It was a good call. No question. It’s Autzen stadium, you’re on the road, you got a bunch of rabid ducks in the stands. You have got to try to take the fans out of the game and play to win the game.

I don’t think it was a good call, and I am sort of shocked that 53% of people objectively think that an onside kick at the time was the “right call” . This was a tough road game, but it was winable. I disagree with the premise that we needed “luck” to win this game. In fact, that one play could have theoretically cost us (we only lost by 7), and our defense played decent when given field position to work with. We were only down 7 at the time for crying out loud. That is not a time for desparation in my opinion.

This game was winable. One big reason we lost is because we took a sucker punch to end the first half, giving up a free touchdown. That was unacceptable. Oregon should never have got the ball back to end the half. I didn’t like the calls on tour last first-half drive, and it was Oregon who played agressive to great success. One first down is all we needed. And then our defense was just unable to keep the ball in front of them. My sense was that those last 3 mintues could be blamed in part on the coaches — even if the drive summaries don’t necessarily reveal a clear bad call. That was just my sense, though I’m having a hard time putting my finger on why.

Indeed, I must say, after watching the games this year I have not been overwhelmed with our in-game coaching (which apparently puts me in the minority). It’s not so much single plays that I remember (though I put the onside kick into the bad call category), but a sense I’ve had that the coaching could be better. Little things like our failure to throw the ball downfield (or even try—you know, actual agressiveness, not ,we need some-luck-onside-kick-agreesiveness), the Offense’s knack for delay of games and wasted time outs, and our defense’s giving up big plays. Also, Craft’s continuing to throw the same kinds of bad passes. Oregon should have had 6 or 7 interceptions in the game, yet Craft continued to make the same mistakes. I get it, Craft is young, and we’ll have to take some lumps with him. Fine, and totally acceptable. Yet, when he makes the same kind of mistake over and over again (delays of game and crazy passes into coverage), I have to look to the sideline. Is there nothing we can do to fix this?

My season grade for coaching is B / B-. Not horrible, but less than I hoped for to date. But I have seen improvement in the team, so I give credit to the coaches for that. I can’t give any credit for changing the culture of the program yet, because diagnosing such a change is like diagnosing a recession—a lot of people say a lot of things at first, but you can never tell for sure till you look back after a year or so.

I saw an interview with Norm Chow (don’t have a link; I have no idea where I saw it) a couple weeks ago in which he said that he tries to call at least one deep ball per quarter to stretch things out. The problem is that Craft doesn’t have the time in the pocket to wait for the deep pattern to develop. Since the staff has been preaching that Craft not force passes, he’s clearly not going to just chuck the ball downfield and hope our guy catches it. The coaches don’t want KC to throw it unless he knows the WR is open, and he doesn’t have the time to wait that long. That’s the reason for all the underneath stuff – it’s not for lack of trying.

Some get by with brains, others get by with guts.

The best have the right combination of both.

Dorrell had neither. I believe CRN does have both, but that will never mean perfection. I don’t agree with every move Coach Howland makes either but he certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt. As the team gets better this season and the next few, we’ll be praising CRN more often then not for making the “right” gutsy call.

a similar situation was dorrell’s other fake punt against ASU in ’06 (#9 on the list). we could have easily had the same result in our last game.