The Oregon Duck football force, that is.
My Ducks screwed the pooch royally last night. Got whipped 62-20. Worst beating before the home crowd in over 20 years. The wunder-transfer QB Adams, who was supposed to be a Mariota clone, can't run, is too slow picking up his receivers, and telegraphs every damn thing he does. He runs often enough to keep the defense on their toes, but it's on their toes waiting for him. The second he takes off, all the linebacker has to do is jump up, yell "boo" and Adams hits the dirt in a feet-first baseball slide. These slides automatically lose 3 yards each time, compared to a head-first slide, but apparently we don't have a coach who will tell the man that. BTW, on most of those encounters, Mariota would stiff-arm and keep going like a running back would, gaining even more yards. Not Adams.
The understudy, Lockie, looks to be faster, runs smarter, unloads the ball at least 3X as fast as Adams, but he was intercepted twice for Utah scores. Still, he has way better moves. If he can be coached up, there's hope.
The defense.
What defense, enough said.
Oregon's Defensive Coordinator can't call a correct defensive set to save his ass, and if he could, about 2/3 of his pass defenders couldn't run the proper patterns. Utah had a very accurate QB, but he threw high-arc passes mostly, and all of them should have been defended. Few were. The Duck CBs play at least two steps off, even when the looping passes gave them a perfect clue of where to be.
The Oregon defense is not ready for the football season, period.
The rest of the season looks bad from here. The ducks will be lucky to be bowl-eligible by December.
Anyone with a dog anywhere near Autzen Stadium better fit that dog with a chastity belt...
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