What Caused The Oregon Collapse? Watching The Game in Slow Motion.

I had the opportunity to watch the Oregon Ducks opening football game against the Boise State Broncos again and watch a little closer to what went wrong for the Ducks. It was almost as painful as watching the game live. In any case, I managed to see a few things that are going to need improvement if Oregon is going to have a chance at a winning season.

I apologize right off for not having too many details or player names.  I didn't have the time to take notes and give a really detailed breakdown.

First of all, there was one player who was having a really bad day and that was Jeremiah Masoli. In my opinion, he was the single biggest contributor to the loss.  I'm not sure what happened but it looked like he was playing in his first college football game. He wasn't making reads and he was making bad passes. Whether he was not recognizing open receivers or over/under throwing them, he had an absolutely dismal first half and game for the most part. He didn't seem to go through his progressions at all in the first half.  I watched play after play where he left wide open receivers standing alone and tried to force the ball to well covered receivers.  The lack of first half production rests on him.  He did manage to play much better in the second half.  However, it was a little too late.

Now, I have heard a lot of people saying that Oregon went away from their game plan and stopped running the ball.  However, they had a good reason for it.  Boise State was overloading the box.  Boise State regularly had seven in the box and would bring a cornerback or a safety on a blitz. The young Oregon line was not handling the overload and it showed. The Boise State linebackers were taking two to three steps forward at the beginning of the play.  Boise State was focused on stopping the run first and daring Masoli to throw.  This is where Masoli should have been checking off to a pass play, which I believe he did a number of times.  However, he was having a hard time hitting receivers and the receivers were having a hard time catching the ball.  If Masoli had been able to complete more passes, then it would have been a completely different ball game.

Masoli wasn't the only one having problems.  The offensive line had their part in it also.  They played a terrible game. Not every tackle for loss was the result of an overloaded line.  In fact, there were a good number of them that happened because a linemen wasn't doing his job.  Mainly, the one thing that the linemen were doing an extremely poor job of was chip blocking. I suppose it is ironic that the head coach is named chip.  Anyway, the linemen were not putting enough of a chip on the defensive players and the second Oregon lineman was failing to pickup the block.  This happened numerous times and almost always resulted in a loss or very short gain.

There was also some trouble on the offensive line in picking up assignments. There were plays when the Boise State D-linemen were simply getting by the Oregon line. I remember one play in particular where a Boise State lineman simply bull rushed the Oregon lineman and got to Masoli and forced a bad pass. If Boise State can bull rush through the line, then there are going to be problems when we play bigger and faster teams.

The reason that Blount had such a terrible game rests firmly on the offensive line.  They didn't make good blocks and Blount was getting hit in the backfield.  Blount did very well the few times that the O-line actually made their blocks and gave him enough room to run.

Finally, the defense had their great moments but they need to improve as well.  The linemen and linebackers were not getting off their blocks.  They were staying engaged for far too long and allowing Avery to get outside.  It did appear that there was a great deal of holding going on by Boise State that wasn't getting called but sometimes that is how it is.  Also, the defensive backs have got to stop giving receivers huge cushions on third and long.  This is the same thing that Oregon struggled with last year.  I'm beginning to think that Nick Aliotti teaches some strange technique that requires defensive backs to maintain ten yards of separation.  I hope it doesn't continue because the Ducks will get lit up in the passing game if it does.

I have seen a lot of people saying that the coaches had poor play calling.  I'll admit that before I watched the game in slow motion, I was thinking the same thing.  I still believe that the decision to go for it on fourth and one when they were in field goal range was a bad call but that is about it.  Otherwise, the coaches were making good calls. The problem was very, very poor execution by the Ducks. 

Going forward in the season there are a few things that must happen.  Masoli must settle down.  In the second half he looked more like himself but then everyone else started making the stupid mistakes. The offensive line has to improve.  They missed too many assignments and made bad too many poor block attempts for the Ducks to win in the future.  The defense must step it up on third and long.  There are just too many third down conversions in situations when the defense should have the advantage.

The Oregon Ducks have a tough season ahead and they have to fix some very fundamental issues.  If they can make major improvements from their first game, then they will have a chance to win any game.  However, the way they are playing now they are going to be in for a tough game against Purdue and it could be a long season.