities in addition to his physical gifts. However, the ability to speak well, or for that matter to do theoretical physics, does not guarantee that one can determine where to pass a football in 2.5 seconds.

I understand why even devoted fans feel that they need to take a break, that it is too emotionally exhausting to deal with repeated disappointment. I deal with disappointment by attempting to analyze what happened. Those who just want to flush it can stop reading here. So, what happened and why? IU was given three touchdowns in the first half. Once they had that large a lead, they could play the game on their terms. If they had not been given those gifts, what would have happened? Joel Klatt's analysis seems right in retrospect. One key to victory was winning on first down. Oregon was winning on first down on both sides of the ball early in the game. On offense, the Ducks had manageable third down conversions, and Stein had appropriate plays to accomplish that. On defense, the Ducks brought in Wyatt as a speed rusher on third and long he had immediately created havoc. If that could have been sustained, we had a good chance of success. Dante responded fairly well after the first interception. My recollection is that the miscue with the running back was the backbreaker. Did this result from the running back injuries, or because Stein was exhausted by multi-tasking? Was it just random bad luck? Was it simply the Hoosiers' year? There is much more to be said, but those are some preliminary thoughts.