Oregon football game eight: Aliotti, Lyerla, Florida State, and UCLA

Nick Aliotti is the best soundbite evah.

A lot has happened in Oregon football this week, and there hasn't even been a game yet.


I suppose the whole Colt Lyerla thing needs to be addressed, so I’ll get that overwith first. For his whole career as a Duck-which is only two years, by the by- there have been rumors that Colt liked the nose candy plenty. And like with most people, we who heard this hoped that he would, well, stop that. But we've all seen it happen too often; a player thinks he's invincible because of success on the field and there's no way it can be taken away, no matter what they do. It doesn’t matter whether it's illegal substances or driving too fast or even not eating right, it will catch up with them. It did with Colt. Let's hope he gets the help he needs and gets a chance in the league, he'd be a great help to any team with his skills- on the field. If not, there's always the AFL team in Portland with Darron Thomas.


Last week I didn't write a preview column because, well, it was Washington State. I didn't write a preview column for Colorado either and in both cases it was because I thought the matchups were too stupid to write about. (That, or I was busy elsewhere.) Admittedly, that's not the best reasoning, but come on, Wazzu had no chance and everybody knew it. Well, I was at that game, where Cougs quarterback Connor Halliday set an NCAA record by making 89 pass attempts. As a friend of mine pointed out, plenty of MLB starting pitchers don't throw 89 pitches in one of their starts. So that's a lot. The Cougs ran for two yards- the whole game- and kept throwing late in the fourth quarter, when traditionally you run the ball and keep the clock moving when the game is out of reach like that.


So afterward, Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti (who is the best soundbite evah) said it was “bullshit” that they kept throwing, and that it was “low class” to do that. I thought he had a point. Hand the ball off. Finish the game and get the hell out of there. I have another friend who argues that what Oregon does to speed up the game is not traditional, and for them to call somebody else out for not doing something traditional is low class on the Ducks part. Of course, the guy who said this is an Oregon State alum.


And this should be a full column by itself someday: if you do something nontraditional in the game of football, at what point is it “low class” and at what point is it “innovation”? Is trying to run a play every 12 seconds to keep the defense off-balance innovation because you're trying to give yourself a competitive advantage? Or is it low class because you're not playing fair with the defense? Is trying to jump the kneel-down at the end of the game when you're on defense and down by a touchdown low class because they're not trying to run it up on you? Or is it innovation because what if it works and you get the ball and score the touchdown and win the game as a result of it? I suppose it depends which side you're sitting on. Rock and roll was innovative because it combined at least three musical genres and made electric guitar the go-to instrument (before then, it was hardly featured anywhere except the blues)... but for the majority of the country in the 50's, it was low-class and the devil's music.  (Here's an excuse to show Jerry Lee Lewis going a little goofy.)


Anyway, Aliotti got fined five grand and reprimanded for saying what he said, which is bullshit. He disagreed with an opponent's strategy and said so. How is that a fine-able offense?

Finally (before we actually get to this week's game), the first BCS polls of the season, which have Alabama 1^st, Florida State 2^nd, and Oregon 3^rd. A huge hue and cry in Duck country, although I did point out on twitter that:

No BCS title game matchups were ever decided in mid October. #breathe

— Alex Drude (@Alex_Drude) October 21, 2013

 The truth is that FSU has played the better schedule- for now. The combined record of the Seminoles opponents is 27-13, with six of those losses coming to FSU, so they're really 27-7. Oregon's opponents combined record, meanwhile, is 22-27 (my goodness, Cal sucks), or, taking away the losses to the Ducks, 22-20.


Now, if you look at who they will play (including Saturday), Oregon's opponents are 25-8 (with three ranked teams-UCLA, Stanford, and the Beavs), while FSU's are 21-19 with one ranked team left (also-currently undefeated and #7 Miami), so it certainly appears that Oregon will jump the 'Noles should both win out.


For curiosities sake, I checked Alabama's record in this same fashion. They are currently 22-28, or 22-21 taking away the losses to the Crimson Tide (whooo, that 0-7 Georgia State and 1-6 Kentucky really bring down the average) while their future opponents are 21-8 and two of them are ranked (#13 LSU and #11 Auburn, both teams that Duck fans are familiar with), so it appears that Alabama will only strengthen their case as well if they win out.


As for the teams right behind the Ducks in this, Ohio State and Missouri.... we'll worry about them later if we have to.


Anyway, onto this week, where the #3 Ducks host #12 UCLA in Oregon's biggest game to date. The Bruins looked bad against Stanford last week (who didn't look so hot themselves). The Bruins are clearly much improved in their second year under Jim Mora- and let's not forget that UCLA is the only team to have won the Pac-12 South every year it's existed. Which is only two years, sure, and the first year they only won it because USC was on probation, and, uh, let's just move on.


UCLA looks better. But remember, Washington is also looking pretty good, and Oregon put them away in the third quarter, and that was in Seattle, and this one's in Autzen. UCLA is tied for 50^th in the country in rushing defense, opponents averaging about 150 yards per contest, and Oregon is still second in the country in rushing offense, at 332 per game (Army, who never throws the ball, is first with 340 yards per game. They're dead last in passing with 68 yards per. Oregon is 19^th there at 310 per).


I say Oregon doesn't allow more than 30 points and puts up at least 50. For those who think UCLA has a chance? In the words of Nick Aliotti, bullshit.

photos courtesy: msn.foxsports.com and ESPN via gamedayr.com

Dan Wheldon Anniversary

Danny after winning his second Indy 500, May 2011

2005 was my first (and so far only) trip to the Indianapolis 500, and it was “the year of Danica.” Ms. Patrick wasn't the first female to race at the Brickyard, but she was the youngest and the most hyped, probably because she was the prettiest, which is an unfortunate but truthful thing. If she hadn't been attractive, most of the backlash (and believe me, there was plenty.  Plenty of scared redneck racing fans said some nasty things and made some nasty, um, homemade artwork, shall we say) wouldn't have happened.


Danica finished fourth, which at the time was the highest a female had ever finished at the Memorial Day tradition (she broke her own record a few years later by finishing third). She could have won the race, but her pit crew thought she would run out of gas had she continued at top speed, so they ordered her to slow. They found out later that she wouldn't have run out of fuel.


So instead of seeing the first woman win the Indy 500, we saw somebody else. And since Danica got all the hype, the winner was kind of immediately overshadowed, and an underdog. Since I love underdogs, he immediately became my favorite Indycar racer.


His name was Dan Wheldon.


In 2011, another Indianapolis rookie made headlines at the 500, although not as much as Danica. JR Hildebrand is from just a few miles away where I grew up in Marin County, California. He, like Danica, was given a great chance to win the race.


I don't like watching teevee during the daytime on a nice day, but I switch on the 500 anyway every year. Living on the west coast, I turned on the race reasonably late, as I usually do.
At the point I joined the coverage (already in progress), it was clear that Hildebrand had the best car out there, and it was his race to lose. As it turns out, that's exactly what happened.


In the very final turn of the very final lap, with the checkered flag in sight and 200 thousand fans roaring, Hildebrand tried to lap a much slower car. Hildebrand lost control, crashed into the wall and started sliding towards the finish still in first place. But the man in second place- who was keeping his foot to the floor and his reactions sharp just in case something like this happened- avoided the debris and got around Hildebrand in the final straight for the very unexpected victory.


His name was Dan Wheldon.


And again, his win was overshadowed by somebody else not winning. I remember watching the post-race stuff and wanting them to focus more on Dan, and his second win as the Speedway. He'd become the 18^th man to win the race twice, and here they are focusing on someone who lost- again. That was frustrating to watch. Danny didn't have a full-time ride during the Indy season, and so for him to win at Indy that season was more or less like the plot of an Elvis movie come to life. Actually, it was better:


Elvis movie: “Lucky Jackson goes to Las Vegas to participate in the city's first annual Grand Prix Race. However, his race car is in need of a new engine in order to compete in the event.
Lucky raises the necessary money in Las Vegas, but he loses it when he is shoved into the pool by the hotel's nubile swimming instructor, Rusty Martin. Lucky then has to work as a waiter at the hotel to replace the lost money to pay his hotel bill, as well as enter the hotel's talent contest in hopes of winning a cash prize sizable enough to pay for his car's engine.”

Real life: “After three years with Panther racing, Dan Wheldon is fired after having not won a race and replaced by a hotshot rookie, JR Hildebrand. When no other team will pick him up, Wheldon joins a former teammate's Indy racing team, but they don't have enough money to run all the races that season. Wheldon and the team focus on the 500. Wheldon doesn't lead any laps, but is in second place when Hildebrand, the hotshot rookie, crashes on the final turn. Wheldon wins.”

This isn't the stuff of real life.

When October 16^th 2011 rolled around, the final race of the season took place in Las Vegas. Danny raced in it because he was a race car driver, but apparently lots of others didn't because they didn't think the racecourse was safe, and it had a lot of rookies (read: untested) drivers on it as well. Danny raced anyway. If you read the Wikipedia account of the race, it just smells from day one.

On lap eleven, there was a huge crash and Danny's car went airborne and crashed into the fence. Danny's head hit a fence post and he died instantly.  Here's the video, if you want to.

It was a Sunday and I was at work at the teevee station. We had a half hour sportscast that ran after Sunday Night Football on NBC, so I was focused on getting that together.  Football was the conversation of the day.  Nobody else at work knew I'd been to the 2005 Indy or knew I was a fan of Dan's at all.

The other sports guy said out of the blue: “Dan Wheldon's dead.”

I remember the moment. I remember sitting at my desk. I remember the lighting in the room. I remember the sounds. It felt like a family member had died, it kicked me in the gut so hard.

I know that's a stupid thing to say. Dan Wheldon had no idea who I was, or that I'd seen him race. I didn't know anything about him other than he was a race car driver.

But dammit, he was my race car driver. Because I'd seen him win in 2005, every time I saw him race I thought of that weekend. And Danny was somehow the underdog even though he was a fantastic driver, and it had just been announced that he had gotten a full-time Indy ride for 2012. He was going to win Indy again and again and again and again and be the best driver of them all.

And I would be able to say “I saw him when.”

Years later, when he would get inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame, I would watch his speech and I would still remember seeing him at the Indy 500.

He was my race car driver. And he was gone.

Today's the 2^nd anniversary of his death. He'll never give that speech, and he'll never win Indy again.

Kick.

That still hurts.


photo courtesy:  hpd.com

Oregon Football Game Six: Is This Where It Finally Gets Real?

Kenny Wheaton about to head 94 yards the other way in 1994

I didn't post last week because, well, it was Colorado, and that outcome was known as soon as the schedule was released.

As for this week.... Ahhhhh, an actual opponent for the #2 ranked Oregon football team.

I mean, kind of.

It is Washington, after all.  Even if they are ranked #16th this week.

This is a team that Oregon has beaten nine straight times (the longest streak in the history of the rivalry- and remember, there were plenty of years when Oregon was plenty bad and Washington was plenty good). And while Oregon has won 14 of the last 18, Washington has won 15 of the last 31.

Wait, what?

That means this: starting in 1994, (a little game that turned on this play you may have heard of. The cartoon version is awesome) Oregon has only lost to the Dawgs four times. But if you then go back another decade and a half, Oregon only won twice.

So, it's actually something the new Oregon fans simply refuse to believe: In the last 31 years, the Dawgs lead the rivalry, 16-15. (Now, admittedly, if you go a year either way, it's tied. This is called “creative accounting” in the Washington PR department. Who compares anything in 31 year increments?)

And another thing: The Dawgs actually still lead the rivalry overall, 58-42-5. This means Oregon would need to win another 16 straight games just to get the rivalry to .500.

But that matters little to the players and other college students looking at Saturday's game. What they see is that Washington can't beat Oregon. In that time, the Ducks have only scored fewer than 40 points three times ('04, '06 and '11). They have eclipsed 50 points three times ('07, '10, and last year). And the closest margin of victory was 17 points (that 2011 game, it was 34-17 at the final game at Old Husky Stadium).

However, this is clearly Washington's best team since the streak began, and the game is in Seattle, and it's at New Husky Stadium. The Dawgs made it verrrrry close against Stanford last week, and should have won. But again, I like going to the stats to make an informed decision. The weird thing about stats, and why people like them, is they actually give you a pretty good idea about what should happen. Note, should. That's why we have phrases like “statistical anomaly.”

National Stats:

Washington: 5^th in total offense
Oregon: 20^th in total defense

Washington: 10^th in total defense
Oregon: 2^nd in total offense

So far it looks reasonably even. But here's where it skews in Oregon's favor, and it is, as you might expect, in the points department. In the scoring offense category, Oregon is 2^nd (59.2 points per game) and Washington is 33^rd (37.4 ppg).

Washington: 25 total TD's (no defensive TD's)
Oregon: 41 total TD's (39 offensive, Braylon Addison's returns are the defensive scores. Watch it if you've not seen it.)

The Ducks have outscored the Huskies by 16 touchdowns. That's 96 points. The only time UW has broken the 40-point barrier this season was against Idaho State, the game they looked really, really good and won 56-0. They opened the season against then-#19^th ranked Boise State and won 38-6. Boise State is now unranked at 3-2. They beat Illinois 34-24. The Illini are also 3-2, having lost last week by 20 to a Nebraska team that is really being raked over the coals for being 4-1 so far. (There's also this that's making the season a little more interesting in Lincoln.) Then came Idaho State. Please note that the Bengals, a “subdivision team,” are 2-3, having followed up the UW loss with Big Sky conference losses to UC Davis and North Dakota.

The Dawgs then went to 4-0 for the first time since 2001. It should be noted here that the Ducks and Dawgs did not play in 2001. Because the Pac-10 only played 8 conference games at the time, they rotated the “missing team.” 2001 was Oregon and Washington's year to miss. However, that was the only time the Ducks and Dawgs didn't play in that arrangement. That marked the first time the rivalry hadn't been played since the 40's, when both teams suspended their football teams for World War Two. Before that, you have to go back to 1921. I have no idea why they didn't play in 2001, but whatever the reasoning, it was stupid.

Anyhow, Washington went to 4-0 this season by beating Arizona. This is an Arizona team that then trailed USC by as many as 25 before the Trojans got soft in the 4^th quarter, and they called it at Arizona “rally” when the final margin was only seven. Then the Huskies lost to Stanford, 31-28.

Statistical notes here: Stanford's defense is worse than Oregon's (and Washington's). It's 48^th in the country. It's 68^th in total offense and 23^rd in scoring offense.

Washington had 30 first downs and Stanford had 14, yet, the Cardinal won because of an amazing night by Ty Montgomery, who returned the opening kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown and had 204 total return yards (290 overall). Washington's special teams defense needs to do an awful lot better if they want to contain Braylon Addison, never mind De'Anthony Thomas (who may or may not play. I'm leaning towards them putting him in for the first kickoff return, then holding him out till the second half or if they really need him).

Truth is, Washington is better, and should still be undefeated, but they're not up to the Ducks speed yet. This is a good test for both teams, however. The Dawgs will learn how far they have to go to compete, the Ducks will merely let everyone know that they're still here, and even when there is an actual opponent, they're still the dominant team.

Oregon gets 50 again (or darned close to it), and the defense holds. You know the Oregon D has yet to give up more than 16 points in a game this year? Maybe UW gets 20-someodd, but it'll take a big breakdown in Oregon's coverage for that to happen when the game is actually in doubt. Maybe late. Again: maybe.

So it looks like 10 in a row for Oregon. And then a chance to turn it up to 11 in 2014.

photo courtesy:  ebay.com

Don't Bet Against Tito. Ever.

Managers make a difference in baseball because as a player you either believe in them or you don't. When Grady Little tells Pedro Martinez he's his best option in Game 7 of the 2003 AL Championship Series, Aaron Bleeping Boone happens. When Joe Maddon tells David Price he's his best option in the Monday Night One Game Playoff Game, “that's what I'm talking about” happens. The difference is the manager. You sell it or you don't. Maddon sold it, Little didn't. Their pitchers responded accordingly. (please note that Grady Little, according to his Wiki page, is now head coach of a high school in North Carolina.)


This is why I wouldn't bet against any team Terry Francona manages in the postseason. Especially the Cleveland Indians. Consider that Francona's first year managing the Boston Red Sox worked out pretty well. So I wouldn't go against them tonight against Tampa, and while the division series against those Red Sox will be difficult, I think the Indians have a pretty good chance. Let's be honest, did you think the Red Sox were the best team in the AL this year? I thought they looked pretty damned lousy at times. Of course, baseball is a sport where failure is the norm. if you fail 7 out of 10 times at the plate, you're a pretty good hitter because you're batting 300. if your team fails to win 40% of the time, you win 97 games. The difference between a 90 game loser and a 90 game winner is a 20 game swing. In a six month season, that's two fluke wins or two fluke losses a month.


Because the Red Sox won two World Series with Francona at the helm, the Indians players take Francona's direction and beliefs seriously. You can argue that Theo Epstein put the Boston teams together and Terry just got lucky, but how's that Chicago Cubs experiment working out? Eppy may have been the one to bring David Ortiz and Curt Schilling to the Red Sox that helped win the World Series, but did it really take a genius to get a top-notch big-game pitcher? Ortiz is a more of a find, but Minnesota actually released him after 2002, when he was 26. Or, two years before any athlete really comes into their own. When Babe Ruth was 28, the Yankees won their first World Series. When David Ortiz was 28, it was 2004. You know how that ended.


Anytime you can win two World Series with a team that seemed like it had a curse on everyone who crossed its path, everything you did before looks like brilliance waiting for an opportunity to flourish. Francona was Michael Jordan’s manager in the minors, the year MJ played for Birmingham. His first year as a major league manager, in Philly, they had the best second half record of any team in the majors. Of course, in the first half they made the 1962 Mets look brilliant, so maybe that's not a good example.


Nevertheless, Tito (which is actually his father's name) is seen as a major league managing genius. Because of that, and the likely ego that goes with it I figured he and Epstein would reunite in Chicago and try to do for the Cubs what they did for the Red Sox. Clearly, Eppy took that challenge, while Tito wasn't exactly enamored of the idea. This immediately told me that Francona has not let the successful seasons in Boston go to his head. As for Eppy.... well, he's in one in Chicago.


I figure a major league team can win 62 games pretty much automatically. (please note: the Houston Astros are not a major league team by any perspective.) The way a team goes from 100 game loser to .500 (a 19-game difference, from 62 wins to 81) is by having the average expected production out of everybody on the team. A team that goes from .500 to 90 wins leaves the ballpark victoriously a mere nine extra times. That's about one win every five or six weeks. And that's the difference between the Kansas City Royals and the Cleveland Indians this year. The Royals were “good,” the Indians are a playoff team. (And in KC, they're doing backflips because they're considered “good.” Such is life for a baseball fan in Kansas City.)


And to make that jump from “good” to “playoffs,” not only do you need starting pitching that saves the bullpen at least one a week, not only do you need timely hitting, not only do you need a good middle infield, not only do you need outfielders with range- you need a manager that the players believe in. If Tito managed the Royals this year instead of Cleveland, I think KC makes the playoffs and the Indians don't.


That's what Tito brings to the table. It's the thing that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet: the belief in the players to get the job done, and that will make the players push just a little harder. The Indians were 10-2 in extra inning games this year, and the first two wins in their current ten-game winning streak were in extra innings. The Pythagorean winning percentage for the Indians this year was 90-72. If they do that, they miss the playoffs by a game. Instead, they went 92-70 and made the playoffs by a game. For that two-game difference, you need look no further than those two extra inning wins that started the streak.


Now, the statheads will tell you they got “a little bit lucky” to win those two extra games, but my favorite quote about that subject is: “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” That's Terry Francona's success as a manager in a nutshell. He sells his players on success, and they buy it. They won two extra games so they can play at least one more. And if the Francona streak continues, they'll play a lot more. You thought the Red Sox winning the World Series was weird. How weird would it be if the Sox's World Series drought and the Tribe's drought were snapped by the same manager? Somewhere in North Carolina, Grady Little will be pissed.


photo courtesy:  sports.yahoo.com