Agreed their playcalling was not good tonight. Darron mad some bad throws. Cam also missed a throw that would have put the game away tonight. Both QB's missed some throws that would have been easy Td's. Cam missed more of them tonight but lucky for him they were able to run the ball tonight.
A lot of missed opportunities on both sides all night. Neither offense played that great. Tough to lose on a fluke play... I was looking forward to overtime.
I don't think it was bad playcalling by Oregon so much as Thomas was making the wrong decision on some of the read plays.
But that is their offense. They do not have that many plays or formations, they just run them really fast in rhythm with fast players in space. It is essentially the Phoenix Suns of football. It works for a regular season when it is hard to prepare for it, but not when you have 6 weeks to strategerize. It works when he faces inferior competition but not when you face good teams (Boise St. in 2009, Ohio St in 2010 Rose Bowl, Auburn 2011 BCS) That is why they brought out some of Chip Kelly's old New Hampshire formations to mess with Auburn, but it was only a handful plays that were predictable and not run cleanly.
Not at all what I expected. Relatively boring game. Newton didn't seem all that special. Oregon really didn't impress me. Didn't seem like their plays made sense at points. Why they kept trying to run up the middle is beyond me. That Farley guy, now he impressed me. What about him on the Cowboys or the Texans? The defensive backfields on both teams were better than the Texans.
I really don't see what this has to do with them trying to run up the middle all night into one of the most dominate tackles in the game.
Both teams took themselves out of the running by winning in week 17 but he probably is not going to be there at 5 or 6 anyways. I think he might crack the top 3 with another dominating performance. The broadcaster tonight said something like how will Fairly look in Carolina blue?
It is extremely relevant. When you have a limited playbook in which nearly every single running play is some form of option or zone read, it is extremely difficult to develop a rushing attack against a dominant DT. In most of those formations, the QB is reading the OLB or DE who can make sure to stay at home to watch the QB when they know they players like Fairley to make sure to blow up the inside run. Since the LB/DE is staying at home, "correct read" is to give the ball to the back to run inside. However, Fairley would then just eat them up because they could not block him. However, that is Oregon's offense. They averaged ~300 yds rushing a game with that playbook. However, you do not often face DT who played like Fairley has the last half of the season, and they did not prepare rushing plays that would counter him.
And so we reach the end. A new season will soon be right around the corner Final AP Poll: 1. Auburn 2. TCU 3. Oregon 4. Stanford 5. Ohio State 6. Oklahoma 7. Wisconsin 8. LSU 9. Boise 10. Alabama 11. Nevada 12. Arkansas 13. Oklahoma State 14. Michigan State 15. Mississippi State 16. Virginia Tech 17. Florida State 18. Missouri 19. Texas A&M 20. Nebraska 21. UCF 22. South Carolina 23. Maryland 24. Tulsa 25. N.C. State
On some level, the stinkitude of this game was probably influenced by the absurdly long wait between the regular season and the "championship", IMO.
I don't know what game you guys were watching but I loved that game.... it had everything. Hugely entertaining.
horse**** - his wrist was down and everyone (including Dyer) initially stopped playing - I blame the refs for not blowing the whistle. How the play got past replay is beyond belief to me.
Word. I don't even understand why they wait til New Year's Day, let alone the 10th of January, to play these bowl games. In an ideal world, they'd play them the last weekend before Christmas and the "title" (lol no such thing) game would be on that Monday. But no, we have to make room for the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
