Prediction...
- Thread starter Cougini5591
- Start date
Right now I have seen enough of the pac 12 to say that at least 6 or 7 teams are showing better QB play than the Cougs, The o line needs to improve along with the QB to have a winning record in conference. There will be no easy wins for this team the rest of the way. Qregon is 3rd or 4th, maybe even 5th in conference To beat USC, Utah, Oregon, OSU, or Washington, you need to score a lot of points, can’t totally rely on defense. Right now I don’t see an offense that can keep up.
Agreed. We haven't played anybody, except Wisconsin, and we only put 17 points on the board. The season starts on Saturday, and not sure we have the offense to prevail.
Our defense will need to keep us in our games, but we'll still need a miracle to squeak by UO, USC, UU, and UW.
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you can if you line up the palouse posse
Nix will be different on the road in a noise Martin on Saturday. Our Dline will be ready. Cougs by 7.
Thus far, we look like a 6-7 win team. Cal is looking like a big game. Get by them, and we have remaining possible wins vs. Stanford, OSU, ASU, Arizona, and UW. Not ruling out Utah at this point.
We’re not a great team, but we’re young at QB, RB, and WR. There’s room for growth.
We’re not a great team, but we’re young at QB, RB, and WR. There’s room for growth.
Me either. It's too early.
Utah lost to decent, but not spectacular Florida and beat a lousy SDSU team. Oregon State survived (if not, stole) Fresno State. Arizona looks improved, but they’re not a great team. Stanford is only decent.
We'll see how the schedule plays out.
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Lots of unnecessary pessimism around here. 8-4 is the worst this team will do.
...defense and defensive coaching is legit based on what I've seen. That is gonna buy plenty of time for our offense to click.
When you play defense, run the ball, and win special teams you have a chance in any game. That’s this team. You can beat a USC or Utah if you get 3-4 turnovers and take one back…so long as Ward is taking care of the ball. That said, you can lose to an Arizona or cal if you don’t take care of the ball too.
I’m not writing off any games with this defense though.
I hope nobody is. We get a packed house with a good atmosphere next week which we absolutely should at 3-0 it should be a helluva tough game for the ducks. It usually is in Pullman.
Man, I’m thinking 8 wins minimum. Guess we find out Saturday but I think the offense is progressing nicely. Ferrell is huge for Cams confidence. He was on a pitch count Saturday and still made a mark. Kid makes plays. I also think Jenkins is getting better and better. He’s going to break a couple long ones at some point. Keep an eye on Wisky/Ohio State Saturday. Close game, imo. That win is going to look better and better as the year progresses.
There are a lot of different ways to look at this season so far. The offense is not as good as we would like, and certainly the worst that we have fielded in a while. The defense is undoubtedly the best that we've fielded since the 2003 season.
I like Cal at home, Stanford anywhere and ASU at home as solid wins for us. Arizona's win over ND State was nice but I don't have faith that Arizona is really "back". They play Oregon, UW, USC and Utah in a brutal stretch in the middle of the season. Even if they are playing well, it's looking like they will be 3-5 heading into their game against the Bruins. If that game goes poorly, I see their season imploding completely and we wreck them. That would give us seven wins.
Oregon, USC and Utah are all games that I think it would be foolish to expect a win. I think our defense is playing well enough to give us a shot in those games, but if I'm being "realistic", we lose all three games. We will have a puncher's chance in all three though.
That leaves Oregon State and UW. The Beavs look legit this year but their schedule is deceptively easy. Just like we'll learn a lot about ourselves this weekend, the Beavers are going to learn if they are good with their game against USC. If the game were in Pullman, I'd give us a strong edge. In Corvallis, it's going to be close. I was a little surprised that we have an 8 game winning streak going against the Beavers and frankly, we've played better in Corvallis than in Pullman the last four years. I think we get OSU.
The mutts are harder to figure. They looked great against Michigan State, but that Michigan State defense was terrible against the pass in 2021 (ranked 130th) and they are 103rd so far this year. Penis looked great against them, but it may turn out that it was a typically bad performance by the Spartan defense. Don't be surprised if the Spartans finish at or below 0.500 this year. UW's schedule is set up to make them look good though. If Penis is as good as he looked against the Spartans, Stanford, UCLA, ASU, Arizona and Cal are all games that they'll expect to win before they face OSU and Oregon in early November. The mutts could easily be 8-1 and ranked in the Top 15 going into their game against Oregon. They basically get an extra bye week with their game against Colorado before the Apple Cup.
At this point, I'm guessing that the Apple Cup is going to feature #15 UW at 9-2 and #22 WSU at 8-3. Mutts will be favored by three points. I'm hoping that we will have had three games to get in a positive frame of mind and we make it two in a row against UW for a final record of 9-3.
At this point, I believe that our floor is 6-6, 8-4 is the most likely finish and undefeated isn't out of the question. It just depends if Ward starts playing as good as he was advertised and if the OL can play a bit more cohesively as the season goes on.
I like Cal at home, Stanford anywhere and ASU at home as solid wins for us. Arizona's win over ND State was nice but I don't have faith that Arizona is really "back". They play Oregon, UW, USC and Utah in a brutal stretch in the middle of the season. Even if they are playing well, it's looking like they will be 3-5 heading into their game against the Bruins. If that game goes poorly, I see their season imploding completely and we wreck them. That would give us seven wins.
Oregon, USC and Utah are all games that I think it would be foolish to expect a win. I think our defense is playing well enough to give us a shot in those games, but if I'm being "realistic", we lose all three games. We will have a puncher's chance in all three though.
That leaves Oregon State and UW. The Beavs look legit this year but their schedule is deceptively easy. Just like we'll learn a lot about ourselves this weekend, the Beavers are going to learn if they are good with their game against USC. If the game were in Pullman, I'd give us a strong edge. In Corvallis, it's going to be close. I was a little surprised that we have an 8 game winning streak going against the Beavers and frankly, we've played better in Corvallis than in Pullman the last four years. I think we get OSU.
The mutts are harder to figure. They looked great against Michigan State, but that Michigan State defense was terrible against the pass in 2021 (ranked 130th) and they are 103rd so far this year. Penis looked great against them, but it may turn out that it was a typically bad performance by the Spartan defense. Don't be surprised if the Spartans finish at or below 0.500 this year. UW's schedule is set up to make them look good though. If Penis is as good as he looked against the Spartans, Stanford, UCLA, ASU, Arizona and Cal are all games that they'll expect to win before they face OSU and Oregon in early November. The mutts could easily be 8-1 and ranked in the Top 15 going into their game against Oregon. They basically get an extra bye week with their game against Colorado before the Apple Cup.
At this point, I'm guessing that the Apple Cup is going to feature #15 UW at 9-2 and #22 WSU at 8-3. Mutts will be favored by three points. I'm hoping that we will have had three games to get in a positive frame of mind and we make it two in a row against UW for a final record of 9-3.
At this point, I believe that our floor is 6-6, 8-4 is the most likely finish and undefeated isn't out of the question. It just depends if Ward starts playing as good as he was advertised and if the OL can play a bit more cohesively as the season goes on.
Agreed. I'm not ready to rule on WSU or UW yet, as I'm not impressed with the 2nd tier Big 10 programs. Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern.
We'll see.
I learned a long time ago that I am not unbiased enough to predict the Apple Cup. I see 3 losses before the AC. So unless we drop one that we really should win...miss a last minute FG or something like that...I think we probably win at least 8 this year now that Wisconsin is in the win column. I originally figured 7 wins going into the AC, but that was with a loss at Wisconsin.
The Apple Cup is shaping up to be a key game for the PAC north.
As for our offense, we are showing improvement every week. Our penalties have been less than I expected. We've had some loss of focus and dropped passes, as well as a forced pass or three that need to be cleaned up. I think if we put together a full game without mental lapses on O we can/will beat Oregon. But we can't afford to lose situational awareness. Oregon will beat you if you go brain dead.
The Apple Cup is shaping up to be a key game for the PAC north.
As for our offense, we are showing improvement every week. Our penalties have been less than I expected. We've had some loss of focus and dropped passes, as well as a forced pass or three that need to be cleaned up. I think if we put together a full game without mental lapses on O we can/will beat Oregon. But we can't afford to lose situational awareness. Oregon will beat you if you go brain dead.
Yes, I forgot about that. If you take Utah and SC out of the equation, then the 4 Oregon & WA teams are pretty much the whole league this year. I could see the Apple Cup deciding at least one team in the playoff...
You're all more optimistic than I am with our offense. Ward doesn't have the accuracy that was advertised, and he has a sophomore's decision making. He's still prone to throwing the ball in places where he really shouldn't. On top of that, he's got a trait we haven't seen in a QB since at least early Gesser - too much confidence in his legs. He scrambles backward too much when under pressure. He got away with it several times last weekend, but a team with better athletes on their pass rush is going to get him for huge losses. He also locks in on his preferred receiver and doesn't see other ones that are running open. Even CSU picked up on this and was able to take away his first reads.
The OL plays well at times, but then they'll have periods where they fold and take plays off. It was shocking how fast CSU was able to get pressure a few times Saturday. Again, in the conference schedule we're going to see better players, so our OL needs to step it up. Our offense has to figure out how to stay on the field longer, especially if they're not going to score. We've lost the TOP battle in all 3 games.
The surprise so far is the run game. Watson is running well and finding holes, getting some tough yards when we need them, and can also catch if he needs to. Jenkins has tremendous potential, and as his vision gets better he's going to be dangerous.
Having Oregon at home gives us a little bit of an edge, and I think our D can keep us in it, but there's no room for error on offense. Ward needs to see the field better and stop going backward. The OL needs to play the full game.
Should be a similar story against Utah. If the D can keep us with Oregon, they should be able to do the same with the Utes. They're likely to be a tougher D though, so our offense has to be at their peak. We get home field, but on a Thursday night that advantage is going to be reduced a bit. We each get 2 weeks to prep for that game, so it could be interesting.
USC may well be the strongest offense we see, and we play them in LA...where, as you may have heard, we've historically had some trouble. Our D is going to have to bring their A game. So far, opposing QBs are completing 65% of their passes against us...and these aren't great QBs. Offense is essentially going to have to be perfect that week, and they're going to have to play possession ball. We can't get into a shootout with USC, we don't have the horses. If our defense has been on the field for 25+ minutes going into the 4th quarter, we're going to get boat raced. Our advantage in this one might come from the fact that USC plays Utah the next week, and might look past us.
Frankly, if the team that has played our first 3 games shows up for Oregon/Utah/USC we won't win more than 1 of those games. We need to be better. We need to be a lot better to have any shot at sweeping them. If we stay generally what we are right now for the rest of the season, I see us ending up at 6-8 wins. There's likely at least 3 wins between the Bay area schools, the Arizonas, and OSU. Some modest improvement - if the offense will click like it did in the first half on Saturday - and we could get to 10+.
The OL plays well at times, but then they'll have periods where they fold and take plays off. It was shocking how fast CSU was able to get pressure a few times Saturday. Again, in the conference schedule we're going to see better players, so our OL needs to step it up. Our offense has to figure out how to stay on the field longer, especially if they're not going to score. We've lost the TOP battle in all 3 games.
The surprise so far is the run game. Watson is running well and finding holes, getting some tough yards when we need them, and can also catch if he needs to. Jenkins has tremendous potential, and as his vision gets better he's going to be dangerous.
Having Oregon at home gives us a little bit of an edge, and I think our D can keep us in it, but there's no room for error on offense. Ward needs to see the field better and stop going backward. The OL needs to play the full game.
Should be a similar story against Utah. If the D can keep us with Oregon, they should be able to do the same with the Utes. They're likely to be a tougher D though, so our offense has to be at their peak. We get home field, but on a Thursday night that advantage is going to be reduced a bit. We each get 2 weeks to prep for that game, so it could be interesting.
USC may well be the strongest offense we see, and we play them in LA...where, as you may have heard, we've historically had some trouble. Our D is going to have to bring their A game. So far, opposing QBs are completing 65% of their passes against us...and these aren't great QBs. Offense is essentially going to have to be perfect that week, and they're going to have to play possession ball. We can't get into a shootout with USC, we don't have the horses. If our defense has been on the field for 25+ minutes going into the 4th quarter, we're going to get boat raced. Our advantage in this one might come from the fact that USC plays Utah the next week, and might look past us.
Frankly, if the team that has played our first 3 games shows up for Oregon/Utah/USC we won't win more than 1 of those games. We need to be better. We need to be a lot better to have any shot at sweeping them. If we stay generally what we are right now for the rest of the season, I see us ending up at 6-8 wins. There's likely at least 3 wins between the Bay area schools, the Arizonas, and OSU. Some modest improvement - if the offense will click like it did in the first half on Saturday - and we could get to 10+.
I’ll counter by saying that you are undervaluing our road win against Wisconsin. The Badgers are going to win 9-10 games this year and we beat them in their house.
Ward has some growing up to do but our defense will give us a chance to win every game left on our schedule. We will undoubtedly have a clunker at some point but until I see otherwise, I’m going with the idea that our defense is “good enough”.
Im not sure Wisconsin will win 9-10 games but also not sure it matters. I don’t think MSU is any better than Wisconsin at this point so to write off the AC because of that would be silly…the defense will keep us in games. The offense will need to rise to the occasion because we aren’t always going to be ahead in the waning moments of the games we are in. It’s sure looking like we will see a lot of close games as I don’t see any killer instinct to this offense.
We took the ball over on our own 12 yard line with 5:12 to go against Wisconsin and used up the clock without giving them another chance.
We took over the ball late in the game against Colorado State and scored a TD to go up 38-7. To be fair, we definitely took our foot off the gas, but when it counted our team has stepped up late in games. We've now outscored our opponents in the second half in six straight games. I know that you are referring to the idea that we should have kept kicking their door down...but when it's mattered, our team has stepped up consistently.
What's funny about fans is how unrealistic we are. I went back and looked at the CSU prediction thread. There were 12 predictions with scores and the average result was 39 - 14. We won 38-7. So, the team outperformed expectations on defense and basically met expectations on offense.....but we as fans sit around and think, "it should have been better".
That last drive against Wisconsin is killer instinct, 90. It may not look like the flashy, lots of yards at a pop killer instinct that the better Leach teams had, but grinding out a long, time consuming drive against a good D fits under the "killer instinct" category. Different weapons, similar end result.
It is interesting that Jon Wilner (a Bay area sports writer) does a Pac-12 Power Rating every week that the Seattle Times runs. His column this morning had the Cougs 2nd behind only USC. He ranked Utah 3rd--UW 4th and Oregon 5th. He obviously thinks more of the Cougs than many on this list.
Just for kicks, I checked what the Massey Ratings site says about Wisconsin. He says that they finish 10-2. Double digit loss to Ohio State, but wins over the rest. Important to note that the Badgers don't play Michigan or Penn State this year.
FWIW, he says 7-5 for WSU with us losing to the Ducks by 3, @ USC by 6, @ OSU by 3, Utah by 7 and UW by 1. In other words, his computer model says that every game is going to come down to the last drive.
Good points. Fan is short of fanatic btw. We were easily 50 points better than CSU. I don’t care what margin we win by or how we do it, my only issue with a game like that is there was a clear opportunity to get the starters out early (avoid injury/targeting that affects future games) and get backups experience and the laziness in the 3rd quarter on the offensive side blew it. Yeah I’m a fan, but I would imagine coach’s see it the same way.
At any rate I maintain we will be in close games all year, and you make a good point about how the offense finished against Wisconsin.
I maybe the only one but I’m calling Cougs beat Oregon.
Somethings gotta give. Martin crowd needs to be relentless on Saturday to give our pass rushers the edge…they need to get home if we are going to win
Prediction, plenty of dink/dunk and screen passes galore. Watson and Jenkins will be busier than usual. When Ward is outside pocket and scrambling is when he makes mistakes, Ducks know this and pressure will be constant.
Ducks QB hasn‘t been sacked yet this season? That’s about to change. Need this to happen early to send a message and fire up the crowd. Cougs turn out and keep it close. This one goes to OT.
Ducks 37 Cougs 34
Ducks QB hasn‘t been sacked yet this season? That’s about to change. Need this to happen early to send a message and fire up the crowd. Cougs turn out and keep it close. This one goes to OT.
Ducks 37 Cougs 34
702, OT is a possibility, but I suspect that there will be enough scoring that it will simply come down to the last drive.
Agree on the dink/dunk, but explosives, penalties and turnovers will decide the game. We both have enough D speed that I don't expect many explosives from dink/dunk, but running plays are another story. We will probably both get a couple of running play explosives.
I predict at least 4 holding penalties on the Oregon O line; and 6 would not surprise me. Clearly, if they have not allowed a sack, they are good at that gray area between a legal play and holding...but enough speed by the defender will pull some of those plays into a clear holding call. Add a passel of holding calls to some sacks, and you get a QB who starts hearing steps.
If Oregon chooses to blitz to move Ward out of the pocket, they will get mixed results. There will be times that it works, but there will be times when they get burned. If we avoid interceptions, we might actually come out ahead on that deal.
I expect that the coaching staff has worked on safety/relief passes more this week. Several times when Ward has broken from the pocket, he lacked a dump pass option for some reason. I can't believe that has not been an aspect of our planning this week. I would not be surprised to see us use the TE for some of that, in addition to the RB.
And as a last thought, I would not be surprised to see more RPO in this game, from both teams. That is a good neutralizer against D speed if you have a QB who can execute it.
Agree on the dink/dunk, but explosives, penalties and turnovers will decide the game. We both have enough D speed that I don't expect many explosives from dink/dunk, but running plays are another story. We will probably both get a couple of running play explosives.
I predict at least 4 holding penalties on the Oregon O line; and 6 would not surprise me. Clearly, if they have not allowed a sack, they are good at that gray area between a legal play and holding...but enough speed by the defender will pull some of those plays into a clear holding call. Add a passel of holding calls to some sacks, and you get a QB who starts hearing steps.
If Oregon chooses to blitz to move Ward out of the pocket, they will get mixed results. There will be times that it works, but there will be times when they get burned. If we avoid interceptions, we might actually come out ahead on that deal.
I expect that the coaching staff has worked on safety/relief passes more this week. Several times when Ward has broken from the pocket, he lacked a dump pass option for some reason. I can't believe that has not been an aspect of our planning this week. I would not be surprised to see us use the TE for some of that, in addition to the RB.
And as a last thought, I would not be surprised to see more RPO in this game, from both teams. That is a good neutralizer against D speed if you have a QB who can execute it.
The Cougs have slow down Oregon’s run game, need to find a way to get them into 3rd and 5+ yards as much as possible, and they can’t get beat on the deep ball. They do those things and they are in it in the 4th quarter with the chance to win. The offense needs to put up at least 30 points to have a chance.
Difficult to do all this, but not impossible with some key turnovers.
And one more thing for the superstitious, Cougs are wearing the All Anthracite unis, their record in these is 7-2.
Difficult to do all this, but not impossible with some key turnovers.
And one more thing for the superstitious, Cougs are wearing the All Anthracite unis, their record in these is 7-2.
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Agree with all of this. But also think that penalties will be crucial. If we end up with a similar penalty comparative situation to Oregon as we had against Wisconsin, that will be huge in helping with those 3rd and 5+ situations.
