Ducks demolish Beavers at Autzen

Its Sunday night, and I'm only just now pulling out of my foul mood. I got mad when Ryan Gunderson threw a pick on OSU's first possession, and it only went downhill from there. There was a tiny smile on my face when the Beavers put together a long drive on the ground to make the score 14-7, but that optimism was quickly extinguished. My tail has been down ever since. Nothing worse than losing to the Ducks... in a blowout no less.

I had little expectation that the Beavers would win this game, but I really wanted the team that beat Cal in Strawberry Canyon to show up for this game. A little fire and passion and a good battle was all I asked for. No luck this year. The Beavers looked beaten from the start. The team that lost to Louisville showed up for this game. It was painful to watch, but I stuck it out to the last play and even listened to the post-game talk on the radio. Everybody's pretty discouraged by the poor effort. I went home and watched Fresno State give USC all they could handle. Way to go, Pat Hill. That effort is what I wanted from my ballclub on Saturday.

Beavers - Gunderson didn't look ready for prime-time. Maybe next year. I'm hoping that our redshirt freshman QB, Sean Canfield, might turn out to be the guy we're looking for. OSU simply did not have enough talent on the field this year. There were a handful of really good players out there (Hass, Bray, Ellison, Bernard), but not enough. I thought Oregon would go after our young corners, but that didn't really happen a lot. The whole defense was literally in a fog. Could not stop Oregon from doing anything they wanted. The offense showed moments of ability, but usually ended up blowing drives with turnovers and penalties... so what's new?

Ducks - They got payback for last year and then some. Two touchdowns every quarter. The offense, defense and special teams all scored points. It doesn't look to me that the Ducks are missing Kellen all that much. I thought both Dixon and Leaf looked great. As usual, games are won on the line of scrimmage and I thought the Ducks were dominant in that respect. Oregon played their best game of the year hands down. I'm not happy that Stewart is only a freshman. I'm guessing we've not seen the last of him.

We'll see if the Fiesta Boys were suitably impressed. Might have to get Phil involved with a little leverage on this one. Speaking of Phil, I'm guessing he was behind the new game-day jerseys. I didn't like them all that much (especially those funky numbers), but I'm guessing those young California boys wearing them thought they were fabulous, and that's what counts.

I couldn't see the game very well. The fog looked so thick that much of the game was barely visible on TV. Reminded me of last year's USC game. I thought the fog might help the underdog, but I guess not.

Mike Hass gets the Pac-10 single-season receiving record... that's all I've got, but at least I got something.

Mike Riley - 8 wins in 2003, 7 wins in 2004, 5 wins and no bowl in 2005. He's got one more year to reverse this trend. If he gets 5 wins or less next year, he'll be in trouble. He needs to go back to the drawing board, re-evaluate all of his coaches, and work his ass off on the recruiting front. He needs to teach his kids how not to get 15-yard penalties on a regular basis. It can't be this hard to do.

I know these things go in cycles. I know we were real young this year all over the field. This year's team underachieved... really should have beaten Arizona and Stanford. But it was the little things that made the difference this year. I'm hoping they learn how to get the little things right next year.