Dear Mark and your Oregon Ducks,
It was wonderful to see you in Boulder against our Colorado Buffaloes this past Saturday. Half of the teams that play each Saturday have one thing in common, a loss. Most Buff fans knew going in that the chance of a Buff victory was small. We all knew, however, that we would get to see one of the very best teams in the nation play here in Boulder. That was a thrill. It gives us something to aspire to.
Your team, especially quarterback Marcus Mariota, lived up to the wonderful billing. Your team speed is phenomenal. Your Ducks truly have the opportunity to score on darn near every play. The excitement of watching how the Ducks play is revolutionizing the game of college football. Nearly halfway through the season, Mariota must be considered the most feared player in the country and the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy.
That's what all the pundits are saying, so it must be true. Right?
The advice here is to try not to get caught up in the hype and focus on some problems that most followers are blissfully unaware of or choose to ignore. Right now, watching Oregon play football is like being exposed to the lights of Las Vegas for the very first time. It is stunning and spectacular, for sure, but the fact is that the spectacle only masks some problems. And good coaches down the line will make sure to unmask those problems unless you address them soon.
Before moving into the issues, I want to make it perfectly clear that I would LOVE it if Oregon or any other Pac-12 school would run the table and stake claim to the national championship. For that to happen, though, these issues must be addressed before you take on a defense of the caliber of say, Alabama or Stanford.
Issue One:
Methinks that David Shaw and Nick Saban and any other coaches of top defensive teams will make sure to harp on the fact that many of the so-called "late pitches" toward the sidelines executed by Oregon QB's are in fact illegal forward passes. They "look great" but a quick look at the video shows that the ball is often moving forward. That's certainly OK when the move is done from behind the line of scrimmage... but it becomes an illegal forward pass when done after the QB crosses that scrimmage line. Once opposing coaches start harping on this tendency by Oregon, the refs will start looking for it.
Issue Two:
Mariota has seemed remarkably poised when in the pocket. He should have been, because so far he has known that his receivers were much faster than their defenders and that invariably they would break into a wide open space into which he could throw. The problem is that Mariota has come to depend on the "idea" that his guy will break into the open and not be covered. He is so sure of this happening that he tends to focus on only one receiver and stares at them until they break clear. He does not move his focus from target to target. He does not even bounce. He tends to stand perfectly still watching one guy and waiting for him to become open before throwing the ball. That works great when your team is clearly stronger, but does not work well when playing a team of similar skill. If Oregon wants to win a national championship, Helfrich better have Mariota work on his skills of cycling through his receivers, or savvy safeties with great speed will be putting some serious hits on Duck wideouts, or worse yet, get to the ball before the Ducks do.
Compared to the issues faced by most teams, these two things seem trivial by comparison. However, they CAN and WILL make a difference if Oregon wants to take the national title back home to Eugene. They really do have to be addressed, and it is certainly easier to work on these issues when you have the talent overwhelm your opponent. If you wait until a game is on the line to address them, you run the risk of failing to achieve your objective.
And if Marcus Mariota wants to take his performance and skills to an NFL championship level in the future, it would be better to work on these things now. Just look at Tim Tebow. He won two national championships and a Heisman Trophy, but that did not make his skills good enough to succeed at the professional level.
Like Tebow at Florida, Mariota is surrounded with exceptional talent. It may or may not be enough to win the the NCAA's biggest prizes. But winning those prizes does not make one a sure fire NFL star. And it is not just Tebow, because a lot of QB's have won the Heisman over the last 20 years or so and then went on to mediocre or non-existent NFL careers. Look 'em up.
- Gino Torretta
- Charlie Ward
- Danny Wuerffel
- Chris Weinke
- Eric Crouch
- Jason White
- Troy Smith
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