Slingin’ Quack: Nothing Is As Good As It Seems

Slingin' Quack

THE HYPE MACHINE IS IN FULL EFFECT AND WE ARE ALMOST OUT OF KOOL-AID. The first rule of week 1 is that nothing is as good as it seems and nothing is as bad as it seems. Oregon beat Southern Utah by a lot, and Southern Utah is Southern Utah at the end of the day, but Oregon did what they were supposed to do. There are a couple takeaways from the game. A lot of what we discuss is relative to the level of competition. My biggest point is that the weaknesses we thought we had going into the season didn’t kill us, which means that we won’t be bad. The problem isn’t solved but it’s not going to be bad (again, everything is relative). One of the biggest changes to me is that the players looked like they were really enjoying playing. We go over what we saw was an offensive identity take shape and how that identity can be seen across multiple phases of the offense. Some of the stuff I talk about are parts of the playbook and how play calls develop over the course of the game that weren’t visible with the TV camera angles. On defense we go over the difference seen in the 3-4 and how much nickel the defense may actually be playing. The last topic of conversation from the Southern Utah game is the performance of some players. We talk about a lot of the guys on the defense including the freshmen and also some of the standouts on special teams. In the second half of the podcast we talk about the upcoming Nebraska line and why the point spread is probably so wild right now. Nebraska is coming off a close win over Arkansas State and I go over some analysis on why the Cornhuskers had a problem keeping pace. Neither of us see a situation where the Ducks are going to get blown out but I give an idea of what Nebraska could do well that could lead to a Cornhusker win.