He apparently pulled yet another rabbit out of his hat. He yanked a true freshman for a walk on Soph three games ago and the kid is playing lights out. We became bowl eligible yesterday, with a decent shot at 8-4. This team loses about 4 kids to graduation, so believe it or not, next year promises to be very competitive.
After yesterday 4-4. Although 2 of the losses were against top ten teams and were not blow-outs. The high spot was beating #9 Arizona at Arizona. They seem to have lost it with the loss of James Rodgers who is out Red-Shirted with torn ligaments (since repaired in surgery) in the loss against Washington. Yesterday they lost to UCLA, a team they should have beat, when UCLA kicked a Field Goal with 1 second left.
From here on out it gets really ugly. The only soft spot is the welcome mat of the Pac-10 Washington State. The other 3 remaining are Stanford (#9), USC, and Oregon (#1). They almost have to run the table to get anywhere and truthfully I don't see that happening.
Ryan Katz is not the QB is predecessor was, and the Offensive Line is not making the running game happen despite having JaQuizz Rodgers in the backfield. Although Katz is facing a receiver problem - not only was James Rodgers our best receiver he was the spark plug of the team and made things happen just by being on the field. And he was always a threat to go all the way as he was a great runner as well.
The defense hasn't looked as sharp in the last two out of three games either. They nearly shut out Cal and were able to hold the offenses of TCU and Boise State more or less in check (except the offense under Katz couldn't score). It was like 2 weeks ago against Washington - twice they were within the Red Zone to score the winning touchdown and fumbled one and Katz threw an interception into the End Zone on the other. Then to make matters worse they went for a game winning 2 point conversion in OT and fucking Halahuni drops the game winner. Yesterday was another failure of the "Prevent" Defense which Coach Riley runs at the end of close games. He is insanely in love with it because every time he runs it we lose but he keeps doing it. $#%&!!!!!!!!!
I guess I'm frustrated because the Beavers have been in contention in every game they've lost. They haven't really sucked, but just have not come through when it really counted.
I think they are this year, and they are making a strong case for #1. Oregon is holding onto it for now, because nobody has been able to stop their running game and the defense has been doing a good job most of the time. Yesterday's blow out of the Huskies is a good case in point. The Washington Defense could not keep them out of the End Zone and their Offense could not find it.