CFP QF: #5 Oregon v #4 Texas Tech (Jan. 1, Thu, 9 AM ESPN)

[pezsez1]

Maybe, but if you can watch the game and make that determination, would not the Indiana coaches also get wise to the strategy? I mean, if Lanning was willing to pull out fake punts and going on 4th down, it seems like he wasn't doing a lot of hiding.

I do really want you to be right. I feel like Sadiq and Dak Moore are underutilized weapons the past few games and it would be cool if Coach Lanning was holding them in reserve until the moment they are needed. Or maybe they have just been dealing with injuries and not playing at full strength.

Funny thing, my brother sent me a link to Shannon Sharpe's Nightcap podcast last night and Sharpe says the exact same thing I did. He said it was clear Texas Tech wasn't going to score on us unless it was from a turnover or something like that and that Oregon purposefully kept it vanilla. (I came to the realization that Lanning had zero respect for TT's offense when he went for it on 4th at midfield early on.) I really think that's the only logical explanation for what we witnessed yesterday. Dante Moore was almost perfect on short/intermediate downfield passes, and yet most of what we called were runs, deep shots, or sideways screens/passes. The dink & dunk game was pretty much MIA, and yet it was nearly flawless on the game's first drive.

Yes, of course Indiana's coaches would draw the same conclusions, but I think they can also probably guess that if we're going to win that game, that's the part of our game we'll need to flex. We saw in the first game vs. Indiana how Moore struggled with slow-developing pass plays, and I'm pretty sure we won't be able to beat Indiana by putting the run game first. It's going to have to be lots of quick throws, pushing the ball downfield, with just enough running & deep shots to keep them honest.

The fortunate thing is OREGON IS BUILT FOR THAT, and I'm not sure any opponent out there is capable of stopping it. Texas Tech has one of the nation's best defenses and we carved them up whenever we went to that part of the playbook. With our top receivers and both TEs healthy and balling out, our quick passing game should be a massive advantage that lets us dink and dunk our way to a championship assuming the defense continues to do its thing. (God help everyone if Evan Stewart ever returns!)

I'm obviously not a believer in Will Stein, but maybe this is like Herbert's last year when the QB run was there ALL SEASON LONG and we saved it to win the Rose Bowl. If that's the case then I'll celebrate our natty with a "Will Stein's #1 fan shirt" and douse myself in champagne.

[dthomas=ddixon]

I give Will Stein full credit for his QB development and general offensive gameplans, but his playcalling this year has been the worst it's been at Oregon. Especially in the red zone.

If we run one more sprint out right on a 4th and fucking short or screen pass on 1st down in the redzone, I will be in the mental hospital by February.

I looked at all our games this morning and the offense struggled against every good defense they faced. Great offenses have the advantage over great defenses, yet Stein hasn’t put together a single great performance against a quality defense this year. They all came against bad defenses, like Rutgers and Okie St.

[buckmarkduck]

I'm clinging to the belief that Lanning determined early on that Texas Tech wasn't a threat against our defense and chose to go ultra vanilla on offense. I've thought about it all day and there's no other justification for Stein's playcalling. We were almost perfect when executing the short/immediate passing game, and yet Stein seemed to dial up everything but that. So he must be trying to hold back film from out next opponent to get a competitive edge.

I’m not so sure it’s just a belief. He came right out calling the game like they had zero fear of TTU offense. He knew his D was going to lock them down, and he kept going for it, like Anderson Silva used to do back in the day dropping his hands and daring guys to punch him. Zero fear that TT would ever make him pay for being aggressive or turning down points. Then in the second half, he just had Stein call the game to try and not give them any dump pick 6, and we sat on them.

[QuackininBama]

I'm clinging to the belief that Lanning determined early on that Texas Tech wasn't a threat against our defense and chose to go ultra vanilla on offense. I've thought about it all day and there's no other justification for Stein's playcalling. We were almost perfect when executing the short/immediate passing game, and yet Stein seemed to dial up everything but that. So he must be trying to hold back film from out next opponent to get a competitive edge.

I’m not so sure it’s just a belief. He came right out calling the game like they had zero fear of TTU offense. He knew his D was going to lock them down, and he kept going for it, like Anderson Silva used to do back in the day dropping his hands and daring guys to punch him. Zero fear that TT would ever make him pay for being aggressive or turning down points. Then in the second half, he just had Stein call the game to try and not give them any dump pick 6, and we sat on them.

I am highly suspect of this theory. TT was averaging 40 points a game. No way Lanning was so confident of his D he went vanilla. It goes against everything a good coach would do to prepare his team.

[droop10]

Yeah, I don't buy some of these theories. Lanning is just naturally aggressive, and has almost always approached games that way. Everyone likes to s*** on Lanning when it doesn't work, but forget the times that the 4th downs pay off. Yes, 4 times it didn't work, but they also extended drives 4 times by converting. My main beef is that I don't like the wildcat in general, let alone on 4th down, when teams can then focus on stopping the run, because of the lack of passing threat.

At the end of the day, the Texas Tech D played great. I think the Ducks stuck with the run, thinking that eventually they would eventually wear them down, but Tech's run D was fantastic. Going into the game, the Ducks were 2nd in the country in yards per carry. It is a strength of the team, and you don't just abandon it when it doesn't succeed initially. The Tech D was on the field so long, I'm still shocked they didn't eventually wear down and give up some chunk runs. There were definitely some self-inflicted wounds by the offense that cost them a couple of drives, and Tech was fantastic at forcing turnovers all year. Once they had a couple score lead, and having seen how well the defense was playing, I think they did get conservative to prevent giving up a costly turnover that would give Tech life.

[squintsdd]

I give Will Stein full credit for his QB development and general offensive gameplans, but his playcalling this year has been the worst it's been at Oregon. Especially in the red zone.

If we run one more sprint out right on a 4th and fucking short or screen pass on 1st down in the redzone, I will be in the mental hospital by February.

Great offenses have the advantage over great defenses

I'm pretty sure the saying is "defense wins championships"

[Duck07]

A few more thoughts before fully moving onto the Hoosiers Part Deux.

- The sheer discrepancy in arm talent between Moore and Morton was off the charts and not just because it was so clear why the NFL wants Dante. His first completion on the opening drive was one of the more difficult throws of layering the ball over the linebacker and underneath the safety with enough zip that neither can get to it. Threw another beautiful pass to Malik on an out route that was still in his catch zone but outside the CB's hands (ala Iowa). Also lines up with what so many have said - the guy just knows how to throw the football. Then you contrast that with watching Morton turf like 6+ throws into the feet of his guys outside and you start to wonder if the Defense shouldn't be graded on a curve for this game considering Brock Thomas would start for Tech.

- You also see why coming back for another year would be like getting his degree in NFL prep because of being late to anticipate things, move in the pocket, not giving something time or trusting the read/play like on the Sadiq play-action where even an INT is okay because its an arm punt. It will be a lot of money to turn down that you'd be paid next year for where he'd be drafted in this class and in the scenario where we win it all this year, now you can add a prestige factor to coming back to defend the title and be an all-timer in the process. A 7-0 Playoff record and 2 Titles would be quite the potential achievement on the way to refining yourself for the #1 pick in 2027.

- Not sure how many of those snap exchanges fall on the Center or QB but that's got to be one of those "coach its not happening again" kind of things as Stein gets a certain amount of grace over the sheer frequency of those errors.

- Some teams you don't need to run the "show-em we run it" play first because they have such great team speed/talent that they're not fooled by what you're doing and thus can be susceptible to over-playing their reads if you have something to counter them with. That's how I felt about the bubble screen without taking the deep shoot early on. Obviously in-game I didn't like the 1st half lateral rushes where we're going 12 yards to get 2 when we had been getting 2 just going up the gut off Duo and will always prefer that against an equal opponent, we shouldn't be taking the ball out of Dante's hands to run gimmick stuff when another shot in the normal offense is more than sufficient.

- I did think the halftime offensive adjustments aligned to what a lot of us saw in addition to the caveat that by halftime we saw how garbage Morton was. It made it really easy to accept that 2-3 yards a rush to set up 3rd and short was the way to slowly grind out the heart and soul of their team and while the rush numbers will be bad even when accounting for the bad snaps, as we all saw when you are able to convert those 3rd and shorts from that, we got the benefit of essentially an extra quarter of game with the ball in our hands and a full quarters worth of plays. Sometimes a bit of "Mario-ball" is okay in the right situations.

- Thankfully I don't know if the IU Ends are more quick-twitch than Tech's because our Tackles got beat with speed in this one. I'm hoping that their speed helps ready World and Harkey to feel like everyone else is slower. It is encouraging seeing Ferguson get more run in games because progressing into a Starter next year as part of a 3-year progression would be a real accomplishment for both him and Coach Terry. I know its more part of unbalanced OL but you also don't tend to do that with guys you don't trust to be out there.

- Blake Purchase must have paid off the LT to begin to pull on that sack late because it couldn't have been a nicer runway for him to take off. It was also a really nice time for Matayo and Teitum to have their moments because we can beat this IU OL but they've got to make an impact outside and at this age riding a wave of confidence into this game is good to have.

- Mixon is looking like he's also playing at a really high level right now, to say nothing of Finney introducing himself to the CFB world. Steve Smith had 3 INTs in the Fiesta Bowl and 3 for Finney combined is a Quarter in a Century type stuff I suppose lol.

- More big plays from Special Teams in this win from fake punts to good punt returns and coverage and the only kickoff they returned was for fewer yards than had they taken the knee.

[greenyellow]

Mahomes lost a bet to Jeff Bassa and had to wear an Oregon jersey.

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[Duck07]

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[UOducksTK1]

Patty wearing duck swag is great.

[greenyellow]

Patty wearing duck swag is great.

Hopefully it doesn't give Dylan Raiola any ideas.

[greenyellow]

Ducks vs Them Orange Bowl Edition:

[OregonFan4Life]

Ducks vs Them Orange Bowl Edition:

Random observation, but I noticed a couple times during big plays the entire sideline was celebrating except Devon Jackson, he wasn’t celebrating at all. I wonder if the holidays were tough for him with his mom’s cancer. He just has seemed so out of it all year and I really feel for the kid.


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[QuackininBama]

I love how Dan (and the coaching staff) are splitting it into bitable chunks. "8 more days". So its not putting the pressure of an entire season on them, they just play for 8 more days. Genius level by Dan.