SB Nation - Jaison Williams

Morning Quack Fix: 1.29.09

JConant — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:09:28 -0000

Mmmmm, quack rocks! And quite a few of them considering no hoops tonight.

Bob Clark of the R-G posted a warm fuzzy about the Sim family being divided over the upcoming Civil War. Garrett the Duck faces the Beavs for the first time - Mom and Dad are both OSU alumns and older brother Brennan is an OSU quarterback.
Folks, all is not bleak on the recruiting front. Rob Moseley reminds us that with four scholarships remaining to be offered, Oregon is still in the running for some big-time offensive skill players. BTW - Mike Bellotti visited Bryce Brown in Kansas earlier this week. Let's hope that went well.
Rob Moseley also answers some questions about JC transfers and Oregon's academic standards.
Clark also blogs about what he thinks the Ducks basketball team needs in terms of recruits. With one scholarship left to offer, I vote for anyone who can actually put the ball in the basket from two feet out.
Mike Tokito of The Oregonian posted his preview of the upcoming Civil War along with his notes on this week's Pac-10 matchups.
This is fun... Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian (a former journalism colleague of mine in college, BTW) has a nice piece about Dennis Dixon soaking up the Super Bowl experience. I'm not partial toward either team this year, but given what Double-D went through last season, I'd like to see him get a big ring with diamonds.
If you missed it a couple days back the R-G's Greg Bolt wrote an interesting piece on concerns some people have about ticket prices and seating at the new arena. Want great seats? Best cough up some big dough.
Jaison Williams will play in Saturday's Texas vs. The Nation All-Star Classic, in El Paso. Don't miss it! 12:00 noon Pacific Time on CBS.
Around the horn: Oregon Men's and Women's indoor track teams are both top-10 in the initial 2009 rankings released yesterday by the USTFCCCA (10 points for you if you know what that acronym means without cheating...). A rehash of dvieira's fan shot post last night...some UO baseball games to be televised. It appears the Ducks starting lineup for baseball is starting to take shape. Women's tennis player Carmen Seremeta is the GoDucks.com student-athlete of the week.

Taking a Peek at the Oregon Ducks

ASUBoyd — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:07:03 -0000

Oregon is a solid football team. At 5-2 with a 3-1 Pac-10 record, the Ducks are no slouch, and ASU cannot go into this home game with the same, soft mentality they approached the Cal game with. Our defense needs to come out like they did against USC, and we better hope our offense made some massive leaps over the by week.

Oregon's two losses came against USC (worse loss than ours actually - good news?) and Boise State (Oregon made a comeback bid, and even burned a redshirt on one of their freshman QBs to do it, but it was all for naught) while blowing out Washington at home, blowing out Utah State at home, edging UCLA at home, and beating Purdue on the road (good win).

Clearly Oregon seems to be the candidate for runner-up in the Pac-10, so this would be a huge building block for the rest of the season for ASU. First thing in our ASU vs Oregon preview will be to take a look at some of Oregon's top players at each position.

QB

While Justin Roper and Darron Thomas have both had extensive play time, Jeremiah Masoli has been getting the start the past few weeks.

Masoli - 51/96, 53.1% CMP, 579 YDS, 5 TD / 1 INT, 6.03 YDS/A, 48 CAR, 242 YDS, 5.0 YPC, 1 TD

A dual threat at QB, Masoli is somewhat of an enigma. He really has not shown a whole lot in the passing game, but has been the leading passer in the majority of Oregon's games. His accuracy is somewhat suspect, and he is not the biggest guy (5'11, 208 lbs), but the soph is really an athlete. He ran for 170 yards (!) against UCLA. Granted, he also was 5-19 (26%) passing for 42 yards, but the guy is a threat. It will be interesting to see how the D plays him. I think it would be prudent to force Masoli to throw - put Nolan or Nixon on him as a spy - and set the coverage into a Cover 2 zone and force him to beat us with his arm.

via blog.oregonlive.com

RB

Oregon uses a very balanced running attack with 5 players over 20 carries on the season, and 7 players over 10 carries. There are three rushers we will focus on, LeGarrette Blount, Jeremiah Johnson, and Remene Alston the first, second, and fourth most productive rushers on the team. (The third is Masoli)

LeGarrette Blount - 82 CAR, 592 YDS, 7.2 YPC, 10 TD

via photos.oregonlive.com

A monster (6'2, 230 lbs) reminiscent of Stephen Jackson, Blount has been absolutely dominant this year. Rushing totals of 98, 99, 111, 131 and 132 yards have already been tallied. The junior has been contained only once really - against USC he rushed 9 times for 0 yards. Other than that game, his lowest YPC average is 5.3. The guy is a monster, and with him and Masoli in the backfield, the Ducks have an EXTREMELY dangerous tandem of runners. Our defense will be put to the test - and run defense is not our strong suit.

Jeremiah Johnson - 89 CAR, 515 YDS, 5.8 YPC, 7 TD

via www.cfwphoto.com

The senior, who seems to be more of a workhorse, short yardage back, has seen about the same amount of action as Blount. It is interesting that the team has only been able to get each of these guys 80-some carries, as they are both talented. Johnson is not as much of a threat as Blount for the home run, but he is a talented runner with strength, and will be a nice change of pace from Blount.

Remene Alston Jr - 21 CAR, 161 YDS, 7.7 YPC, 1 TD

via cache.gettyimages.com

Not a ton to say about the talented sophomore, since he has only gotten play time in 3 games, Alston has crazy speed and could be someone to watch if he gets on the field.

Tomorrow we will continue with our WR/TE and defensive analysis.

The Challenge Of Containing Oregon's (Explosive) Spread Offense

Nestor — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:05 -0000

Let’s dig into the Ducks a little deeper by taking a look at the obvious strength of this year’s team: their explosive offense. And guess what they have one of those vaunted spread offenses (devised by OC Chip Kelly), which DeWayne Walker has had difficulty scheming against in recent years. Sure, last year the UCLA defense shut down the Oregon offense at the Rose Bowl, but keep in mind they beat up on a crippled Oregon offense which was then reeling from devastating injuries to Dennis Dixon (and the back up QB Brady Leaf) and a hobbled Jonathan Stewart. This game I think will represent one of the more interesting tests for DeWayne Walker to fight off reputation of having difficult with scheming against the spread defense.

In terms of numbers Ducks had a frustrating weekend last Saturday against Southern Cal at the Mausoleum. The line up of Trojans All Americans took out the frustrations from an underachieving loss against the Beavers from week before by throttling the Ducks offense to 10 points and 239 total yards. Yet until last weekend Oregon has been nothing short of dominating on offense, compiling at least 32 points and 460+ total yards in every game. The numbers are pretty intimidating. If you look through Pac-10 stats to date, Oregon leads the conference in total offense (482.8 yds/G) and rushing offense (267.2 yds/G). Despite dealing with serious injuries at QBs (losing Nate Costa and Justin Roper for few games) they have managed at that position averaging about 215.7 yards per game.

The key reason the Ducks have been able to manage despite suffering what would be crumbling injuries at QBs for other teams early in the season goes to their strong OL and running game. From the Rivals.com’s pre-season preview:

STAR POWER: The Pac-10 isn't short on quality centers. Along with California's Alex Mack, the Ducks' Max Unger leads the way. Unger has started 38 consecutive games, including the past 13 at center. It's no coincidence Oregon has led the Pac-10 in rushing the past two seasons.

IMPACT NEWCOMER: Though Oregon lost first-round pick Jonathan Stewart, the Ducks feel good about their running back situation. One reason is the arrival of junior college transfer LeGarrette Blount; the Florida native topped 1,100 yards in each of his two seasons at East Mississippi Community College. At 6 feet 2 and 229 pounds, Blount will be the bruiser in the mix at running back, but he could surprise with his ability in space.

IT'S HIS TIME: Oregon has the numbers in the backfield to try a running back-by-committee approach, but senior Jeremiah Johnson could wind up leading the pack. He missed seven games last season with a torn ACL but should be ready this fall. Because of his speed and versatility, he's a good fit in Kelly's spread offense. Johnson has averaged 6.3 yards on 181 carries over the past three seasons.

STRONGEST AREA: Led by Unger, Oregon could have the finest line in the Pac-10. Unger is an All-America candidate, and left tackle Fenuki Tupou smothered USF star defensive end George Selvie in the Sun Bowl. Right guard Mark Lewis also returns. This promises to be an experienced group, as all five projected starters are seniors.

WEAKEST AREA: Receiver could turn into strength if everything breaks right. Senior Jaison Williams has 2,073 receiving yards, but the numbers could be better if not for a penchant for dropped passes. He's the only proven receiver, though. USC transfer Jamere Holland has shown impressive speed as a member of the track team but hasn't played a football game since high school. Converted safety Jeff Maehl showed he could be a factor in the passing game in the final three games of the season.

Well as mentioned above Oregon’s rushing offense has been nothing short of explosive. They lead the conference in rushing thanks to the balanced production of Jeremiah Johnson and LeGarrette Blount. Both Johnson and Blount have been having outstanding seasons to date as they have each logged in 70+ carries producing 966 yards. Johnson has rushed for 485 yards (averaging 6.2 ypc) and & TDs, while Blount has racked up 481 yards and 8 TDs (averaging 6.4 ypc).

Jeremiah suffered a shoulder injury against Utah State in Oregon's second game, but hasn't really slowed him down too much:

Jeremiah Johnson big run vs. Purdue 9-13-08 (via keeerrrttt1)

And here is video evidence of Blount's sick athletcism:

LeGarrette Blount hurdles a purdue defender 9-13-08 (via keeerrrttt1)

Meanwhile on the receiving end Jaison Williams has been frustrating Duck fans. However he still leads the team in receptions (24), yards (319) and TDs (3). He is not the only prolific receiver in terms of production on Duck’s roster. Oregon has 4 receivers with at least 20+ receptions which includes TE Ed Dickson (23 receptions for 310 yards). Given how Bruin secondary has struggled against talented TEs this season (i.e. Pita, Gronkowski and Pascoe), I am sure those numbers have cost Walker some sleep this week.

We have already had discussions re. how to deal with spread offenses this season. I will refer to this post before Tennessee game when we talked about how Walker would deal with the "Clawfense" which was supposed to feature elements of spread offense. Well, this is no way meant to be disrespectful to our friends from Rocky Top Talk, but Oregon is going to present much more severe challenge with the talent level at their skill positions. They have explosive backs and receivers along with QBs who even though are young are lot more proficient than Jonathan Crompton. If Bruins are to have a shot on Saturday, they will need a defense, which will come out attacking, instead of sitting back and giving the Ducks room to slice them up underneath. They will need to put the kind of pressure on Oregon QB so that it at least breaks up the rhythm of that explosive offense. And have we mentioned the need for tackling? If the defense misses tackles like it has been last few games, it will be another miserable outing on the road.

I don’t think we have the personnel right now (because of inexperience and lack of speed (at least from the current starters) at DEs and LBs) to throttle the Ducks offense like it was shut down last Saturday. However, if we come out with a scheme that can throw off either Masoli or Roper off rhythm and if our defense show the same consistency in tackling that gave us results like 13-9 or that Notre Dame game in South Bend (until the nightmarish last series), we just might be able to contain the Ducks and give ourselves a chance. Hopefully our guys are focused, fired up and come out with an aggressive mentality on Saturday night.

GO BRUINS.