South Dakota Post-mortem

AZDuck

First, that was possibly the worst D1AA team to play Oregon in years. I think they were worse than Missouri State.

Bad things:

(1) Marshall dropping the ball before the goal line - that is something that every Duck player should be well aware of after the Cal game a few years back. More importantly it speaks to a sloppy mindset that I hope is not prevalent on the team. I did notice that on a subsequent TD, he reined in the bullshit and just handed the ball to the ref, so hopefully Coach Campbell said something that got through. That and being pushed for PT by a true frosh and a true soph should be a wake-up for Marshall.

(2) LB play and susceptibility to shifts and counters in the run game. Hopefully this is just us being REALLY vanilla, that we were willing to give up some plays to SoDak and just play basic high-school style gap control. Was hoping to see a more aggressive look on D. Didn't see that. Some of our LBs looked small. Against SoDak, that's bad.

(3) Ifo hurt his ankle. Hopefully nothing serious.

Good things:

(1) Mariota looked great. Marshall seems to have emerged as a recieving threat, which is a cool wrinkle. Maybe he can fill Bralon Addison's role this fall since the backfield seems to be filling up.

(2) Royce Freeman looked as advertised. Can't wait to see him up against a real defense next week.

(3) Nice to see Lockie throwing the ball when he got into the game. We need to grow our backups, and that doesn't really happen when you just hand the ball off.

All in all, about what I expected, play was just a touch sloppier than I would like to see. Still letting it fucking play out.

RaceBannon

I'm hearing that you're a quook if you say anything about a game like this.

Allegedly

TierbsHsotBoobs

RaceBannon said:

I'm hearing that you're a quook if you say anything about a game like this.

Allegedly

Pretty much. Who fucking cares how badly Oregon plungered South Dakota in their scrimmage?

ntxduck

Marshall dropped the ball early on multiple touchdowns last year, just never got called for it, so there's obviously not very many "learning moments" going on. And the "Sloppy mindset you hope is not prevalent on this team"....where the fuck have you been the last 14 games? That's all this team is (sans Marcus). Sloppy.

oregonblitzkrieg

TierbsHsotBoobs said:

RaceBannon said:

I'm hearing that you're a quook if you say anything about a game like this.

Allegedly

Pretty much. Who fucking cares how badly Oregon plungered South Dakota in their scrimmage?

The doog is somewhat right, you know.

AZDuck

We play scrimmages to get an idea of how the team is going to play in the real season. That's all this is, a scrimmage report - trying to read between the tea leaves for the real season next Saturday

RaceBannon

AZDuck said:

We play scrimmages to get an idea of how the team is going to play in the real season. That's all this is, a scrimmage report - trying to read between the tea leaves for the real season next Saturday

I assumed you had been following the religious war on the hardcore bored

greenblood

Vanilla defense or not, our linebackers suck. The problem is that our linebackers get blown off the play time after time. Even in a vanilla defense your linebackers still need to fill the gaps, and our linebackers can't do that. If South Dakota can push our backers around, what do you think Michigan State is going to do to them Saturday?

AZDuck

greenblood said:

Vanilla defense or not, our linebackers suck. The problem is that our linebackers get blown off the play time after time. Even in a vanilla defense your linebackers still need to fill the gaps, and our linebackers can't do that. If South Dakota can push our backers around, what do you think Michigan State is going to do to them Saturday?

I'm holding out hope that they smoked it all before the SoDak game.

/eternaloptimist

greenblood

Marshall's ball drop is inexcusable, however, putting him at the tazor position was a great move. I had no idea Marshall had such good hands. Mix that in with his size and speed, he's going to cause problems to a lot of defenses. I was extremely impressed. He played so well, he might have cost him some carries at RB, but he might actually be more explosive now than what he ever was before.

AZDuck

Depth at RB does not seem to be a problem and Marshall looks deadly in the slot.

Fenwick

Gotta give it to S.D. because they played hard.

oregonblitzkrieg

Marshall looked great. Him playing a different position also frees up the bigger guys Tyner and Freeman to pound it against defenses.