SB Nation User Blog: Gorbachav5

Rose Bowl Ticket Thread

Gorbachav5 — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:45:48 -0000

As a Duck fan living in Southern California, I’m incredibly excited we made it to the Rose Bowl, for the obvious reason that we’re Pac 10 champs in a BCS bowl, but also because it’s conceivable that I could attend! I’ve only been able to go to one game since I graduated from school in 2004, and that was the eminently forgettable 16 – 0 ugliness that occurred against UCLA the week after we lost Dennis Dixon for the season.

Anyway, I’m interested in getting Rose Bowl tickets, as I’m sure others of you are as well. However, I have no idea how to go about obtaining them. A quick Google search led me to the Rose Bowl website, which explained that a “limited number” of tickets were going on sale at Ticketmaster on Tuesday, December 8th. Here’s the link, if anyone’s interested: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0B00436D9F964973?brand=rosebowl

A couple of issues:

1. It appears tickets are $145, which are dang expensive. I could still swing that, but then there are Ticketmaster’s fees, which will probably wind up in the $15 per ticket range, if not more, plus overnight shipping, which seems completely unnecessary, but will cost another $10 - $20. Yikes.

2. These are general admission tickets. It would be really nice to be able to sit amongst Oregon fans.

So here’s my purpose for this thread, if the rest of you wise, all-knowing ATQers out there are willing to participate. What are our options for getting tickets? Is the University selling tickets? Are there any ways to buy tickets to avoid all the extra fees? Does anyone have any alternate ticket-purchasing methods to recommend?

As I said, I would love to go, and I would especially love to meet any of you ATQ community members who attend. I’m pretty much a novice at tailgating, but living in SoCal, I would be driving there and would be able to host a tailgate for those of you flying in from other parts of the country. So any help is greatly appreciated.

Go Ducks!

Turning points in the Stanford game

Gorbachav5 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:15:53 -0000

First of all, my hat’s off to Stanford. I couldn’t have written this Saturday night or even yesterday because I was so mad. But the truth is, as good as Oregon looked against SC, Stanford looked as good, if not better, against us. Gerhart was a beast. Luck couldn’t have mis-thrown a deep ball if he’d tried. Owusu was great on returns. Their defense was just good enough to keep us from moving the ball at will. And Harbaugh coached the game of his life. Despite all that, this was a one-score game until that last second field goal. I identified a few moments that I think were turning points and, had they gone differently, might have swung things in the Ducks’ favor.

1. (WARNING: May contain whining about officials) The pass interference call on Stanford’s third series against Javes Lewis. That was a terrible call. Not only was there virtually no contact (and certainly no contact that affected the play), but the ball looked uncatchable anyway. It came on third down and would have given the Ducks a stop. As you may recall, the Ducks didn’t get one of those until there were 56 seconds left in the half. I’m not a huge believer in momentum in most sports. Not to say that it doesn’t exist, but more that it doesn’t have as large an affect as some people believe. However, in a football game like this, where one team is executing perfectly and steamrolling the other team, momentum can play a more significant roll.

This play had the potential to be a momentum changer. Stanford had come out hard, was playing flawlessly on offense, and the Oregon D seemed on its heels. All of a sudden, the defense gets a stop, they give the ball back to the offense and Stanford doesn’t seem so invincible. Now maybe the defense can gain some confidence, and take a little wind out of Luck’s sails. That drive also wound up as a score which would have come off the books. At the time, this just seemed like one more thing that was going wrong for the Ducks. In retrospect, getting a stop there might have completely changed the complexion of the game.

2. Not scoring on one of the two drives before the half. Oregon got the ball with 6 minutes left. I remember thinking to myself, “If we can get a score here, we get the ball back to start the second half, once Chip Kelly has had the chance to make adjustments – we could wind up being down by only 3 points at the beginning of the third quarter. That’s not so bad.” Didn’t happen. I got some flak in the postgame thread for criticizing Masoli. To be fair, Masoli was very good most of the game. 330 yards and 3 TD’s are nothing to sneeze at. But maybe it was these two drives before half that stood out in my mind.

A terrible throw to Maehl on first down. A completion to Tuinei. A couple rushes, and then two devastating sacks, the first of which could have been avoided if Masoli had just tossed the ball out of bounds. I blame the offensive line and the play call more on the second sack, where I think a bubble screen or a quick hit to a WR would have been perfect. But because Masoli had lost yards on second down, Kelly called for something downfield, the O-Line collapsed, and Masoli went down. But then the Ducks finally got a stop, and got the ball back with 56 seconds left and at least a couple timeouts. “Okay,” I thought, “This is a quick-strike offense. We can get some points here.” But Masoli tried to force passes that didn’t get to their targets and the drive never really got started. Instead of going into the half with a little bit of energy and the chance to make it a three point game early in the third quarter, we were stuck with a 17 point deficit and a really deflated feeling.

3. The failed read option on 4th and 3 at the end of the third quarter. The Oregon offense was clicking pretty well at this point. 3 yards for this offense was trivial. Chip Kelly knew it, which is why he decided not to go for all 6 yards on third down, understanding that he was going for it on 4th regardless. Then, Masoli made the wrong read, Stanford had the perfect defensive play call, and that was that. I really think the game was virtually over at this point. The defense still hadn’t been able to slow down the Stanford O (which went down and kicked a field goal to make it a 20 point game with 10 minutes left), and now the offense couldn’t pick up a mere 3 yards with the game on the line.

This was the play where I flung my hat across the room. Just to clarify, I think Masoli was fine on the read option most of the game. I think there was this one and one other where he made a bad read, but I don’t want to seem like I’m coming down on him too harshly. It just so happened that this bad read came on maybe the most important offensive down for the Ducks. Those things happen.

Those are the three I remember most vividly. If you have others, please post them. I know one candidate is Chip Kelly’s baffling decision to challenge the spot on 4th and 1. I don’t think that was a “turning point” since I felt that the game was pretty much over at that point anyway, but I’ll share my thoughts on it. Unless there was something he saw that no one sitting at home saw, at most this would move the ball by half a yard, but even that was a long shot. The time out turned out to be meaningless, as the onside kick failed and Stanford iced the game anyway, but at that point, there was still a glimmer of hope, and risking a timeout for a half yard when Gerhart could have gotten a half yard just by thinking about it seemed like a poor decision. I have read absolutely zero about the game, so maybe Kelly has come out with some comments about this that make sense. The only one I can think of is that he wanted to rest his defense to give them as good a shot as possible at stopping them on 4th down and he figured a challenge would give them a few more minutes of breather than a standard timeout would. Still questionable, since Stanford could let 25 more seconds off the clock, but at least understandable.

This is going to be a long week until we can see what this team is made of against ASU on Saturday. I needed to write this post as a cathartic act, to get some of the bad stuff out of my system, and to discuss the game intellectually rather than emotionally. So if you have thoughts on this, please share them below.

(Edited to remove wall-of-text paragraphs)

Need some ATQ input!

Gorbachav5 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:46:37 -0000

My wife and I are due to have our third child near the end of March. We just went for our ultrasound last week and found out we're having our third boy! The good news is that my wife hasn't left me (yet). The bad news is that we have to come up with another boy name. Which is where you guys come in...

For a little background, we have two boys - Benjamin and Micah. We've had a girl's name picked out since our first boy was born, but obviously God doesn't want us to use that yet. Our boys both have Biblical names, but we're not set on maintaining that trend.

As a little anecdote, Micah's middle name is Teemu. For any hockey fans out there, you know who Teemu Selanne is. My wife and I are both Anaheim Ducks fans and we made a bet when we were pregnant that if the Ducks won the Stanley Cup, we would name the child Teemu (assuming it was a boy). Well, the Ducks went on to win the Cup and now we have a Micah Teemu running around.

All that to say, we're not afraid to step outside the box, as long as it's not completely ridiculous. If you guys have any suggestions on what to name our third boy, I'd be glad to hear them. We're stumped at the moment. Names that have significance to Oregon sports are especially welcome. Thanks!

EDIT: Just so everyone knows, my last name is "Flude." Gorbachav was actually the name of my high school band, and I just happen to use it as an internet moniker. Carry on with the name suggestions!

Is anyone else still mad?

Gorbachav5 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:25:09 -0000

I can't remember the last time I've been this worked up about a game. I was upset with the way the Angels lost in the playoffs last year, but that seemed inevitable, if disappointing. This was just a punch in the gut. I was screaming at my television set.

I can't explain it. It wasn't a playoff game. It didn't really hurt us in the playoff race since Texas lost...I'm just...PISSED. I'm obviously still mad at the umpiring, but there are so many other things that frustrated me:

The very poor middle infield defense in the 6th inning. Yes, there was a blown call on Aybar's transfer, but that should have been a double play regardless.
The great pitches Saunders kept making that wound up being hits.
Juan Rivera's inexcusable laziness, first on the bomb he hit to center that should have been a triple, even for the slowest of players, and then on that last pop fly into left.
The coaching that had Juan Rivera playing that deep in the first place
Brian Fuentes's inability to get three outs without causing us a coronary (and this goes whether the umpire calls Green out or not).
A complete lack of situational hitting, highlighted especially by Figgins, whom I love but who has been absolutely WORTHLESS with a runner on third and less than two outs recently.

Barring a complete collapse of epic proportions, the Angels will make the playoffs. But they better get their $*&% right before then, because it's going to be a looooong three game sweep if they don't.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. I feel a little better. But I'm still pissed.

Angels should pick up Penny

Gorbachav5 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:09:12 -0000

Brad Penny was just released by the Red Sox.

Given the Angels rotation problems, I would love to see them go after Penny. According to Fangraphs, his FIP is only 4.48, which indicates that his ERA is bloated by playing half his games at Fenway in front of a defense that has been one of the worst in the AL.

It's no secret that the rotation has struggled. While Penny wouldn't be an upgrade over the Angels' top two starters (Lackey and Weaver), he would be insurance in case Santana can't stay on track, and despite his promising start yesterday, it's unclear what the Angels will get from Saunders the rest of the way.

What IS clear is the he would be a significant upgrade over the myriad minor league callups that have been serving as the Angels' fifth starter since the first week of the season. And once the playoffs roll around, he might be useful in a long role out of the bullpen (if he proves to be pitching better than Matt Palmer, who has zero experience in the postseason).

In short, he gives the Angels options, and his underlying numbers suggest that he can still help out a major league rotation. He's cheap, he's a short-term investment, and he can help save the bullpen some wear and tear down the stretch. Your move, Reagins.