Bears take on the Ducks

Going into tomorrow's game, it seems like it should be a close one. Sagarin has the Bears and Ducks ranked pretty close in his predictor model, with the Bears a 4 point favorite at home.

Here is the deal - so far this season, the Ducks have looked good. But they have played two good teams and lost both convincingly. they have dominated Washington, Washington State, Arizona State and barely got by UCLA. They went to two overtimes with a BAD purdue team, and beat Utah State handily. They were crushed by USC. The best game they have played was to lose to Boise State at home 37-32, which was a very close game. Oregon went through a number of different QBs in that game.

At the beginning of the year, the Ducks were planning on starting Nick Costa, who was injured before the season. Justing Roper was the second string guy and he started the first three games, getting knocked out at Boise State. Nick Masoli came in, and has done a good job. Masoli is more of an option QB, a la Tim Tebow. He ran for 170 yards against UCLA, for example. The Ducks have a fairly poor passing attack, but are in the top 5 in rushing. They run a spread option attack, particularly effective when Masoli is in there.

Roper has come back from his injury, and played the last part of the ASU game. It is not clear who will be starting tomorrow for the Ducks, but Masoli is a more mobile QB than Roper. Roper is a more effective passer.

I am not sure if the weather is going to be a factor in who starts for the Ducks, but it is clear it will be a factor in the game. The Bears have not really played in the pouring rain this year, so it will be interesting to see who plays for us. My guess is that we dust off the option attack, have KR start the game and see how that goes. If we can spread the field with the option and keep the ducks at home, I think we can run on them. They have a good defense. I think our defense is going to do OK against their spread offense - we have had a lot of experience against it, even this year. I think the 3-4 is more effective against the spread. But we need to play our positions, not over-pursue and slip on the turf. But Oregon will score. I give them 31.

Offensively, we need to put up 40 to be safe. And that will be difficult. The ducks have a good pass rush - lots of sacks. Our offensive line is injured, and has not played that well. That being said, we are going to have to roll out and make some plays on the run. That is why I think this is a KR game tomorrow.

All that being said, if we can not beat a team starting it's third string guy, who is averaging 103 yards in the air, then we are going to have a long day. We should beat these guys.

I hope the Bear faithful are out in force tomorrow. It will be poor weather - if there are 65,000 fans screaming at the Ducks, it will be pretty impressive. We need to get out and support the Bears. The good news is that most of the soccer games will be cancelled so perhaps people will get there on time.

GO BEARS!!