In light of the events occurring around midday on November 7, the blog is making some new promises. Can they be kept? Probably not, but I’ll try for at least a day.

This blog will…

• …Never again question the enlightened wisdom of San Jose Mercury News columnist Jon Wilner. He may be a traffic-baiting, uh, (insert word for prostitute), but he was dead on regarding Stanford vs. Oregon. I refuted all ten of his points on why Stanford would win and in hindsight, he went 8 for 10. Even his silly mention of the 2001 disaster seemed spot on given that the score of that game was 49-42. This year? 51-42. My sincere apologies go out to Mr. Wilner, a man whose last name is now synonymous with a curse word in my circle.
• …Stop caring about Iowa, TCU, Cincinnati, Boise State, Florida, Alabama and Texas. Cheered like hell for Louisiana Tech Friday night. Was ecstatic when Northwestern beat Iowa. Then found out I just wasted a week worrying about irrelevant teams. Not so interested in the national picture anymore. Also not all that into writing complete sentences.
• …Call all voters who place USC ahead of Oregon hypocrites. Many voters explained to The Oregonian’s John Hunt last week that they could never put Oregon ahead of Boise State because of the head-to-head result. Now, I’ll wonder about their logic when the Trojans jump Oregon in the polls on Sunday.
• …Completely focus on the Rose Bowl. Never should have thought about anything but it. The Pac-10 is a lot more wide open now and we’ll get into that soon enough. Oregon still has some serious advantages, but for now, the important take-away is that the Ducks and Arizona both control their own destiny. The rest need help. With three games to go, you can’t ask for much better.
• …Wonder how Jeremiah Masoli ended up with at least 500 relatives. I need to eat a lot more if I want to get into that clan.
• …Not explicitly blame Nick Aliotti, but it won’t necessarily trust him either. My final conclusion on the defense is that Stanford did a hell of a job executing a game plan that was tough to defend. Oregon’s lack of size hurt as did its depleted numbers in the secondary. The Cardinal was well-balanced and the Ducks were both confused and outworked.
• …Avoid Bay Area trips no matter how much fun they are. Last year, the blog got caught in a Berkeley monsoon and lost. This year, it got sucked into Stanford’’s beautiful campus and stadium only to get ambushed upon kickoff. There’s something wrong in this region. Must. Not. Come. Back.
• …Not give up on this team at all. Take Chip Kelly’s advice and allow yourself 24 hours to dwell on Saturday and then get over it. We’ve all been watching a damn good football team this season and if you think they’re done, well, exit now. This is a Rose Bowl-caliber team and it’s just three games away from getting there.

A year ago, we watched with horror as Boise State waltzed into Autzen Stadium and pantsed Oregon 37-32. This year, it won’t happen again because the Ducks have rediscovered the forward pass.

Given that coach Eddie Cochems, known as the “father of the forward pass,”  had Brad Robinson attempt the first legal forward pass in 1906, one might expect Oregon to have had a better grasp on the concept in the first three quarters of last September’s ill-fated game.

Brad Robinson attempted the first legal pass, then watched in horror as Oregon went all 1905 and ran the ball over and over again.

Yet, there they were, attempting a total of seven passes in the first three quarters of play. In that same span, they ran the ball 51 times (if my attempt to read the drive charts at ESPN is correct). Let’s see a 51 to 7 run/pass ratio…yeah, that probably shouldn’t work. And if you think it’s all because Boise landed a cheap knock-out blow to Jeremiah Masoli (see, I told you I could do this all week), consider that the lone touchdown drive of the first half for Oregon consisted of 13 running plays and one pass (the pass, consequently, being the one where Ellis Powers flagrantly…well, you get the idea).

The score in this time frame was 37-13, Boise.

At the start of the 4th quarter, Eddie Cochems started calling plays with Darron Thomas under center and the passing bonanza (25 passes, 3 rushes) yielded a 19-0 4th quarter rout of the Broncos.

Operating under the assumption that Boise will employ the late hit play at least twice (man, I can’t stop!), Oregon should still prevail because it has the luxury of four throwing quarterbacks on scholarship. Therefore, we can conclude that Oregon will easily win this game.

Of course, there is no evidence that Oregon’s defense has learned how to stop the play-action pass, but I’ll leave that to Nick Aliotti.

Note: Forward pass info is according to Wikipedia, which in academic circles is thought of as the ultimate truthful resource for knowledge.