
Halliday has thrown for more than 500 yards twice this season already. His 1465 yards lead the country (but only by
six yards over Brandon Doughty at Western Kentucky. What are the
Hilltoppers up to?? Interestingly, they play Navy, who leads the
country in rushing at 403 yards a game, Saturday at 12:30 PT on the
CBS Sports Network. A study in contrasting styles, indeed). He has
more completions (119) than all but 14 quarterbacks have attempts.
In all three of Wazzu's games this year, he's thrown at least 55
times. Contrast that to Oregon Heisman Candidate Marcus Mariota, who
has 50 completions. On the year.
Not surprisingly, Wazzu doesn't run the
ball very much. Last year in the stands, people were complaining that
the Cougs were continuing to throw the ball when the game was late in
the 4th and the game was clearly decided. The answer was
“They don't have any running plays!” And while that may not be
completely true.... they have to have at least a couple.... I mean,
probably... it is certainly not a focus of preparation for the Mad
Pirate, Mike Leach, and company. They have a total of 120 rushing yards. As a team. In three games. Four guys on Oregon have more than
that individually, including Super Mariota (156).
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KB, dazed and confused in 2010 |
As dominating as Oregon has been- seven
straight wins against the Cougs, an average score of 52.4 to 20.3,
this game is in the Palouse, as the Ducks travel there for the first
time since 2010. I remember that game for a few reasons. One, the
game happened during Oregon's magical perfect season and run to the
BCS title game. The Ducks were #2 in the country, and the game in
Pullman was not originally scheduled to be broadcast live to Eugene-
you know, where the University of Oregon is. The kickoff time was set
during a time when ESPN and Fox, the Pac-10's broadcast partners at
the time, had exclusive live broadcast rights on Saturday afternoon,
and only at the last minute allowed the game to be televised live- to
the state of Oregon only. I did a little searching and found a
Vanderbilt non-conference game that was televised live on ESPNU that
same day to the entire country because of the SEC's teevee contract
with ESPN- but a game involving #2 Oregon was going to be on
tape-delay. This convinced me that the Pac-10 had the worst teevee
contact in the history of college football. I continue to believe
that game was a major factor in the Pac-12 getting its own network
(even if anybody who has DirecTV can't see it).
The other thing I remember about that
game are the injuries. It seems like every major Oregon player went
down that day. Many Oregon fans will probably recall Kenjon Barner
getting blown up on a kick return and being carted off the field. QB
Darron Thomas went out with a right shoulder injury (that was the
beginning of the end of his Oregon career, I believe). Even defensive
stalwart Casey Matthews got hurt, but he stayed in. Pullman was very
dangerous for the Ducks that time around. But they won by 20 and the
perfect regular season stayed intact.
It's not a question of if the Ducks
will win this game, barring major injury even worse than what
happened in 2010. The question is whether Connor Halliday will
attempt 100 passes. I say if it's going to happen, it'll happen
Saturday. At least we'll be able to see it happen, even if Oregon isn't wearing pink helmets.
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