I Love our PAT Formation.  Love Love Love it.  I was surprised to see that it's only resulted in two successful conversions this year but I'd think Flint would also attribute lots of easy PAT attempts to it as well.  I like the message it sends to our team. "Never take a play off, take no points for granted."  I like the message it sends to other teams.  "Take a play off and we'll take every point we can from you."  It fits in with the MO of our offense beautifully.  

My only problem with it is that I Never Get To Watch It.  TV crews are always showing replays of the scoring play and by the time they cut to the play in progress, we've already shifted back or we're in the midst of crossing the goal line.  TV commentators never offer anything more insightful than, "Here's that weird formation Oregon uses."    We finally got to see the entire play from snap to score this last week but even then we only got to see the center cluster of players.  What I want to know is if anyone wrote any sort of seminal literature on this formation.  Did Moseley or Hunt do a piece on it when we first started using it?  Did Kelly write a blog piece about it in the offseason?  How many other schools use it?  How many plays can we run from it?  How many ways have defenses lined up against it?  I think it's so beautiful I want to know everything about it but information on it is so hard to come by.

per Seattle Times blog.  

Seems like an odd move on so many levels.  Babin's actually seen playing time this year, Atkins wasn't active last week.  Atkins isn't as polished a player, Atkins could still be somewhat injured, Babin played well in week one.  And then this: COUTU IS STILL ON THE ROSTER.  

There's also a mention in this entry that Walt missed practice today and WR Trent Shelton was added to the PS.

Update by John Morgan: Little does anyone know about Mike Holmgren's double-secret two kicker play. Oh, you complain now but it's gonna be awesome.

About three weeks ago Jason Babin had value. How much, I don't know. Now he's a free agent.

I'm going to have to work on Sunday for the first three weeks of the season and I don't have cable or (obviously) a DVR.  I know there's a bar in town that shows all the games so that's my plan once my Sundays free up but until then I was hoping anyone could offer my any help.  Not looking for someone to DVR a game and send it to me, just point me to somewhere online I could download a bittorrent maybe. 

And if this isn't an appropriate place to ask for something like that let me know and I'll pull it or John can pull it.  Thanks!

So, I don't have cable and don't live in Oregon meaning I can't walk down to a bar and find the game on.  I can't tell which games O-Zone is or isn't going to air online.  I don't want to sign up for O-Zone if I'm going to get one or two games the entire season and I definitely don't want to sign up this week if I'm going to pay for August and not get the UW game. 

Basically that's a long whine to ask: Does anyone know of a guaranteed way to watch the game online?  Or a way to guarantee which games are on O-Zone?  As far as I can tell, only the Utah St game is going to be aired on O-Zone although with the newly signed deal between Comcast and OSN, who the hell knows.  Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.  Or stories on lengths you've gone to watch a game.  My plan B is to start going through all the seedy dive bars in town to ask if they're going to be showing the game.  I somewhat shudder at the thought.

Has anyone ever gone to games at Martin stadium?  I'm going to be in Spokane the weekend of the WSU game and I'd like to get down for the game.  Problem is that I'm also going to be with family and will be in a party anywhere from 3 to 6 people and don't want to end up shelling out $300 for the whole group to go.  Anyone know of vendors or websites which sell at a better price than goducks.com? 

Also, does anyone have any experience buying outside the stadium on game day?  I figured with such a large group it would be hard to get tickets together but by then WSU will also probably be anywhere from 2-2 to 0-4.

And finally, does anyone have any knowledge of the stadium, i.e. where the visitor's section is, where the student section, where the best deals in the house are, etc.   Given that I'm going with family I'm looking for good seats over being amongst fellow Ducks.  Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Go Ducks!

I almost hate to make the first fanpost about tickets and not the team but...

I've never been to Pullman for a game before.  I'm going to be in town for the September 27th game and I was hoping to take my family along with, anywhere from 2 to 5 more people.  They'd all like to make it but not necessarily at $50-$60 a pop.  I was wondering what the best method would be to get tickets for a group of that size.  Any specific websites or venues?  Day of the game outside the stadium?  In the name of full disclosure, I'm a  U of O alum and amped to see the Ducks and they're going for $52 per ticket on the official website but I assume that's in the visitor's section in an end zone somewhere.  Can anyone give me an idea of where in the stadium I should be looking as well?  Which section is student seating, etc?   Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks a lot!

LaMichael James committed to the Ducks today!  He's a dinky little dude at 5'9" and 180 lbs but he fashions himself as a Reggie Bush-like runner.  Rivals fancies him a 4-star RB while Scout fancy him a 2-star.  And ESPN rates him as an 80, on par with Darron Thomas and...Kelly Page?!  Regardless, we picked up some depth.  I figure to see him competing in 2009 to fill the JJ role.  I assume this was the verbal that Rickert referred to this morning.  

After seemingly getting our hand in on every non-committed QB recruit left in the country (Terrelle Pryor, MarQueis Gray, Chris Harper, Boo Jackson, Jacory Harris, etc.) we finally nailed down a commitment.  Welcome to the Ducks, Darron Thomas!  

http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/viewprospect.asp?pr_key=58304

It'll be interesting to see how our recruitment goes from here, whether we back off of some of these other QBs or maybe put more pressure on the JuCo guys.  Plus, we could still push for a guy like Harper to play RB.  All in all, our recruiting class is really starting to build up, with or without the interest from Pryor

Rickert posted a link to Ted Miller's blog at the Seattle PI wherein he calls out the Ducks.  Among the points he thinks he makes:

-USC is a winner.  Oregon is a loser.
-the Ducks lacked "the gumption to dig deep" and they lack pride.
-Va Tech, Georgia and LSU did it, why can't Oregon?

He also calls us a "national joke".  

The best part though is this comment, left by an unregistered user:

"Ted - Awesome article. Seriously, well thought out and perfectly written. Then that was a nice defense in the comments section calling fans out, too! Anything to get them fired up, right? Stellar journalism. I don't understand why more people don't get what good writing is all about. You're the best.

- John Canzano"