LSU FREEK ON USC/OREGON, BLOUNT

Oregon has been snakebit so bad in the last month of the season (excluding last year), it’s hard to make the call yet. Look for a battle in Palo Alto next week. Gonna be pretty divergent styles in that one.

What really hurts? USC was even outpunted. The only time the Ducks’s punter got on the field he banged it for 53 yards.

As painful as that game was for USC fans at least it could turn out to be a good thing for the Pac 10 as a whole. If Oregon goes on to a solid win in the Rose Bowl and USC wins out and goes on to win another BCS game then it will make the conference look damn good this year. And a 2 loss USC has better odds of getting picked for a BCS at large spot than a 2 loss Oregon would have.

So I’m rooting for both teams to win out from here on.

I see they’ve been duck hunting in Arkansas.

again, LSUfreek shows why he is numero uno in farkland

Oregon will lose to Arizona, becuase Arizona is required by law to win one November game at home against an opponent that it is largely inferior to.

IMO, Oregon could have beaten any team Saturday night. They were playing the rare, near perfect game. It was the 180 degree opposite of their first game vs. Boise State.

I agreee with OCPhil that the Pac 10 has a great chance to place 2 teams in the BCS mix. But it actually benefits the Big Ten too. Since we aren’t placing a 2nd weaker team in the BCS against a better opponent, we will send our #2 & #3 to Florida to play the SEC#3 and #4 which are infinitly more beatable than #1 or #2 (unless you are Utah). I think tOSU wins out and goes to the Rose. Oregon will not get 600 yards on the Bucks. It is highly unlikely that Oregon will ever play as well as they did vs. SC, but also not as bad as BSU. The Bucks will slow them down and if Terrelle Pryor is good, we win, if not, we don’t.

And most importantly – great work again LSUfreek.

There has not been a beating of the Trojans that bad since Tom Cable caught the missus with the milk man

“Meady Oaker Territory” is a fine little touch.

I’m going to ask the same question I was asking Saturday night: where’s the defense?

Perhaps underwater breathing through reeds.

It’s Freek’s world. We all just temporarily are allowed to visit it. And for that we are eternally grateful.

while watching this, the only thing going through my head was Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”… made me laugh… now i have a pee stain on my ZUBAZ pants… thanks for that LSUfreek

“As painful as that game was for USC fans at least it could turn out to be a good thing for the Pac 10…if USC wins out and goes on to win another BCS game”

OC Phil, Ya want painful. How about Boise State’s punter sits out an entire BCS game vs USC?

USC’s defense: 613 yards for Oregon
Boise’s defense: 152 yards for Oregon

lsufreek,

Let us know when you next come up for adoption.

Sincerely,

Duck fans.

@13 anon,

If you think that was the same team, you have not been watching Oregon football.
(breaking my own new rule about getting into silly arguments on the Internet).

gamedaytribe @15 – what? I thought the transitive property and the freezing of time were both a certainty in college football!

That falls under silly arguments with an anon named anon on the Internet.

Just pointing out to OC Phil to be careful what he wishes for. That same Boise team – being mindful that the Ducks have an alibi for this year (and 2008 as well?) – would no doubt love to play that same USC team – SOONER or later.

The transitive property doesn’t have chance when impostors show up for games. That’s why Boise needs something better than a two loss team to beat in a BCS game.

Yeah, it was an impressive win. Yeah, it would be good for the Pac-10 to field two teams in winnable BCS Bowl games, but I can’t root for that. Payback is a bitch gamedaytribe, duckvoodoo et. al.

I would love the Beavers to derail the Ducks hopes.

oh, and nice work Freak.

tzubear, et. al:

No, no, nothing you can say could possibly affect my sheer, day-glo, shiny bright happiness
 this week.

I wish you well :) Hope Cal wins all its remaining games (I fully expect it will). Good luck!
Riley is a better qb than he is given credit for. The Bears have great potential and are a
team on the rise. I look forward to a tough game next year!

Your going to get a tough game at the end of this year. Nice dig about Cal winning the rest of its games, but regardless of the Beavers record for the Civil War there is a score to settle from last year.

anon @ 13 & 17.

Actually a BSU-USC game would be interesting, but there is more downside than upside for USC obviously. But Pete’s teams have done significantly better than Chokalhoma’s in January games, so perhaps you should be careful in what you are asking for. No disrespect to BSU, the win over Oregon looks even better now. It would be really nice if you had anything else on the resume though.

My dream BCS matchup for USC would be to see them go against the loser of the SEC-CG. Finally getting a Florida-USC game would be especially fun.

One nice thing for USC is that the last 3 games are all at home in the friendly confines of the LA Coliseum. Even though one of the teams coming in accounts for 2/3 of Pete’s losses there over the past 8 years.

tzubear@22

1. It was not a dig. It was sincerely meant. Whatever.
2. All our games are tough. There are no gimmees in the PAC 10.
3. If you’re a Beaver fan and not a Bears fan as I automatically assumed from your
    nick, ignore my Cal comments, they must have been confusing.

Duck Soup Dept:

Congrats to the Oregon Ducks…I was stupefied watching that beating.

…And thanks to LSU Freek for not showing a direct hit on Pete Carroll by the Red Baron Duck on his latest masterpiece….at least he and Barks survived to fight another day…

Well, as a USC fan, it sucks, but Oregon was a much better team, no question.

It certainly feels like the end of an era (as the Alphabetical explained), which lasted from the 2002 Orange Bowl win vs Iowa through the Oregon game on Saturday (even with the bad conference losses the past few years).

Of course, the “new” USC era could begin as early as the end of this season and next season given the talent, given the program’s stature, given the $$$. But, you never know. It seems to be a clear fork in the road. Does USC right the ship quickly and return to consistent-Top 5-program status in a hurry, or does it sink into a period of bouncing around between being “good” (7-5 or 8-4 seasons with some decent wins), less occasionally very good (but not great) (9-3 seasons with a relatively big win, but some unncessary losses as well)), and sometimes outright disappointing (borderline of bowl eligibility), never quite being able to make it over the hurdle to gain rock-star program status, despite a few big wins here and there.

It’s happened to USC before, Nebraska and ND are currently atr different places in such a downturn. The scary thing is that once the program downshifts (if it downshifts), it can easily suddently become a decade or 15 years before full glory status is restored.

I’m hoping that’s not the case.

“Actually a BSU-USC game would be interesting, but there is more downside than upside for USC obviously”

Frankly there would be more upside for BSU if they drew an undefeated BCS team or any 1 loss team.

“It would be really nice if you had anything else on the resume though.”

SOONER or later more BCS teams will play BSU, but an undefeated TCU will deserve the non-AQ auto bid, so it’s entirely possible that the BCS bowls will DUCK an undefeated Boise in order to schedule a 2 loss team. tOSU?

Stacy…@25: your pre-game trash talk (and some post) is as annoying as the best of them,
but you own up good. :). Thanks for that.

D-nice@26: I wouldn’t worry. USC has a bright future (not as bright as Oregon ;)).

Barkley seems on track to have a stellar career.

Your defense is in need of some serious conditioning, All the height/weight/speed advantage
was somehow irrelevant as they couldn’t stick it out through 4 quarters (the comparison between
USC defense stats in the first half vs second half over the season is pretty woeful).

A little more imaginative play calling to cope with the spread – don’t know if Carroll is the
man for that – he might know what to do but just not have the tools to do it. I don’t know.
But I know they need to improve their play calling.

I know there are a lot of stories going around about the end-of-an-era and a lot of
hand wringing from USC fans.

But really, all that happened was that USC lost a football game.

I believe the only thing that actually ended Halloween night was the presumption of quality. Sure,
USC is not going to be in the BCS game – but its chances were low in any case. And it’s going to
be very difficult to make the Rose Bowl. Was only a matter of time, really.

The presumption of quality is what took a real beating. I would like this to happen to all the
other mighty storied, juggernaut, resting-on-their-past-laurels programs in college football today.

What would that mean? I hope a more level playing field for teams that are actually playing
well. A more honest evaluation of what’s happening in college football, with mainstream
media and coaches and voters needing to do more than just a quick knee-jerk assessment
of who should be ranked where. Past glory has no part in this year’s rankings. “Because
they’re USC” should never be a justification for anything (should be a red flag whenever a
journalist says that). Entrenched perceptions are bad for college football. You might benefit
in the short-term, but your program will suffer from the rot of entitlement, complacency and
obsolescence in the long run, and a rude awakening is inevitable.

The fact that USC players were quoted as saying (I’m paraphrasing) they couldn’t imagine
losing this badly is also a bad sign – no paranoia, a failure of the imagination – possibly
insufficiently healthy respect and accurate idea of what the opposition is coming with.

But really, all that happened last weekend was that USC lost a football game.
Oregon had a good team, we knew that. Now everybody else knows it. The other lasting
repercussions from this game wil take some time to manifest themselves, I think.

Gamedaytribe,

I was hoping you would respond to my comment so I could ferret out the true meaning of your post (#21).

I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you let loose some inspired trash talking by praising Cal on the eve of them playing Oregon State. There was no offense taken, I respect the (percieved) dig. In my initial post I was refering to payback from last year when the Ducks knocked OSU out of the Rose Bowl.

Are you a first year student?

tzubear@29,

Ah, then hope my post @24 cleared that up. I had mistaken what you were
referring to.

No, not a first year student :)