Welcome to the pond

Oregon 58, Idaho 21

As predicted, the UO football game was pretty much a blowout. The Ducks played a darn good game, doing things with the ball and handling the defense well. The O-line protected Jason Fife a LOT better this time around, and we got the ball to a lot of people. Including Onterrio Smith. He got the ball 17 times. Wanna know what he did with those 17 carries? He ran 104 yards, and went into the end zone three times as well. Yay Onterrio!! We had some penalties - maybe not as many as last time, but 1 penalty is 1 penalty too many. Also, our punting was a HELL of a lot better than the FSU game. I'll get some stats on that for tomorrow, but Jose Arroyo did a magnificent job and kept giving Idaho bad field position.

On the Idaho side, the poor guys had to use about three or four QB's. One of them was Joey Harrington's brother, Michael. Yay for Michael, getting in the game!! His parents got to sit in Mike Bellotti's personal skybox. Yay for Bellotti being so nice!! As for the play, I thought Idaho played pretty good. They gave a good effort and even got some TD's on us. They lost by a lot of points, though, and that's expected because Oregon is big time PAC-10, and just that much stronger, faster, and more experienced. But hats off to Idaho for at least giving a bit of a fight against us.

Looking ahead: We play against Portland State next week. Or do we? Maybe it's just Oregon playing against itself, with Portland State acting in the role of our opponent. I know we need to pad the schedule with some easy games, but cmon Bill Moos......Portland State?? At LEAST give us a game against a Div. 1 opponent. Games like these are inherently unfair, make the weaker team look bad, and make the stronger team look much better than it might really be. About the only way it prepares the team is by giving the players some playing time. Not to mention the potential for a HUGE upset if said weaker team puts together a better game than the strong team and ends up beating them. That won't look good to the BCS, the pollsters, or the recruits. Well that's my two cents - schedule some BETTER teams. Even if you lose, at least you've had the experience of getting your ass whupped by a team that comes to play EVERY down.