Everything seemed to fall apart for the Beavers on Saturday night at Reser Stadium.

Yeah, the Ducks were well rested, and had a week off to prepare. Yeah, we didn't have Quizz. I think we can all agree that the officials made some poor decisions, but aside from all of that, nothing was going right for the Beavers.

Oregon State was simply overwhelmed. 

I utter those words not as excuses, because really, they're not. Give us Quizz, and maybe the game is closer at the end. Give us that touchdown off of the non-reviewable fumble, and maybe it is closer at the end. 

But ultimately, the Ducks outright won the 112th rendition of the Civil War. And I take nothing away from them.

I'm proud of the way our team has handled this season. We exceeded expectations all year long, and made it so close to smelling roses. 

Trust me, Beaver Nation, it won't be 44 years until we get a whiff of those aromas again. But, the job isn't done yet. There's still one more game to play. 

Mike Riley has built this program into something special. It's something we can all be proud to be a part of, and it's now a program that's going to be relevant for a long time. 

It's definitely a sad time for Beaver Nation. But it should also be a proud time. 

Look at OSU's baseball program in 2005. Out of nowhere, they earn a trip to Omaha, and are quickly eliminated in two games. It was definitely a disappointment to get that far and be stopped short of the dream, but look at what they did the next two years.

That being said, the foundation is here. I feel for the seniors whose blood, sweat, and tears helped boost this program to heights greater than anything that had been witnessed before. Those players will never know what it feels like to strap on the pads on January 1, but because of their efforts, an equally impressive group of men probably will. 

But don't worry, even though those seniors lost their last game in Reser Stadium, they'll be back. In 10 years, it will be Al Afalava, Sammie Stroughter, Victor Butler, Brandon Hughes, Slade Norris, Shane Morales, Andy Levitre, and all the others who are introduced in front of record crowds at Reser Stadium. The ride they've brought us on won't always be remembered in the brightest light, but we'll all remember just how close they came to breaking through. They're lifelong members of the Beaver Family. I mean, look at this guy:

via photos.oregonlive.com

You've gotta admit: For Corvallis, Oregon, this ride has been and continues to be special. 

Would anyone have ever expected that we could have made it this far 20 years ago?

Thanks, Coach. And thanks, seniors. You'll be missed.

GO BEAVERS!

Hopefully the majority of ya'll who live in close proximiny to Corvallis were able to get a ticket, but for those of you who didn't, and for those of you out-of-towners, here's your gameday open thread. Pregame and postgame talk is also welcome here.

The game starts at 4:00 on Versus.

GO BEAVERS!

FINISH!!!!

Getting ready to head down I-5 to the Blazer game.... hopefully I get to the Rose Garden before the game ends...

It's Civil War Eve. It's been a fun week, with both sides have slung their fair share of mud. Now, all that's left is the game.

Win or lose, it's been a great season: a great ride. A Civil War win and a trip to LA would make it even sweeter, but I think we've all had a great time already. 

Everyone has done their preparation, the team is probably just now finishing up their walkthrough, and all that's left to do is eat, sleep, wake up, and play football.

That's all that's important in life, right?

We can all agree that this game is going to be a true test for both teams. It's no easy win for either team. We control our bowl destiny, they are looking to spoil our dreams. Don't be scared, Beaver Nation. If you lay your head on your pillow and you're scared, you're looking at this game in the entirely wrong light. 

Yes, it looks like we'll be without Quizz. But don't let the loss of one guy get you down-- Mike Riley has stressed all year that this is a team, not a few individuals. We have guys who will pick up where Quizz left off. 

Be anxious, be excited, be confident.

Go early... wear orange... be loud and proud... Bring the Noise, Beaver Nation!

Let's Get it Started!

FINISH!

In each of the past two seasons, the Civil War has come down to the last play.

Serna was the hero of the 2006 Civil War after he scored the eventual winning field goal in Oregon State's 30-28 win.
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In 2006, it was Alexis Serna who booted a 40-yard field goal to win the game after Brady Leaf led the Ducks to a touchdown and a two-point conversion. The Ducks assembled a potential game-winning drive of their own, but Matt Evensen's field goal was blocked by Ben Siegert to win the game for OSU.

Last year, Matt Evensen and Alexis Serna traded field goals in the first overtime of the 111th Civil War before James Rodgers scored the eventual game-winning touchdown on the first play of double overtime. But before that, both teams had chances to win the game on field goal attempts in regulation. Alexis Serna had a 35-yard field goal attempt blocked, and Matt Evensen missed a 41 yarder as time expired due to poor clock management. Of course, it was the Oregon State defense that sealed the game, stopping UO running back Jonathan Stewart on a 4th and 1 play.

Although Oregon State has won both of the games in the past two years that were decided on the last play, they enter this year's game without the greatest kicker in Oregon State history, Alexis Serna.

But the Civil War wasn't kind to Alexis, who scored 384 points over the course of his career at Oregon State. Last year, Serna was 1 for 4 in the rivalry game, with the 35-yarder in overtime being his only successful field goal of the game. He missed from distances of 33, 50, and 35.

The Beavers enter this year's Civil War riding the leg of plackicker Justin Kahut, the sophomore out of Clackamas High School who kicked a 24-yard field goal last week as time expired to give Oregon State a 19-17 win over the Arizona Wildcats. This all came after he missed a routine extra point earlier in the fourth quarter, denying Oregon State of a share of the lead with just under four minutes remaining in he game.

Morgan Flint has emerged as a diamond in the rough for Mike Bellotti. He's 4-for-4 on FG's so far this season-- and apparently hasn't missed in practice, either.
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Kahut has been getting big-game experience this year, but he's yet to kick in a Civil War atmosphere. He's 14 of 20 on field goal attempts this season, and is 6 of 7 so far in November. Kahut has been nearly perfect-- 11 of 12-- on field goals from under 40 yards. He's 3 of 8 on field goals longer than 40 yards.

The Ducks have got inconsistent play from their primary kicker, Matt Evensen, this season. Matt earned Pac-10 Special Teams player of the week honors after Oregon's win over Purdue when he was 4 of 4, but has since been benched in favor of junior Morgan Flint. Evensen is currently 11 of 18 on the season, and he's strugled-- like Kahut-- on attempts longer than 40 yards. He's only converted on every field goal attempt in three games this season.

Evensen has been limited to kickoffs in Oregon's last two games against Stanford and Arizona. Morgan Flint, his replacement, has been a perfect 4 of 4 in those games, so we'll likely see Flint in the Civil War. He hasn't been tested in a true pressure situation yet, so it will be interesting to see how he reacts. However, Coach Bellotti reports that Flint hasn't missed a kick in the past two weeks-- in practice, or in a game. Flint walked-on at Oregon four years ago and has stuck around. Finally, he's earned the starting spot. Plus, Evensen has had two opportunities to win Civil Wars for Oregon, and he's missed both attempts.

Oregon kickers are 1 of 5 on field goal attempts in the past two Civil Wars. If Saturday's game becomes a field goal battle, each team will likely do battle with a kicker who has less than a full year of experience and has never played in a Civil War.

Calculate the field goal percentages for both teams, and you'll find that both Oregon and Oregon State are 15 of 22 on the season, for 68.2%. 

It couldn't get much more equal than that.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. This is likely the last you'll see of me until tomorrow. Enjoy the holiday, and Go Beavers!

"I have never, ever thought time of possession was a valuable stat," said Bellotti. "I've said, the only thing that matters is points, and the more points the better."

Looks like it's hurting you, bro. But back to that in a second.

Back in August, UO athletic department blogger Andy McNamara wrote this on his blog:

As if they aren't a motivated group enough already, Oregon's veteran secondary is in search of a nickname or handle to give them an added spark this season. A while back I solicited suggestions, which I presented to Patrick Chung after yesterday's lone practice. After consulting with Jairus Byrd and Walter Thurmond III, the leader of the triumvirate narrowed the list down to the following choices:

• D-Boyz
  
• The Flock
  
• Autzen Air Control
  
• The Fog
  

I'll put a poll up shortly on the front page of GoDucks.com, but in the meantime feel free to comment on the choices.

 

The poll went up. Fans voted. The D-Boyz were born. Songs were written. (To hear the song, jump after the break below.)

And then the games started.

Oregon's defensive backfield may be sexy, but their numbers aren't. The Ducks have the worst passing defense in the Pac-10. That's right-- worse than 0-11 Washington, and every other team in the conference. Even measly Washington State gives up 70 less passing yards per game. However, they may only have themselves to blame.

The Ducks want you to think that they aren't as bad as their numbers suggest-- they blame their quick strike offense for their defensive woes. Yet they haven't done anything to fix it. Seems like some communication between the offensive and defensive coaching staffs could fix the problem, but that's just us. Oregonian beat writer John Hunt wrote the following in the newspaper:

The Oregon defense can be excused for being tired -- and for being tired of answering for numbers that don't tell the whole story. If everybody looked at yards per play instead of yards per game, the Ducks would look very strong.

If Saturday's Civil War comes down to the wire, Oregon's defense may be a bit tired.
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Good point, John. The Oregon offense, which scores more points than anyone else in the conference, only spends 25 minutes per game on the field-- three minutes less than any other team in the conference, and seven minutes less than Oregon State, who spends 32 minutes and 21 seconds on the field per game. The Beavers lead the conference in time of possession, and they have the second best defense in the Pac-10. If Oregon's offense is on the field for three minutes less than any other team in the conference, that means their defense spends three more minutes than any other Pac-10 team on the field per game. Funny how that works.

If that means anything, it's that the Beavers should have an even bigger advantage in Saturday's Civil War when they have the ball. The Oregon State offense is used to wearing down opponent defenses, and Oregon's hurry-up offense should only hurt the Duck defense more.

Hunt adds:

No defensive unit in the nation has played more snaps than Oregon's.

Take Georgia. The Bulldogs have played 12 games -- one more than the Ducks. Their defense has played 182 fewer snaps than Oregon's.

Take Oregon State, the Ducks next opponent in the Nov. 29 Civil War in Corvallis. The Beavers have played 10 games but their defense has been on the field for 253 fewer snaps (864 to 611) than Oregon's.

Oregon State's passing offense, led by Lyle Moevao and Sean Canfield, ranks first in the conference. The Beavers possess a trio of wide receivers unlike anything the Ducks have seen before. In other words, the best is yet to come, D-Boyz.

The Oregon secondary has been getting worn down as games go on. Even though the Ducks have the worst overall pass defense in the Pac-10, they're the sixth best secondary in the first quarter. By the second quarter, they're ranked ninth. And in the second half, they're dead last.

Oregon State should be able to take advantage of this obvious flaw. And if the game is close down the stretch, it will be interesting to see who has still has the best legs when the game is decided in the fourth quarter.

Accept the blame, Ducks. It's your own fault. It's not good to inflict pain on yourself.

Continue reading this post »

We've been talking a lot about how Quizz probably won't play on Saturday, but there still have been a lot of comparisons drawn between Oregon running backs and Quizz this week, notably over the difference in their "Yard Per Carry" averages. (ex: "Oregon has 12 players who get more yards per carry than Quizz, he'd be 13th on our depth chart") Well, here's the reason why we shouldn't completely rely on such an inconsistent statistic.

As I was preparing this post, I decided to look at the stats of Jeremiah Johnson and Jacquizz Rodgers. For the sake of simplicity, I decided to look specifically at each players' best game. For Jeremiah, that was Oregon's game a few weeks ago against Stanford.  For Quizz, it was the game against USC.

Let's first start by examining Jeremiah's performance. He ran the ball 15 times in the game for 135 yards, and came out with a 9.0 yard per carry average. However, two rushes-- a 41 yard touchdown in the first quarter, and a 47 yard rush from Oregon's 12 yard line in the third quarter- made up for over 65% of his yards in the entire game. I understand that those two rushes count too, but as the graph indicates below, Jeremiah only rushed for over his average of 9 yards three times in the entire game. Take out the two big gains, and Johnson had 13 carries for 41 yards, a 3.1 yard per carry average. All against the Pac-10's 7th-best rushing defense.

Jacquizz Rodgers had 187 yards on 37 carries against the Trojans. The first major difference is the amount of carries Jacquizz received compared to Jeremiah's (Oregon's other predominant back, LeGarrette Blount, had 10 rushes against the Cardinal). Quizz isn't the type of back who picks up yards in chunks of 40-- he pounds ahead for 3-8 yards per carry.

Now, the graph: (each hash mark on the axis represents 2 yards)

I pulled this "box and whisker" technique out of my sixth grade math arsenal-- It may not be the best way to show the information, but it works. The median of the data (the middle number) becomes the center line you see in the middle of the box. That creates two sets of data, and again, you take the median of each half of data, creating the left and right sides of each box. The "whiskers" extend from the medians of each half to the smallest and largest numbers. 

As you can see on Jeremiah's graph, the two long runs show up as "outliers" when you input the data into a graphing calculator.

Now, take a look at the red lines. Those are the averages. You can see that Jeremiah's average is outside his "box", meaning that at least 75% of his rushes were under his average. In this case, the actual number is 80%. 

In the case of Quizz, his average lies near the middle of his rushes. 

I realize that you can manipulate statistics to say whatever you want them to say, but hopefully this shows that Jeremiah and Quizz have similar stats. They've both been putting up good numbers, and just because Jeremiah has broken more long rushes than Quizz has doesn't mean that he consistently picks up more yards than Jacquizz every time he touches the ball. In other words, just because Johnson picked up 65% of his total yards in his best statistical game on two plays and his average is four yards higher as a result doesn't mean he's the better back.

And did I mention that Quizz's best game was against the Pac-10's best defense?

I realize, it's like comparing apples to oranges, but maybe you should give Quizz some more respect.  

What is the AC Joint in the shoulder?

The shoulder is made up of three bones: the scapula (shoulder blade), the humerus (upper arm bone) and the clavicle (collarbone). The part of the scapula that makes up the roof of the shoulder is called the acromion. The joint where the acromion and the clavicle join is known as the acromioclavicular (AC) joint. There are ligaments that hold these two bones together. Ligaments are soft tissue structures that connect bone to bone. One set of ligaments surround the joint and make up the joint capsule. Two other ligaments hold the clavicle down, and attach the clavicle to a bony knob on the scapula called the coracoid process. The AC joint can be injured in varying degrees. The simplest type injury is a simple sprain of the ligaments around the joint (Grade 1). A more severe injury can result when the ligaments around the joint are actually torn (Grade 2). If the ligaments around the joint are torn and the ligaments that attach the clavicle to the coracoid process, the injury results in a obvious bump on the shoulder (Grade 3).

The symptoms may range from simply tenderness over the joint, to a complete dislocation of the joint as seen in the Grade 3 separation. There may be a considerable amount of swelling if the separation is Grade 2 or 3. A bluish discoloration of the skin due to bruising may occur several days after the injury. In the Grade 3 separation you may feel a popping sensation due to the loose joint shifting. There is usually a noticeable bump on the shoulder if the joint has completely dislocated.

How is the AC Joint usually injured?

The AC joint is injured most often when one falls directly on the point of the shoulder. The trauma will separate the acromion away from the clavicle, causing a sprain or a true AC joint dislocation. In a mild injury, the ligaments which support the AC joint are simply stretched (Grade I), but with more severe injury, the ligaments can partially tear (Grade II) or completely tear (Grade III). In the most severe injury, the end of the clavicle protrudes beneath the skin and is visible as a prominent bump.

What is the proper treatment for a sprained AC Joint?

When a joint is first sprained, conservative treatment is certainly the best. Applying ice directly to the point of the shoulder is helpful to inhibit swelling and relieve pain. The arm can be supported with a sling which also relieves some of the weight from the shoulder. Gentle motion of the arm can be allowed to prevent stiffness, and exercise putty is very helpful to improve function of the elbow, wrist, and hand, but any attempts at vigorous shoulder mobilization early on will probably lead to more swelling and pain.

A different source says...

Treatment for a Grade 1 or Grade 2 shoulder separation usually consists of a sling and pain medication until the sprain, or tearing, of the ligaments heals. In most cases, the shoulder becomes relatively pain free within 3 weeks. Since there is not a danger of making the condition worse, activity can be determined by the symptoms. You can usually do whatever you can tolerate.

An image of a Grade II Sprain...

I think we've all realized that Jacquizz won't be completely healthy on Saturday. We'll either see Quizz on the sideline, or Quizz playing thorough pain. An injury like this that usually takes 2 or 3 weeks to heal isn't going to be miraculously healed in a week. 

Here's what Quizz had to say when he joined Canzano yesterday on 95.5 The Game: (Apologies for the distortion)

In the end, we all should be confident that our coaching staff and training staff will make the correct decision. Mike Riley and Danny Langsdorf understand what they have in Quizz, and they're not going to jeopardize the remainder of his career by letting Quizz play in the Civil War. 

We already saw Mike assert his leadership role by declaring Jacquizz's status as "very doubtful" early in the week. It sends a message to the rest of this team that they're going to have to do it without the Pac-10's leading rusher. 

Look-- McCants could probably get the job done as a starter for this football team if Quizz didn't come to Corvallis. Give him the extra carries in practice, give him more touches in games, and this guy is probably the fourth and fifth leading rusher in the conference right now. The Beavers may not have had as much success so far this season as they have had, but McCants has the skills in him. We've moved him up the depth chart, given him a few days to prepare for being in the spotlight, and I expect him to be ready to go come Saturday. Ryan was on the sidelines at Autzen when Oregon State beat Oregon last year at Autzen-- he knows what this rivalry means to the state, and he knows what it feels like to win.

At the end of the day, we all have to be confident that Riley is making the right decision. He understands better than anybody that Quizz is a young man with a bright future-- not a motor inside a set of pads and a helmet. 

Mike Riley has more information at his fingertips than we do: let's rest assured knowing that the right decision will be made. 

Your opinion is encouraged- I want to hear what others think about this. If you think I'm off base, let me know.

GO BEAVERS!

It's time for Week 13 of the BtD Power Poll:

Not many changes, except for the fact that Washington State is now the unanimous #9 team in the poll. Washington, on the other hand, falls to the cellar. 

This week's games: Oregon vs. Oregon State, UCLA vs. ASU, Notre Dame vs. USC, WSU vs. Hawaii. 

Voters: The comment thread is all yours to post your ballots if you wish, defend your selections, and debrief the final publication. Non-voters: Complain/agree at your own risk.