Dorrell apologists will take today’s loss with some dignity … our defense adjusted to keep us close … our offense nearly came back … the officiating screwed us. The Ducks can also make excuses for not blowing us out. They had control of this game and let up after jumping to a big lead so early … they had some key plays called against them … their star QB was out for key plays and an entire series on UCLA’s side of the field. Dixon missed easy passes to wide open receivers for easy touchdowns. And that late punt return fumble deep in their territory made this game look closer than it really was.

The truth is we found out today what our team can do, with this coaching staff. Our vaunted defense gave up over 400 yards, over 6 yards gained per play (3 rushers with 6 ypc), 260 yards rushing, only forced two punts and gave up a solid 30 points. After Oregon jumped out to their lead they seemed to lose interest in this game. They never really looked tested. Next time KD wants to start with his happy talk about how the D is awesome he should wait until after a win against a quality opponent, not worst-in-the-nation Stanford!! We like the improvement in defense, but we warned about crowning them without any evidence they deserved tops in the nation status.

Offensively, we took some chances on 4th downs, and we applaud that. We put some confidence in our players abilities to come through, and they responded well. But we didn’t test Oregon’s weak secondary with any long balls (our longest completion was 14 yards), especially late in the game when we obviously needed to take chances to get back in the game. Why were we punting late in the game to basically tell everyone including our players that we give up? Why we were running up the middle late in the game and not going for a big strikes, or a least a shot downfield? Way to rally your team coach!! After so many weeks of “learning” and “growing” Svoboda is proving he is not ready for D1A, and KD is proving he cannot take this program to the elite level.

So, now we have answers to the many questions our 4-1 record raised. Now we know that our defense needs more work. Sure, they are better than last year, which is not saying much since we were ranked 113th in the country, near dead last. Now we have plenty of evidence that Svoboda cannot coach at this level. Now we know this is not KD’s “best team yet,” or if it is, we know that KD has coached them to underperform. KD would have to go unbeaten from here on out to make that claim honest. We reaffirm that KD cannot win on the road against a team with a winning record, nor can he win a big game.

The national story on other channels was Oregon beating UCLA handily. That is how it will play to rational people. KD apologists will look at this game differently, as a good effort, a step maybe in the right direction, our defense shut them down for 3 quarters, we were in this game were it not for the officials. Yes, there were some calls against us that hurt momentum. Yes we made it closer at the end. But we never tested them. When will the apologists learn? KD has now ADDED to his mediocre legacy. 0-8 KD, 0-8! More later …

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