Read It Again, Sam

Hello Followers.  Well, after reading your “day after comments”, I thought it prudent to replay my post from this past Friday.

Enjoy it for the second time, won’t you???!!!

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Hello Followers.  Hope you’ve had a great week.

As for me, well, I’m still wallowing in the glow of last week’s enticing loss to the USC Trojans.  Simply put, it has been a long time since I’ve seen as much positive energy about the Football program as we have seen for the past week.  And for good reason.

For the first time, Paul Wulff and his staff have been able to show that they have a firm and positive grip on the direction of the program.

Among the positive highlights we have seen:

1) A defense that is tied for first in the conference with 11 take-aways.

2) A defense that includes a budding star at defensive end, the most promising middle linebacker we’ve had since Will Derting (Hoffman), an inspired, veteran corner-safety (Chima) that is fostering the development of the unit (as well as the redshirts who are supposed to be GREAT), and a solid group of DTs that is doing enough to enable consistent pressure on the ball.

3) Good play from underclassmen at the skill positions.

4) We have the makings of a winning quarterback for the first time since 2003.

As a result of these positive developments, we have moved in a few very, very short weeks to a team that looked certain to finish with an 0-fer, to a team that has an outside shot of reaching the desired 3 or 4 win plateau we imagined at the beginning of the year.

But for us to do that, a couple of important things need to happen:

1) We need to get healthy on the O-Line and Stay Healthy on Defense.

2) We need to start scoring some points.

3) We need to start scoring some points.

4) We need to start scoring some points.

5) We need to start scoring some points.

This last point can’t be emphasized enough.  Because, let’s face it Cougar Nation: Over the past 6 games, our offense has scored 16 versus UW, 14 versus Hawaii, 13 versus Stanford, 20 versus Hawaii, 17 versus SMU, and 6 against USC.

Let me say it again:  ONLY ONE TIME IN THE LAST SIX GAMES has our offense scored twenty points! And in NONE of those games have we scored 3 offensive touchdowns (or more).

Obviously, for us to win, that has to change.  And so for the rest of the month—and perhaps the year—the ONLY benchmark we need to look at is our tally on the scoreboard:  As soon as we put 28 offensive points on the board, we’ll be ready to win a Pac-10 game.

But like they say, where growth and development is concerned, the progression of a young Football team usually goes something like this:  ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK.

And followers, last week was the one giant step forward.   But, this week is going to be two-steps back.

The reason:  As we saw in the Hawaii game, on defense, we have decent, hard-hitting pursuit when running North-South.  Where we remain beyond vulnerable is from sideline to sideline.

Unfortunately for us, Oregon is not only fast north-south, but the read option is just deadly in making us react quickly horizontally as well as vertically.  Consequently, don’t look to see us reverse our trend of slow starts.  In fact, I think we can expect to see this one get out of hand real quick.

Toward the same end, we have all seen that Jeff Tuel has the potential  to be really, really good.  But one thing us old fogies know by now is that there are very, very few cases where young quarterbacks play well in places like Autzen Stadium—especially when they make their debut (and yes, this week IS the real debut—starting is different).  So, when you factor in that our injuries on the O-Line are going to result in schemes that mimic Vanilla’s Vanilla, then it’s really easy to see why we’re in deep, deep trouble this weekend.

So, lest you all think that a UW-USCesque letdown is waiting to greet Oregon, think again.  A defense that held CAL and its Heisman trophy candidate to 3 points isn’t going to allow much against a Freshman QB and a tortured O-Line. This one IS going to be ugly folks.

But, please, take the loss for what it is, AND STAY POSITIVE.  If we can stay healthy, next week is a game we have a chance to steal.

Ducks 52  Cougars 7 (The scoring streak extends to 7!!!!!!!)

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So, the only thing I missed was the extra point.

But take comfort, folks, after 3 Pac-10 games, we’ve played the top 3 teams in the conference. 

THINGS WILL GET BETTER.  So, try to stay positive.