More photos » by Rick Bowmer - AP

How brilliant was he tonight?

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Can you say domination?  Oregon outplayed SC at every position on the football field, and, for all intents and purposes, USC's run at the top of the conference is dead.  Juju has once again blessed us, and its shaping up to be a magical season.

The place for your celebratory musings is here.  And an extra hour for drinking to boot.  Enjoy this one, because that was one of the finest performances ever by an Oregon football team.

Dearest Juju,

I'm sure you have been reading the disconcerting media coverage this week.  "News" outlets, such as SI and ESPN, have been making claims that Oregon's success this season has been the result of an outstanding defense, potent offense, or brilliant head coach.  I am very sure that it must be frustrating when you don't get the credit you deserve.

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The BlogPoll is about to reach critical mass.

Oregon lost to Boise State.  Fair and square.  To date, that has been the reasoning for the rankings of the two teams.  They've played head to head, Oregon lost, rank them behind Boise, right?  Many of the mainstream pollsters have a similar attitude, and it has brought about questions of whether the Ducks have the chance to pass Boise at all sans a Bronco loss.

But what if we do beat USC?

Because if that one loss had been to anyone besides Boise, this is a completely different argument.  Should USC be ranked behind Washington?  Houston behind UTEP?  At some point, the resume has to win out over the head-to-head.

We're about to reach that point with Oregon and Boise.  I'm not trying to be a homer here, but Boise has one really good win, by eleven points at home.  And they won't get another.  This is a team that, ultimately, will not have had to grind out a long string of games against quality competition.  That won't have faced a test on the road.  And I realize that it's not the fault of the Bronco players, but at some point you have to stop ignoring it.  Oregon's resume is already better than Boise's, and a win over the Trojans will make that undebateable (and a loss makes it all a moot point).

Am I the only one that finds it funky that if Oregon had lost to Purdue instead of Boise, we'd be in a better position to make a NC run than we are now?

Of course, a playoff would take care of all of this, now wouldn't it (and I realize that I flip-flop on that yearly).

But that's getting ahead of ourselves......

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Here's the new BlogPoll, and things are starting to sort themselves out a bit.  Those of you who were freaking out that I could have Florida in the teens?  I told you if they kept winning that things would take care of themsevles and, look out at no. 2.  Alabama clearly has the better resume at this point, but its hard to argue with the Gators being right back up there after taking care of business in Death Valley.

Virginia Tech (Miami, Nebraska) and Miami (Georgia Tech), are one loss ACC teams with good wins and losses against really good teams, enough so that the strength of their resumes put them above undefeateds Iowa, Cincinnati, and Boise State.  In the cases of Iowa (Penn St., Arizona, Michigan) and Cincinnati (Oregon State, Rutgers), they have multiple wins against good but not spectacular BCS teams, Iowa clearly the better resume of the two.  Boise falls a notch below because, while they have beaten a fantastic Oregon team, they have played St. Mary's Junior High for Girls in every game since.

Next up is Oregon and SC, both with similar resumes.  Oregon has looked a bit better against Cal and WSU, while Boise is a much better loss than Washington.  That explains Oregon above USC.

LSU checks in at 10th.  Losing to Florida isn't bad, and they have tow decent road wins at Washington and Georgia.  Texas is 11th because, other than a mediocre Texas Tech team, they also haven't played anyone.  And, with the way Oklahoma's resume looks so far, I'm not sure how much winning the Red River Shootout this weekend is going to help them.

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ATQ turned three this week.  On Oct. 4, to be exact.  And if you care to search through the archives, you can see all the spam for penis cream that made up the bulk of the comments back then......A far cry from the awesomeness that persists here now.

Thanks for three great years, eveyone.  Here's to many more.

Dearest Juju,

Thank you again for blessing our team this season.  We know that, while you control the college football universe, you are ambivalent to the world outside of it, and therefore never cause injuries to players to further your aims.  We thank you for this wisdom, Juju.

However, there is a mysterious force at work, one who thinks his power rivals yours.  And he causes catastrophic injuries to players just for fun.  To make matters worse, some are confusing you for this mysterious force, and blame you for these injuries.

I ask you Juju, confront this mysterious force.  Show him that his power pales in comparison to your own.  Do what you want to alter on field results, but show the other forces that knees need to stay intact.

Humbly yours,

ATQ

Alright, so I've had lots of feedback on the blogpoll ballots, so lets try and work together this week.

Remember, this is a resume based poll, so no voting in Oklahoma because, well, they don't have a resume.  Give me your thoughts in the comments. 

Pathetic.

That's the way I would describe Oregon's effort against Washington State on Saturday.  While the Ducks uninspiring victory left them at 4-1 for the season, I can't help but wonder the obvious question.

Is Oregon a bowl team?

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More photos » by Don Ryan - AP

LaMichael James is really fast.

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I get no pleasure from writing that headline.

I generally like Washington State.  They have great fans.  I've always felt a certain kinship with them as Husky haters.  And I feel horrible for them.  My neighbor is a WSU alum, nicest guy in the world, and was just too embarassed to talk about the game much, just a bunch of stuff about how Doba ruined the program to the point of being maybe the worst Pac-10 team of all time.  And its hard for me to argue, because I've sat at Autzen for games against the like of Portland State, Montana, Idaho, Utah State, and Nevada and I can't recall any of them being anywhere near the same ballpark as this level of terrible.

Their lines fell over like a stack of cards.  Their running back was slow.  Their linebackers can't tackle.  And Marshall Lobbestael.............those were two of the worst interceptions I have ever seen.  I could have come down from my seat in row 81 and picked them off they were up in the air so long.  Only their punter was a Pac-10 level player, which is good as he gets more touches than anyone else on the team.

So, in playing a team with such an incredible level of suckitude, its tough to take a lot of meaningful thoughts from this game.  Here are a few things I can think of that have some meaning besides "we looked good because the other team sucked."

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