The Oregon offense is the type of offense that causes defensive coordinators to lose sleep at night.
And maybe it was in the head of Matt Barkley and his fellow trojans as they stumbled their toe once again against Stanford. Perhaps they were looking ahead to that showdown with mighty Oregon? It's a shame they lost and didn't hold up their end of the deal, because now, that game will take a back seat to Alabama/LSU.
But Oregon took care of business last Saturday by crushing Tennessee Tech 63-14. I'm a little late in getting to this, and have already moved on to Arizona, so I won't spend much time here, but here are some of the things I took away from that game.
Oregon's offense is good! Really good! Oregon has weapons everywhere, and scored at will, amassing a total of 652 yards. And I know the critics will say Tennessee State, but Oregon did what good teams do to inferior opponents...they dominated them.
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| De'Anthony Thomas (6) |
De'Anthony Thomas is a threat to score the ball every time he touches the ball. He's on a whole 'nother level and is a game changer. He's worth at least 7 points a game, if not more.
The only negative I took away from the game is the Ducks need to clean up the penalties. Eliminate those "self inflicted wounds" as Chip Kelly would say.
With the win, Oregon improves their record to 4-0, and moves up to #3 in the polls. They appear ready to make another run at a fourth consecutive conference championship. It won't be easy, as the rest of the Pac appears to be better than previously thought (minus Colorado). Their first test is coming up this Saturday, as they host #22 Arizona under the lights at Autzen stadium.
Now the links:
From espn's Pac 12 blog, everything regarding the conference.
De'Anthony Thomas rising in the Heisman race (bout time)
Aaron Fentress takes a look at the defenses of both Arizona and Oregon
Marcus Mariota discussing Arizona
Rob Moseley on Oregon's penalties
A look at UA/Oregon from Oregon Duck Football News
Oregon recruit RB Thomas Tyner is killing the competition! Watch all 18 of his touchdowns here.
I know it's ridiculously early but everybody else is already coming out with their top teams for next year, so here are my top 5:
- Alabama
- LSU
- Oregon
- OU
- USC
The thing these teams all have in common is that, while they're losing a few pieces from this year, they're also replacing them. These teams don't rebuild, they reload. All of them have talent waiting to step up and I don't expect them to miss a beat. All of them are expected by most of the experts to be as good, or in Oregon's case, better than this year.
Did you enjoy that kicking fest in last nights "title" game? I didn't, and judging by the numbers (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2012/01/bcs-championship-game-draws-lowest-ratings-ever.html) many of you didn't as well. The only thing worse then this game was the SEC love fest displayed by ESPN in the days leading up to the "big game," and the tweets coming out from certain commentators (Erin Andrews) like "the smell of SEC tailgatin is the air in Nola." That's rich. When will these people realize, and again the numbers back it up, outside of your own little world...nobody cares about the SEC.
This was a game in which Les Miles thoroughly got out coached and outclassed. Why was Jefferson still in there in the 4th, or the 3rd, or the 2nd for that matter. Couldn't he see that what he was doing WASN'T working, and maybe bringing in the quarterback that was a major part of why they even got to the title game, could've sparked the team? Wouldn't have hurt to try. And why did Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron win MVP? Give that thing to the kicker. I mean after all, he produced most of the points.
If it's not clear to BCS officials to make a change now, I don't know when it ever will be? The game was bad, the ratings were the lowest they've ever been, and judging by peoples tweets and facebook updates...not only where they not happy with the teams playing going into the game, but they were even more upset with the way the game turned out.
I mean how nice would've it been to see a final four, or a plus one this year? It's not hard to figure out. Wouldn't you have liked to see a bracket in which, the winners of the BCS bowl games played each other to determine that national championship? I know it's wishful thinking, but maybe something like that will get discussed when the members of the BCS meet Tuesday.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/post/_/id/28818/bcs-meeting-set-for-tuesday
