Keep your national championship; it’s fraught with politics and inside manuevering and mythical anyway. A true Duck fan only wants two things at the beginning of a new season: a conference championship and a Rose Bowl trophy. Those are the goals that measure success in the West, the only goals that are completely under the team’s control, not tainted by obscurely-programmed computers in the basement of some stat geek from Seattle, not moved southeastward by a season of lobbying by Craig James. Win the division, win the conference title game, go to the Rose Bowl, and that’s a season for the ages, one that could make Jerry Allen cry again. The rest of the stuff is up to pollsters and the strength of schedule calculators, and the coaches who placed eight SEC teams in the top 25. I don’t care two stinking expired game tickets for a title that is determined even infinitesmally by the outcome of Elon at Vanderbilt.
Win the Day. Win the conference. Win the Rose Bowl. That is all you ever need know. Everything else is a Sunday night earpiece argument, a room full of hot air, bright lights and grown men wearing makeup.
How do the Ducks win their third straight conference championship? There are seven key elements as the freshmen arrive on campus and fall camp begins:
David Paulson has 50+ catches, becoming the clutch possession receiver to replace Maehl.
No one ever rises to low expectations. Paulson has a NFL body and an Oregon Duck work ethic, and the best hands in the conference. Remember the sliding, one-handed grab against UCLA? Remember the 33-yard grab on 3rd and 18 from the Oregon 8 in the fourth quarter of the national championship game? Remember Paulson rumbling 61 yards on one shoe? David Paulson is clutch. He’s as tough as Maehl, bigger than Maehl, and an easier target to find than Maehl. He’s reliable. He’s durable. He’s intelligent. The Oregon passing offense this season has to feature their big-play senior tight end. They can utilize him the way Arizona used Rob Gronkowski a couple of seasons ago (caught 12 balls against the Ducks. I think he’s still running with one of them).
The Ducks need to replace Maehl’s production and find a go-to target for crucial first downs. Third and six from your own 24, rub Paulson off the umpire and move the chains. Other receivers in the lineup can be used to supplant the big guy, and his emergence will create seams for them, but a mature, accurate Darron Thomas must develop trust and confidence in his most trustworthy weapon in the passing game. Keep David Paulson off the milk carton and on the television graphics. I want to hear 50 times that he is a graduate student in business with a 3.6 GPA and that 21 of his 24 catches last year went for a first down or a touchdown. Let it bear repeating. Let it bear fruit.
The offensive line jells, develops a solid rotation and executes in games, especially Arizona, Cal, Stanford, USC.
Arizona, because it’s the conference opener on the road in game four, and in the Arizona heat against Nick Foles and his stable of fast receivers, the Ducks need to move the football and score points. The Stanford game, in Palo Alto on November 12th, is likely to be for the division title. Cal always gives the Ducks trouble, and if jc dual threat sensation Zach Maynard (Zach Maynard, Zach Mettenberger, what’s the deal with jc quarterbacks named Zach?) adapts quickly and takes control of Jeff Tedford’s offense, Cal has the speed and athletic ability to have a very potent offense this fall. They are the surprise, scary wild card in the North division, with two dangerous outside receivers in Marvin Jones and Keenan Allen. USC, despite scholarship reductions, sanctions and bowl bans, has a NFL prospect at quarterback in his third year starting and a team full of five stars with bruised egos and a score to settle with the high-flying upstarts in the trendy uniforms. Everybody points to Oregon now. Andrew Luck and Shane Skov both did in summer interviews.
I digress, but those are the four key games of the conference schedule. Not that the Ducks don’t have to execute against ASU, Washington or Oregon State. To win any of these, Oregon’s offensive line has to accept the pain and discipline it takes to become a unit. They can’t have a sloppy, bruised-up, inattentive, inconsistent fall camp. Leaders have to emerge. Key players have to stay in drills and suit up for the scrimmages. Asper, York, Cody, Golpashin and Weems have to play like starters and lead like leaders. They need to get crisp and remember the snap count, keep their hands inside the shoulder pads. One of the three promising centers has to claim the job and prove he can hold his own tussling every day with Ricky Heimuli, Taylor Hart, Wade K and Jared Ebert. Ryan Clanton and Mana Greig have to be versatile, reliable and ready. These guys can’t screw around as a unit. They open the season with LSU, and the Tigers have a swarming, athletic front line that all the experts say will dominate the game. Pride has to kick in. This o-line has to set its own standard and work until they’re ready, and they have to be ready in 30 days. Altogether they have 50 starts, but they have the smarts and the snaps to be effective. They just have to listen to a position coach that’s been responsible for the drive train on 10,000 yards of offense in the last three years, and sent ten guys to the NFL in the last decade. The Oregon offensive line has to have a lot of pride as football players. They’re replacing three solid starters in Jordan Holmes, Bo Thran and C.E. Kaiser. Guys like Cody and York have served their apprenticeship. It’s their turn. Protect Darron Thomas, and get LaMichael James some running lanes.
In February the Ducks signed the best class of offensive linemen in Oregon history. There’s some fierce road-grading, aggressive, athletic offensive line talent in Johnstone, Andre Y, Fischer, Prater and Euscher. They’re big boys with just the right touch of meanness, playing offensive line like middle linebackers. It would help if one or two of them jumped the curve and proved himself ready to join the rotation right now. Call it an insurance policy, or a down payment on their awesome potential. Though redshirting is likely, they should all compete in fall camp like they want to start. Because sometimes things happen.
The offensive line has to accept the challenge to want another conference title. It doesn’t happen without a tremendous effort from them.
Don Pellum crafts a linebacker rotation that is strong enough and deep enough that they don’t wear down.
The starting four are solid. Of course only three will be on the field at any one time but Stuckey, Kaddu, Clay and Lokombo all have to think of themselves as starters, and be the leaders and hitters on the defense. They’re replacing Casey Mattews and Spencer Paysinger, and that’s a lot of playmaking, a lot of filling holes and being in the right place at the right time. This is a strong, athletic group, and they’ll achieve and even exceed expectations, but the problem is behind them. Because of the frenetic pace of the blur offense, the Ducks have to defend 65 to 80 plays a game, and there’s a lot of room on the bus for special teams play from the linebacker squad. Derrick Malone, Anthony Wallace and Rodney Hardrick have to get on the bus. Kiko Alonso has to climb his ladders. The Ducks need them. Don Pellum has made serviceable linebackers out of ex-quarterbacks and step-slow two stars, but he needs bodies, bodies who practice hard and pay attention. The rotation needs filling out, and the young guys and one promising but troubled guy have to prove they’re ready. Oregon has to have more depth at linebacker to withstand the rigors of a PAC-12 season, and get the stops they need on special teams.
Scott Frost finds two reliable, field-stretching receivers from the group that includes Vaughn, DBlack, Lowe, Cantu, DAT, Sumler.
This position group has three hours of highlight video and all the concomitant promise, but it don’t mean a thing if they don’t block and make plays in practice. Two of them have to emerge, separate from the group, and play like it when the lights go on in Dallas. Doesn’t matter which two, but it has to be at least two. The Ducks are replacing 119 catches and 1540 yards of offense in Jeff Maehl and Drew Davis, and they haven’t had a true deep threat since Samie Parker went to Kansas City. Two wideouts with a sixth gear can defeat the California blueprint. Anytime a safety starts inching into the box, or a corner starts getting too aggressive in committing to forcing on the run, there has to be the speed and execution in the wide receiver corps to punish that strategy. And, these guys have to accept the Oregon way. In spring Urban Meyer called this the best blocking group of wideouts he had ever seen. That can’t change. No dazzling highlight film makes up for missed blocks that leave their running back out to dry. Remember Jeremiah Johnson losing a chunk of the season when a wide receiver fluffed on his blocking assignment? Jeremiah Johnson’s shoulder does, out for five precious games. Any play can be a touchdown if everybody does their job, particularly in the Oregon offense, particularly with Kenjon Barner or LaMichael James setting up those blocks.
The wide receiver group has to acclimate quickly and compete like champions. Their progress is vital to the balance on the offense and the success of the spread. Without effective wide receiver play, there is no spread, no threat that creates the spaces. Scott Frost needs to find two more playmakers for Darron Thomas to have a full range of weapons, and the two winners have to develop timing and rapport with their quarterback, win his trust and confidence.
Read the depth chart from the daily newspapers, and it has Justin Hoffman, Will Murphy and Eric Dungy in the two-deep. They’re all likeable hard-working kids, but speed kills. If Hoffman holds off those six, he deserves to start.
Ricky Heimuli follows up his strong spring and becomes a run-stuffing disruptive force at nose.
There is no substitute for a dominating, slobberknocking, run-stuffing, center-smashing, disruptive defensive tackle. A guy who, in Jared Ebert’s words “doesn’t just soak up blocks but makes plays.” The Ducks have four strong defensive tackles in their rotation, but Heimuli is the one with the NFL nose tackle body at 6-4, 320. He had an awesome spring, just wearing people out in drills, at times unblockable. The Ducks need Heimuli to put it together and play that way for 55 snaps a game, be a brute force in the middle and a player offenses have to compensate for. He has the physical skills to be an all-conference player if he shows the meanness, consistency and determination. Along with the Praying Mantis Dion Jordan, Ricky has the potential to remake the Oregon defensive line, make them even more of a relentless, attacking unit. Also, a superlative effort by Heimuli in practice will sharpen the three Oregon centers for the challenge of taking over from Jordan Holmes. If they can block Heimuli making a full effort every day, they’ll be ready for LSU.
John Boyett must be John Boyett
Graduating six stalwart leaders from the defense, John Boyett is now the elder statesman and the personality of the Oregon defense. He’s the captain. The rock. The toughness and the edge, the guy who knows not only his assignments, everybody else’s and 90% of what the offense is going to do before they snap the ball. Boyett is a playmaker and a tackling machine, with great football smarts and a nose for the ball. He never stops talking and never stops competing, displaying a fierce will to win. He layed the biggest lick of the season on Cam Newton, with 11 total tackles in the game.
For 2011, the Ducks need John Boyett’s best year. Interceptions, tackles, leadership, coaching on the field. With young linebackers in front of him, this is his defense, and he has to quarterback it, making big plays when they need him most. Boyett has to have 14 weeks of excellence and consistency, fully in tune with his inner Chuck Norris. 25 young Ducks will follow his lead, Captain America in green and yellow.
DT and LMJ must stay healthy and productive.
This group has proved its resilience. They’ve endured and overcome very bad, terrible, no-good days. They’ve been mocked and left for dead, ridiculed by scandal sheets and dismissed as being soft. None of that was true. Darron Thomas and LaMichael James are two of the biggest stars in football, win-first guys with tremendous work ethics and great attitudes. They’re leaders and winners. If they produce, pursue improvement the way only great athletes can, the Michael Jordans, Walter Paytons and Jerry Rices, they will lift this team to their level. They won’t have to give any speeches. Play like me. This is the Oregon way. These are two young men who love to play football, and give Oregon fans a lifetime gift every time they step on the field: their heart, effort and commitment. If they have the seasons they’re capable of and stay injury-free, no goal is too great for the 2011 Oregon Ducks.
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