First off, we need to say congrats to the Ducks they played a great game and really played well.
Now that that out of the way…
I think it safe to say that 2009 is officially a retooling year...not a rebuilding year because we have the talent. The question now becomes what do we do with all of this talent. They are clearly not playing up to expectations...The past few weeks have seen one of the better defenses in the country get exposed.
I am never a fan of losing but I think this punch to the mouth tonight this is exactly what this program needs.
This is not Stanford...this is not losing in Corvallis.
This was a top team in the Pac-10 that absolutely schooled USC.
The USC defense once again was exposed, beat up and confused.
In the early part of the game run defense was in position to bottle Oregon up but the amount of missed tackles that I saw tonight showed this team is not focusing on the fundamentals. Heck, they looked like ucla the past few weeks with their poor tackling. If they make one quarter of the tackles that they let get away we would have been just fine.
I am willing to give this defense a certain amount of slack because of youth but not very much. I realize that they are young and I realize that some of them need a little more seasoning out there. I love our D line...they have been there for us throughout this season. I really have very little complaint with their performance, but they really had a hard time stopping the run. The LB's are still green with big shoes to fill and we saw that they still have some work to do but at some point they have figure out what the opposing offense is doing and adjust to it. The LB's have had some great games this season but they struggled last week against the Beavers and they struggled tonight against the Ducks.
Once again, SC had trouble dealing with a mobile QB. Pete Carroll's defenses have never been great at containing them completely but they have had some success in the past. Tonight it just seemed like they really struggled.
I expected a fair amount of yards, but not 160...In the first half!
At some point, Pete Carroll's defense have to learn to crack the code when it comes to mobile QB's and water bug running backs. The over-pursuing, the lack of holding assignments and the poor tackling have to improve. What I had a bigger problem with tonight is the soft coverage in the secondary, especially in the middle of the field...this is supposedly our most experienced unit. The Holland TD near the end of the first half really bothered me because Pinkard was playing off him so much that there was no way that Pink could catch up to him on that route. Holland was wide open in the end zone.
This is ALL on Pete Carroll. And tonight he got some comeuppance.
This is his defense. I know he likes to keep the play in front of the defense but with a pretty veteran secondary they should not be getting torched like this, and to me it was torched, like we have seen the past three games.
Coach Ruel has some explaining to do in regards to all the false starts (6) that the O line committed tonight. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Barkley was not fazed at all by the noise...just like he said he wouldn't be. Unfortunately, the line was not disciplined tonight...same old story...reminded me of the ucla game in 2006.
The running game looked good at times early, but that was short lived. The passing game looked great until the 4th quarter when the game out of reach. When the defense knows you are going to throw the ball on every play it makes it easy to defend. You could tell that we missed McCoy and Havili. Shoemate made some nice blocks but overall the offense was average.
So, that is pretty much how I see it…We get back at it on Monday.
I may or may not have more tomorrow…if not enjoy the rest of your weekend.