Back From Eugene

[PapaG]

The Grizzly offense is terrible. Their defense looked good at times.

Discuss.

Seriously though, the game was closer, yet a bigger blowout, than you would guess.

The Griz D looks decent. Their secondary got wrecked against the Ducks, but the talent level the UO has at receiver is second only to U$C in the Pac 10. The UM run defense looked really good though. Most Duck fans knew the O-line was the biggest weakness on the team; the Griz D-line dominated the scrimmage on running plays. That said, the Ducks put 47 on the board and it easily could have been 60 with a touchdown or two over the 6 field goals.

After seeing some other 1-AA scores from today, I'd say the UM looks like a middle-tier Big Sky team. Washington is not a good QB. He's not even a decent scrambling QB. We left before Berquist got his drive, so I can't say anything about him.

All in all, I have NEVER seen Griz fans so distressed after a game. We sat with them, and it was a little odd hearing them realize they aren't a truly Big Time program.

[HelenaCat]

The griz game came on TV here late (for me anyway ) at 10:30 pm. I watched most of the first half until um's offense finally put me to sleep.

Seriously, um did not look good at all against Oregon when on offense. Oregon is obviously better than anyone else um will see this year, but still, I suspect most griz fans are a bit worried. Jason Washington is not a typical griz QB by any stretch of the imagination. He really does not handle pressure very well at all. That alone would not be a fair criticism as Oregon really had some horses up front on defense that put extreme pressure on him. But there were also a few plays that I saw where Washington had decent protection and still threw a bad pass. He has some arm strength, but no accuracy at all. Even his TD pass was questionable-he basically threw it up(appeared very high for just a 33 yard pass) for grabs and Oregon's DB misjudged his jump very badly. Talmadge made a nice catch, timing his jump perfectly.

Hilliard had a tough day. Lex is a 1-A caliber player, but there were just no holes. If you slow Hilliard down, um will really struggle this year.

I thought um's defense acquitted themselves pretty well overall. Oregon's passing game is top notch and they have some real weapons. um bent a lot, but did not break much, at least in the first half that I saw. um handled the run very well throughout the first half. Without their stops in the red zone, this game could have easily been 40-0 at half time. um's offense could not even make a first down and the griz punter was awful, which gave Oregon great field position constantly. The um defense really stepped up and kept this game at least respectable.

I agree with others that no one really knows yet what type of team um has. Fort Lewis High School was just a bad scrimmage and Oregon is a Top 25-30 1A team(probably not much better than that unless they really improve their running attack on offense). South Dakota STate next week may tell more-they are not a Top 1AA program, but they are at least a decent test.

[El_Gato]

I suspect SDSU should be the same test for the Griz that SFA was for us; a middle-of-the-road IAA team, with the Griz getting a significant advantage playing at home. If they dominate like we did yesterday, they will be a factor in November. If they struggle, OOOOOHHHH MY will it be entertaining to follow egriz!

Problem for griz fans, however, is this is their last chance to answer questions before the conference slate begins.

Bottom line: the only way a Griz QB beats you is going to be with a fluke big passing play (defense blows coverage, or misplays one like the Talmage TD), or if Washington CAN truly run against IAA teams like a certain red-headed kid in Bozeman.

Lex can be stopped if you make it a point to stop him; I've been saying this since last December and SHSU, JMU, and UO have all proven it.

As I've been saying for months, thanks to their schedule, we're 2 games into the season and NO ONE (neither Cats nor Griz) can clearly predict what this team will look like come Thanksgiving. I can still see them SHARING the conference title (no way they win it outright this season) but I can also see them easily dropping 3 more games.

Time will tell...