Do you think he's gonna be up to the task? Seems inexperienced,.. but I don't know moo about this guy.
I think he'll do alright. They'll definitely be putting up some points; that's for sure. The thing is, though, the PAC seems to be valuing defense more & more lately, so he may have to adjust to that. If he can take LaTech to 9-3, then he's sure to have some success at Cal.
The Cali teams have it made, look at the number of Junior Colleges in that state. They can get a kid with 2-3 years left to play college, bring them in for Spring and have them ready to go in the first game.
Thanks guys, with Hanson out and Larry Scott in, there's no longer a reason for the PAC to be crappy like it was. With the PAC's big money TV deal, and a strong commitment to win, I don't see why UCLA, USC, Cal, Stanford, Arizona and Arizona State shouldn't be perennial powers,.. they have nice weather and proximity to a population base. Oregon St and Washington State have it very tough, Colorado and Utah I don't know about. Washington is well situated in Seattle and could be strong every year too,.. my Ducks are overachieving. The PAC got stronger this year, next year I think we become the #2 conference.
In a not so surprising development, Butch Jones withdrew his name from consideration for the vacant CU HC job.
Who do you think was the #2 conference this year? I think the PAC made a good case. It was encouraging to see some of its teams starting to move away from the finesse style. No offense as I know that Oregon is about as much of a finesse team as it gets, but the smashmouth style is what wins championships. Stanford reminds me of an SEC team, as do Ore St & UCLA, although to a lesser extent. And that's not to say that a finesse team can't win championships, as Urban Meyer did exactly that at Florida. The thing is, his defenses were tough and the O could play tough, grind-it-out ball when it needed to. That's what I noticed that Oregon was lacking in the Stanford game. Once the Cardinal had them out of their rhythym, they couldn't adapt.
I heard all year, that the Big12 with the addition of TCU and W. Virgina was #2, imo it was pretty clear by season's end the PAC was better, next year we close the gap some on the SEC. http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/56651/acc-big-east-fall-in-latest-power-rankings As for the Ducks,.. you could see it coming when they played the Bears, injuries were piling up. Stanford played us tough, but it was their LB's and secondary that beat us, not their offense. Furd did make the key drive though, and we couldn't stop em.. Like you said a while back, Oregon's rushing defense was soft,.. it became that way,.. injuries and a lack of development by our reserves. Duck's defense seemed solid at the beginning of the year. cha, cha, cha,..Fiesta!
That's what I'm talking about, though. When it became clear that Stanford's defense wasn't allowing the Ducks to get into their rhythym, they couldn't adapt. They had nothing to fall back on. To a large extent, our OC does the same thing. When something isn't working, he keeps doing it over & over, and doesn't really adapt on the fly.
No one even slowed us down before Stanford, we hadn't needed fall back plans on offense. But, your right, Oregon lacks a power rushing attack, which badly hurt us against Stanford, we were 0/2 on 4th down, and 4/17 on 3rd down. The game against the trees also showed that LaMike was a much better short yardage back than Kenyon Barner.
What I remember most about the Stanford game, was the amount of time the Cardinal's D spent over the line of scrimmage. My overall impression was that the trench warfare thing got the Ducks again. With the Pac 12 running so many spread offenses, with inferior talent, how often will Oregon be challenged in a season? I even feel compelled to omit USC, because of their lifelong achievement award for spread ineptitude. On the bright side, Oregon will keep recruiting well and will be exciting to watch and fun to beat. That's a compliment.
