Continuing with position breakdowns, today I’ll go over the tight ends. If you missed yesterday’s, you can read about the wide receivers here.

That catch still gives me the jitters. Wow. Silly Arizona students on the field behind Dickson makes this even sweeter.

Every fall, stories in Columbus start sprouting about how Jim Tressel will start featuring the tight ends more in the offense. It’s blind faith, fanciful optimism.

This matchup is a about as close as any Pac-10 game involving Washington State since 2007, a sprint between LaMichael James and Tressel, or the I Love My Ducks video compared to what Oregon State and Iowa pathetically attempted. You get the point.

Although I guess the keyword there is “more”.

It’s like saying you’ll take out the trash but you never do it. Passing to the tight end for Ohio State has become the equivalent of a defiant teenager who won’t do his chores.

When their tight ends combined for 11 catches last year – less than one per game – I guess “more” isn’t necessarily that far out of the question.

And hey, what do ya know, the Ohio State media nailed it – the Buckeyes jumped from their total of 11 all the way up to 15.

That’s about as impressive as predicting that the Love Guru or any movie with Larry the Cable Guy would strike out at the box office.

Somebody find their tarot cards!

Ok, so the Ohio State offense isn’t exactly built around throwing to the tight ends. But senior Jake Ballard and redshirt freshman Jake Stoneburner (what’s with the Buckeyes having players with the same name at the same position?) are both talented players.

Ballard is a great leader, a team spokesman and more importantly a terrific blocker – he even won the Jim Parker Award for best Ohio State offensive lineman.

Stoneburner brings a receiver’s athleticism to the position, even if he’s still learning how to block. The former four-star and No. 4 overall tight end recruit, has two catches for thirty yards on the season – but I bet they were both dandies.

If the Jakes can adequately pick up the blitz and give Pryor enough time to find DeVier Posey or Dane Sanzenbacher, and maybe sneak out for a first down catch or two, they will have done their job.

Gotta love high expectations.

Meanwhile, the Ducks have two legitimate pass-catching tight ends.

Everyone knows about Ed Dickson, but sophomore David Paulson has come out of nowhere to become an excellent complement to the two-time all Pac-10 honoree. (Paulson’s catch at Washington: fast forward to the 2:35 mark)

Neither is used much for blocking, as Dickson usually lines up split out like a slot receiver, but why relegate them to blocking duty when they put up a combined 54 catches and 730 yards receiving?

And that’s even more impressive when you factor in that throwing the ball is Masoli’s third option.

But when Masoli focused on finding Dickson, the results were impressive. Against Cal and Washington State, Dickson combined for 251 yards and four touchdowns on 18 catches. Not too shabby.

Dickson provides a matchup nightmare for any team, and even if he has to resort to playing decoy, it allows for James, Masoli or Maehl to beat the Buckeyes in other ways.

So let’s see, tOSU has 15 catches for 156 yards and zero touchdowns from the position and the Ducks have, well, a lot more than that.

I’ll take Oregon.

Rating:

Oregon 8.5, Ohio State 6.

Total: Oregon 33.5, Ohio State 28.

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Who's that handsome man? Oh wait, that's me!

This morning, the Oregonian’s Bob Rickert posted a story about the top ten things most people won’t remember from Oregon’s win, but should. It’s a  really good list, great even, but he left out a couple of the most important ones. I’m here to help him fill in the blanks.

Jeff Maehl earned the nickname the Maehlman last night. Oregon’s only weakness on offense this season has been at wide receiver. In fact, no wide out caught a single touchdown pass before Maehl did, coincidentally, in the Rose Bowl against UCLA in the sixth game of the season. But recently, the junior has stepped up big time to become a legitimate second receiving threat alongside Ed Dickson. Averaging 95 YPG his past four. including five touchdowns, Maehl has come up with several big catches to help Oregon back to Pasadena.

His 73-yard TD last night gave the Ducks their first lead, but even more important than that was an eight-yard catch on fourth down in the third quarter to keep the comeback hopes alive. Maehl has really blossomed into another weapon for Jeremiah Masoli, and they will only be better next year. Add in the white receiver factor, and Maehl is even more likable.

Winning with the white pants. When the Ducks came out last night wearing white pants, I was shocked. Oregon has worn the white pants twice this season, and you guessed it, they picked up an L both times.  Does Casey Martin get off on almost giving  60,000 a collective heart attack? I guess this proved that Oregon is better than a jinx. But Casey, please don’t do that to me again on New Years’.

The Autzen Zoo lived up to its billing. Duck fans pride themselves on being the loudest and most intimidating fans in college football, and last night, they did just that. I don’t believe there is a decibel rating quite yet, but for what it’s worth, the crowd noise was audible from at least eight miles away. Imagine what it must have been like on the field.  Overall, last night might not have been as loud as the USC game on Halloween, but when OSU decided to go for it on fourth and 16 with just over six minute left, that was the loudest I have ever heard a stadium get. My ears are still ringing from being in the student section.

Coaching. Football is all about making changes and adapting to the game. In the first half, the Beavers were taking of advantage of the spacious Oregon front seven. James Rodgers was running the fly sweep and Jacquizz was catching screen passes underneath for big yards. Realizing that, Chip Kelly adjusted, and stuffed the box, halting the OSU offense. The Result?  The Beavs only got two first downs in the final 26 minutes.

Game. Set. Match. The Ducks are going to the Rose Bowl.

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Porter is gonna have to do a lot more than hold a towell over his head if Oregon still wants to be playing come March.

It’s basketball season already? Seriously? I’m not ready to move on to a losing sport; it’s still football season, gosh darn it!

At least for now, Oregon Ducks basketball is the University of Oregon’s proverbial red-headed stepchild.

Why anyone would spend time following a team coming off of an 8-23 season, including losses to San Diego, Oakland, and Washington State by 29 points, instead of a Rose Bowl contending football team, is beyond me.

But I guess anytime you have the chance to watch Oregon play a non-conference basketball game against Colorado State in a half-empty 83-year-old stadium in early November, you can’t pass it up.

Ok, you get. We were bad last year. Worse than that actually. Terrible. Putrid. Atrocious. Words don’t do it justice.

It was so bad that we actually rushed the court after our first Pac-10 win in our 15th try, over a less-than-mediocre Stanford team. And as someone who was a part of it, I felt absolutely ashamed and humiliated the second I left my seat and headed toward the sweat-soaked jersey of Joevan Catron.

Well this year, things should be better.

Are we going to be as bad as last year? No. Are we going to be good? Not even close. But will we be good enough where we don’t have to lose our dignity storming the court on our first win of conference play with less than one month left in the season? I can almost guarantee it.

Oh, how I love low expectations.

In all actuality, the Ducks should be much improved this season.

What was an extremely young team last year now has one more full year of experience under their belt, without losing any keys players (although in Catron’s case, it might not have been such a bad thing).

Lekendric Longmire, the energetic 6’5″ junior guard, who finished as the Ducks’ second-leading scorer (9.9 points per game) looks to have taken up a leadership role on the team, a position that was severely lacking last year.

“I think about last season’s record every morning when I wake up,” Longmire said. “Truly, it’s the first thing on my mind. I’m going to do everything I can to not let that happen again.”

Longmire, along with the emergent Teondre Williams, the steady play of seniors Tajuan Porter and (dare I say it) Catron, and gifted youngsters Michael Dunigan, Michael Humphrey and Jamil Wilson, actually form a talented rotation.

The only question is: Will Ernie Kent screw it up?

Entering his 13th season at Oregon, Kent made possibly the smartest move of his career by hiring Arizona assistant Mike Dunlap to take over as de facto head coach.

Kent, who is much better at recruiting, scowling at referees, and looking extremely awkward while crossing his legs on the bench than actually coaching a basketball team, finally realized that in order to save his job, he would have to demote himself to mere figure head of the basketball program.

Hopefully, Dunlap, a former Arizona Wildcat head coach and Denver Nuggets assistant, can get this team to cut down on turnovers, run an actual offense, and play something that moderately resembles defense.

If he can do that, a middle-of-the-pack conference finish and an out-of-nowhere NCAA tournament bid could be in the mix come February.

Kent believes that, just like he said last year, the pieces are in place for the Ducks to play their preferred up-tempo style of play.

Kent hopes to use a 10-man rotation that will create havoc for opposing teams. He expects that added depth will let the Ducks employ a more effective full-court press than it showed last season.

“Even though we had numbers last year, those guys just weren’t physically and mentally strong enough to put that kind of pressure on you,” Kent said. “We are this year.”

Tim Wilson, the newly hired basketball strength and condition coach, put the team through an extensive training program this offseason, and it looks to be paying off already.

Dunigan lost 25 pounds, Williams and Porter packed on muscle, and Catron, well, isn’t as fat.

Kent made a second smart decision this season by loading up the non-conference slate with a list of patsies only Urban Meyer would appreciate. Oregon won’t play a single ranked team this preseason, and it might just be the confidence boost the team needs to get rolling come Pac-10 play.

The only downside? With Montana, Montana St., Mississippi Valley St., Idaho St., and Arkansas Pine Bluff headlining the schedule, the Ducks will have a hard time convincing the selection committee for an at-large bid come March.

Nonetheless, the program certainly looks headed in the right direction, and even though you shouldn’t expect the Ducks to return to the Elite Eight this season, the plan is in place for this team to be competitive.

And that’s something you couldn’t say about them last year.

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I'm still yawning from last night. That game was about as exciting as a new Tyler Perry movie is to white people.

This game is officially in “eh” territory.

Coming off the loss to Stanford, all the Ducks really needed to do was scratch out a win and regain a little momentum before their two real tests to end the Pac-10 season.

There was just something unusually uninspiring about this game. It felt almost like a formality. There was no way Arizona State was going to come in to Autzen and get a win. There was no buzz, no excitement, no real anticipation for this game.

It felt like a business meeting you just had to sit through to get on with your day.

Arizona State is a bad football team. They were starting a true freshman quarterback, the game was in Autzen, the Sun Devils had nothing left to play for, and an Oregon win wouldn’t really tell us anything about our hopes to come out on top in the Rose Bowl race.

To sum up, if I were playing NCAA Football 2010, I would have hit the “simulate” button and moved on to Arizona.

The game turned out exactly how you would have imagined between a team whose season was over and a team whose expectations went from the national title to the Rose Bowl.

Fortunately, we got the win, looked moderately decent in the process, and now we can move on to a game that actually matters in Arizona.

Here on my thoughts on the game:
·    I’m very happy with the way Chip Kelly is handling the LeGarrette Blount reinstatement. Andre Crenshaw and Remene Alston, although not containing even a single ounce excitement, deserve to be ahead of Blount on the depth chart.

·    And who cares about Blount anyway when you have LaMichael James running for 150 yards and three touchdowns every week?

·    LMJ is 10th in the country and rushing yards, and first in yards per carry for any running back in a BCS conference.

·    Yes, my man crush on him is growing. My girlfriend is legitimately jealous.

·    Best moment of the game: when the crowd wildly cheered in the fourth quarter when Alston ran onto the field. Probably the only standing ovation he’s ever received and it wasn’t even meant for him. Even the announcer was hoping for Blount. I feel for the guy.

·    I don’t think we could have played much better in the first half. The offense was rolling, the pass defense was suffocating and the Arizona State fans (all six of them) were quiet.

·    On the contrary, we couldn’t have played much worse in the second half. The offense stalled and the defense couldn’t stop anything. I’m going to chalk it up to looking ahead, but I would have expected (and liked) Chip Kelly to have his players more focused coming out of the half.

·    Free advice to opposing coaches: true freshman quarterbacks do not fare well in Autzen stadium.

·    Did you know that the Sun Devils had the number one rush defense in the conference coming into the game? Me either. 268 Oregon rushing yards later, ASU is now solidly locked into the fourth slot.

·    I loved the “U.S.A.” chant every time ASU scored and their male cheerleaders ran across the end zone with their flags. Hard to argue with condescending patriotism.

·    Quote of the game goes to ASU coach Dennis Erickson, who said this about the Ducks: “This offensive team is as good as any I’ve seen in college football.”

·    Despite that, I am still legitimately worried about the final two games of the season. Going into Tuscon has not ended well for the Ducks in recent history, and the Beavers will come into Autzen in the exact same situation we went into Reser last year–trying to dash our Rose Bowl hopes.

·    Interesting possibility: is there still a chance for two Pac-10 teams to sneak into the BCS? If Oregon and Stanford both win out, with the help of losses from Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and LSU, could Oregon jump ahead and sneak into an At-Large bid? Doubtful, but fun to imagine, nonetheless.

·    And finally, I have found a worse mascot than the Stanford Tree: Sparky the Sun Devil. Aside from wearing pants it looked like he bought from Ross, he didn’t do ANYTHING. He just pranced around every once in a while and waved to the six sad-looking ASU fans.

·    Ok, I’m done. This game sucked. Time to get ready for the good team from Arizona.

Go Ducks.

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Continue reading to make your day in just three small minutes!

Here are a few more good ones:

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No matter how many Ducks tried, there was just no stopping Toby Gerhart.

After the last four weeks, and especially after last week’s blowout of USC, I thought we were invincible. I thought Chip Kelly would never let his team show up unprepared, I thought the defense was for real, and I thought going on the road wouldn’t matter.

But boy, oh, boy was I wrong. And Toby Gerhart was there to remind me; it felt like he personally punched me in the gut on every single one of his 38 dominating carries.

I got too caught up in the winning streak. I didn’t take Stanford seriously. Even if we had played Florida I thought the Ducks would have won going away. I was overconfident. I was naïve. I was cocky.

Not even for one second did the thought of losing cross my mind. I honestly wasn’t even worried until the end of the third quarter, when Gerhart ran in his third touchdown to put the Cardinal up by 17.

At that moment, to quote Kanye West, “It all falls down.”

I could feel the game, and more importantly the national championship slipping away. The Heisman hopes of Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James eroded, just like the defense on those 38 Gerhart carries.

On Bill Simmons’ Levels of Losing this game ranked as a combination of The Alpha Dog and The “This Can’t Be Happening”.

Simmons definition of The Alpha Dog perfectly depicts what happened: “It might have been a devastating loss, but at least you could take solace that a superior player made the difference in the end. Unfortunately, he wasn’t playing for your team… You feel more helpless here than anything.”

On Saturday, Toby Gerhart was the alpha dog. Nothing Oregon did could stop him. His longest run was for 31 yards, yet he compiled over 220. Every carry, the Maxwell Award semi-finalist would break two tackles and then fall forward for six yards. It was heart-wrenching. Every play I knew it was coming, and every play I felt more and more helpless.

And if that weren’t enough, there was definitely a “This Can’t Be Happening” feeling as well. “You’re supposed to win, you expect to win, the game is a mere formality. … Suddenly your team falls behind, your opponents are fired up, the clock is ticking and it dawns on you for the first time, “Oh, my God, this can’t be happening.”

Here are my thoughts on the game:

·    Stanford was far  and away the better team today. I still feel Oregon is better overall, but there is no question they played harder and wanted this game more than the Ducks.

·    All the injuries Oregon has suffered finally started to add up and take effect. Without WT3 and Willie Glasper, the defense was helpless against the pass.

·    Talmadge Jackson alone made Andrew Luck look like John Elway.

·    For the first time in over a month, the defensive line had no push. The Stanford O-Line did a tremendous job of opening holes and giving Luck time in the pocket to find the open receiver.

·    The Ducks had given up 58 points in their previous five games. Then in one game, give up 51 to the Cardinal.

·    Oregon had been giving up 4.6 yards per attempt to Pac-10 quarterbacks; Luck averaged 12.6 yards.

·    Just as important as Gerhart for Stanford, was Chris Owusu. The speed demon put up 197 yards on five returns, giving the Cardinal a short field and recapturing the momentum after every Oregon touchdown.

·    Oregon, meanwhile, had the third best average yards per kickoff return in the country coming into this game, but on nine returns, the Ducks averaged just 19 yards a piece.

·    On the bright side, Oregon still controls their own destiny to the Rose Bowl. If they can get past Arizona in Tuscon, which is no small feat for the Ducks, only a total collapse would keep Oregon out of Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

·    The San Jose Mercury’s Jon Wilner couldn’t have predicted Saturday’s outcome any better. As part of his reasoning for picking Stanford in a “close, entertaining, high-scoring victory”, Wilner said that the atmosphere at Stanford Stadium was a huge edge for the home team.

·    Wilner wrote: “Sure, Autzen Stadium’s a tough place to play with the non-stop, jet-engine noise. But just watch as the laid-back, Riesling-drinking, tailgating-among-the-eucalyptus-tree Stanford crowd lulls the Ducks to sleep.”

·    Wilner couldn’t have been more right. Stanford Stadium has one of the shittiest atmospheres in college football. If it weren’t for us Duck fans, you could have heard a pin drop.

·    This game felt exactly like the Purdue games the past two years, except for the comeback part.

·    I can’t remember the last time Oregon put up 570 yards and lost.

·    At least Nick Allioti took full responsibility for the loss.

·    Allioti looks exactly like John Abruzzi from Prison Break.

·    I hate Stanford’s band. They had no sync, no togetherness. It looked like 50 people wearing red jackets and trumpets wandered on the field and started running around and playing off-key music.

·    And what was with the two guys with fake horns pulling the wagon around the field? I’m still trying to figure that one out.

·    Stanford’s halftime show was even worse than our color guard. I feel like I should have brought pen and paper for notes. Total buzz kill.

·    If losing to Stanford wasn’t enough by itself, the Stanford alum sitting behind me was on his phone giving a play-by-play to his friend. If I weren’t in shock from the loss, I would have turned around and done something politically incorrect.

·    You know those Nike sport specific t-shirts? Well I saw one that said Stanford Studying. I wasn’t even surprised. Only at Stanford.

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It turns out that Masoli really is as good as he was in the Holiday Bowl last year. Good news for Oregon. Bad news for Stanford.

Stanford might have a nicer campus, smarter students, and even a better synchronized swimming team, but when it comes to football, there is no doubt that Oregon comes out on top.

The Ducks are coming off a big win, while the Cardinal have been home resting up during their open date.

This has pushed many pundits to put the Ducks on upset watch this Saturday, but like Rob Moseley from the Register-Guard wrote, “Is an obvious trap game actually a trap game if everybody in the country thinks it’s a trap game?”

Not with Chip Kelly at the helm.

Many coaches spew clichés, but Kelly has more than lived up to his of “one game at a time.” More importantly, the players have bought in 100 percent.

Left tackle Bo Thran echoed the intense focus that Kelly has preached to his team weekly, particularly this week after the tremendous high from beating USC last Saturday. Kelly isn’t worried about a letdown against the Cardinal.

“It’s a special team,” Kelly said. “Their mindset is really good right now. We all live in the moment.”

So what will it take for the Ducks to get their eighth straight win?

There’s no reason to believe that Stanford will be able to slow down the Ducks offense. Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James have emerged as legitimate stars, and Heisman candidates, since the turnaround against Cal in September.

Since the game, Masoli has been the epitome of efficiency, completing over 70 percent of his passes, while running for 7.5 YPC in his 29 attempts.

James, meanwhile, will have a chance to break the 1,000-yard mark for the season this weekend, which would be just the 16th time in Oregon history and the first time ever for a freshman. The diminutive speedster is 16th in the country in rushing yards and third in yards per carry.

James has exploded the last three games, each time surpassing the 150-yard plateau.

Defensively, I expect Nick Allioti to focus on stopping Toby Gerhart, a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award. Stack nine in the box and force Andrew Luck to beat you through the air.

Although Luck definitely has the potential to be a great quarterback, he hasn’t been able to win a game this season when he’s had to do it by himself. The five-star recruit and, of course, valedictorian from Texas is 0-3 in games where he has attempted 30 or more throws.

Bottom line, I expect the Ducks to come out with another win.  Playing on the road is tough, and Stanford is a much improved team under Jim Harbaugh, but Oregon just has too many weapons.

I expect the Cardinal to hang around in the first half, but then the Ducks will run away with it in the third quarter.

Prediction: Oregon 42, Stanford 17

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With the Ducks off this week and the introduction of the first BCS rankings today, I thought it would a good time to see which teams still have legitimate  national championship dreams. Most don’t. There are a lot of pretenders in the top 10.

Is Tim Tebow ever not yelling? His teammates must be so sick of it. I can only imagine him at a party: tap that keg!! tap it good!!!

No. 1 (AP Poll) Alabama

The SEC is thought of as the number one conference in college football, but somehow the Tide managed to play a schedule easier than a girl at a party who has done four keg stands. Yes, I was a witness Friday night. Let’s just say she was walking with a pretty major gangsta lean from the keg to the alley. Things didn’t end well. See where I’m going?

Alabama has a nice win at VA Tech but none of their other wins are too impressive. They still have one challenging match-up when they host LSU – another overrated team – before they play Florida in the SEC championship game. With a fully healthy Tim Tebow by then, Florida should be able to roll the Tide.

No. 2 Florida

This just in: Tim Tebow is pretty good. Still my BCS pick.

No. 3 Texas

Despite only beating the Sam Bradford-less Sooners by 3, the Longhorns deserve some credit for playing a tough non-conference schedule…wait. Louisiana-Monroe, Wyoming, and UTEP. Yea, seriously. Might as well play a line-up of Junior Colleges.

No. 4 USC

Their season comes down to the match-up with Oregon. I don’t see either team losing another game, save for this match-up, during the rest of the Pac-10 schedule.

No. 5 Cincinnati

This is not the fifth best team in the country. They will lose at least two of their last four games – Connecticut, West Virginia, Illinois, and Pittsburgh.

No. 6 Boise State

If the Broncos think they deserve a spot in the BCS they better do a lot better than beating UC-Davis by 18 and Tulsa by 7. When the second toughest match-up on your schedule is Idaho, you better be decisive in your victories. Overrated until further notice.

No. 7 Iowa

I’m waiting. Lose that game to that inexplicably bad Big 10 team any week now, Hawkeyes. Seriously, you’re not good. I have a good feeling about this week, though.

No. 8 Miami and No. 9 LSU

Ehh

No. 10 TCU

The only non-BCS team this year deserving of a top-10 ranking. Wins at Virginia, Clemson, and this weekend in BYU would go a long way in proving the Horned Frogs mettle.

No. 11 Georgia Tech

Are the Yellow Jackets really better than Oregon? I rest my case.

No. 12 Oregon

Win on Halloween against USC and the Ducks are golden. Legitimate BCS hopes with a victory.

No. 13 Penn State

They play one ranked team this season – Ohio State. Hey Joe Pa, are you too old to realize your non-conference schedule is absolutely worthless?

It’s not worth going any further down than this.

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