Think you wanna play Oregon?

UCLA was up 7-0, they had just stopped Oregon on their second consecutive drive. The Bruins owned the momentum. Facing 4th and 14 on their own 25, the Ducks were forced into only one choice:

Proof that if you bring the Ducks to their knees, they'll punch you in the gonads.

While this brilliant special teams play sparked the offense to their first score, the talk of the game was the defense.

Nick Aliotti, after cussing out Washington State for continuing to pass with their first string in the closing minutes of that game, took a different approach in this game. Yes, UCLA's QB Brett Hundley was still slinging away in the fourth quarter, but in the end he only netted 64 yards passing for the game.

Oregon's coaches noted that their players were even more eager to get back out on the field in the second half than at the start. In this story by goducks.com Rob Moseley, the players talked about shutting out UCLA for the second half.

Ducks couldn't wait to get their hands
on Bruins in the second half.

Oregon got matched in the first half. They were squarely faced by the Bruins. But they came out in the second half eager to pretend the first half never happened. If the first half was a nightmare, the second half was tying Freddie Kruger to a cactus and beating him with rubber hoses.

Stripped.

Oregon's incredible taking of a punch and delivering back a wallop was an impressive show of resilience and dominance. So it surprises me when I read misinformed ignorance like this:

BAMA BRAINIACK
AL.com (All Alabama!) writer Kevin Scarbinsky (That's a stupid name. How can you take any writer seriously with a name like Kevin?) wrote the following about which team Alabama might prefer to play in the Natty.

Live at 9 with Kevin Scarbinsky: Alabama wants Oregon, too, not FSU

Oregon wants Alabama. We get it. When the Duck fans aren't chanting it at their games, they're printing T-shirts with that slogan.
But what about Alabama?
What, or more precisely, whom does the Crimson Tide want if they run the table to earn one of the two spots in the BCS Championship Game?
Alabama has to want Oregon, too.

If the choices are Oregon or Florida State, the two teams who've swapped the No. 2 BCS ranking behind Alabama the last two weeks, it's no choice. Give the Tide the Ducks.

Why? Florida State has a much better chance to man up to Alabama.

FSU has SEC-style talent on both sides of the ball, including up front. FSU has a special quarterback in Jameis Winston who doesn't get rattled in big moments.

FSU has a head coach in Jimbo Fisher who's worked for Nick Saban and modeled his program after Alabama's. FSU has a defensive coordinator in Jeremy Pruitt who worked for Saban until last year and knows the Alabama program inside and out, from schemes to personnel.
Pruitt, by the way, has done an excellent job in his first year as a college coordinator.

Of the remaining unbeaten teams, Florida State has the best chance to compete with Alabama for 60 minutes, which no team has done in any of Alabama's three BCS Championship Games.

Of course, it's likely that if Alabama, Florida State and Oregon run the table, Oregon will finish second behind Alabama, and FSU will be unbeaten but unrewarded like the 2004 Auburn team.
That's my story, and I'll stick with it all the way to Pasadena. What's your take? Bring it on Live at 9.

OK first let's sort through the things we can agree with.

Student entrepreneurs at Oregon.
Pssssst..."Hey guys, you're not helping."

"We want BAMA" shirts sold at Oregon?  Bad. Dumb. Embarrassing. It completely violates Oregon's "Win the Day" mantra. It becomes a joke and a dust rag should either team fall between now and then. 

What's more, if these two honor students took any combination of advertising and political science classes, they would learn that calling out your perceived chief competition like that only legitimizes them. You set your own self up as the underdog. You give them the power and position to smack you down in a war of words.

The other thing we can agree on? This all screams for a real playoff system. Florida State, Bama, Oregon, Baylor, Clemson, Ohio State. . . . . . only head-to-head games can truly decide who deserves to play whom through to the championship.

Having said all that, this fool just proves that slashed state education budgets and malnutrition have truly robbed Alabamans' brains of any useful means of common sense, let alone critical analysis. He probably brushes his teeth with his finger. I'll bet he'd pee on an electric fence if you told him Nick Saban said it was safe.  His whole kingdom is bordered by the Rocky Mountains, the Gulf, and the Mason-Dixon line.

 "Hey Scarbinsky, when you tithe at your church, do you write 'to SEC' on your check"?

He said that FSU coaches Jimbo and Jeremy are Nick Saban students. Therefore only they can pull Saban's sword out of the rock. He, of course, is assuming that Nick Saban is The Lady of the Lake, and thusly Coach Jimbo is King Arthur and Jeremy is  . . . . I don't know. . . . Brave Sir Robin I guess.

What he doesn't realize about his beloved Bamalot is that the white rabbit with big  pointy teeth is coming. But he's too dim to realize it, because he said his favorite color was red when it was actually blue, and the duck weighs more than a witch. . . . .

OK sorry, I'll drop the Monty Python metaphors.  But clearly, this guy hasn't even watched -- I mean REALLY watched -- the Ducks play.

Tennessee played both Bama and Oregon. Ask those like ESPN's Alex Scarborough who paid attention to BOTH games. He'll tell you that Oregon compared, at the very least, equally to Alabama.

I loved this line supporting his logic that FSU is better than Oregon: 
 FSU has a special quarterback in Jameis Winston who doesn't get rattled in big moments.
Oh, a SPECIAL quarterback. And he doesn't get rattled, you say? Even after he threw four interceptions? So has Scarbonesky seen any other QBs who don't seem to get rattled?

Why doesn't he ask UCLA coach Jim Mora if he's come across a QB who doesn't get rattled. Ask the entire Washington defense.

Why doesn't he ask FOX Sport's Coy Wire, who wrote the following in this good story complete with videos (Thanks RW for sending it to me.) :
So despite Jameis Winston’s burgeoning star and Johnny Manziel’s weekly brilliance, among many others, if we’re discussing the “best quarterback in college football,” it’s Oregon’s Marcus Mariota against the field.

Finally, I'm calling out other sports writers like Goe or Canzano at the Oregonian, Ray Ratto at the SF Chronicle, Bud Withers in Seattle, or Mitch Albom in Detroit. Why don't you end your stories with such bravado and pizzazz like Scardunceski when he says,  "That's my story, and I'll stick with it . . ."?

OR ASK STANFORD WHO THEY'D RATHER PLAY
From the SF Chronical

Stanford-Oregon should be worth wait

Jake Curtis

For the next 10 days, the question will be: Can Stanford's defense stop Oregon's explosive offense again?
Neither team plays until they meet at Stanford on Thursday, Nov. 7, with the winner improving its chances for a berth in the national-championship game.
Here are the numbers worth discussing as the game approaches:
34: Consecutive games in which Oregon has scored at least 34 points - with one conspicuous exception: The Ducks scored just 14 points in four quarters plus overtime in Stanford's 17-14 victory in Eugene last year.
0: Points the Ducks scored in the final 21:35 of regulation plus the untimed overtime in last year's game against Stanford.
1887: The last time a team had started a season by scoring at least 45 points in each of its first seven games before Oregon achieved it this season. The Oregon streak ended when the Ducks were "held" to 42 points in their 42-14 victory over UCLA on Saturday in Game 8. Oregon fell one game short of the 1887 streak achieved by Harvard, which extended its run to eight games of 45 points or more when it edged Wesleyan 110-0.
12: Points Stanford yielded Saturday to Oregon State, which came into the game averaging 44.1 points and had scored at least 33 points in each of its first seven games.
8: Sacks by Stanford against Oregon State.
9: Sacks allowed by Oregon State in its first seven games.
2: Stanford starting defensive ends whose status is in question for the Oregon game. Henry Anderson, who had 2.5 tackles for loss against the Ducks last year, might be ready to return after missing the past six games with a leg injury. Ben Gardner sat out the fourth quarter of Saturday's game against Oregon State with a recurring arm problem that leaves his status in question. Both Anderson and Gardner were second-team All-Pac-12 selections last season, when they combined for 27.5 tackles for loss.
88: Yards passing against Oregon State's mediocre defense by Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan, who passed for 211 yards against Oregon last year.
123: Receiving yards by Stanford tight ends against Oregon last year.
30: Receiving yards by Stanford tight ends this season.
4.41: Yards per play allowed by Oregon's defense this season, which is seventh best in the country and better than either Stanford or Alabama.

Makes your mouth water, don't it?
That's my story and I'm stickin' with it. More later.

Well, OK. That's just funny right there.
At least it's Miley amusing.

--KB