per Seattle Times blog.  

Seems like an odd move on so many levels.  Babin's actually seen playing time this year, Atkins wasn't active last week.  Atkins isn't as polished a player, Atkins could still be somewhat injured, Babin played well in week one.  And then this: COUTU IS STILL ON THE ROSTER.  

There's also a mention in this entry that Walt missed practice today and WR Trent Shelton was added to the PS.

Update by John Morgan: Little does anyone know about Mike Holmgren's double-secret two kicker play. Oh, you complain now but it's gonna be awesome.

About three weeks ago Jason Babin had value. How much, I don't know. Now he's a free agent.

I'm going to have to work on Sunday for the first three weeks of the season and I don't have cable or (obviously) a DVR.  I know there's a bar in town that shows all the games so that's my plan once my Sundays free up but until then I was hoping anyone could offer my any help.  Not looking for someone to DVR a game and send it to me, just point me to somewhere online I could download a bittorrent maybe. 

And if this isn't an appropriate place to ask for something like that let me know and I'll pull it or John can pull it.  Thanks!

So, I don't have cable and don't live in Oregon meaning I can't walk down to a bar and find the game on.  I can't tell which games O-Zone is or isn't going to air online.  I don't want to sign up for O-Zone if I'm going to get one or two games the entire season and I definitely don't want to sign up this week if I'm going to pay for August and not get the UW game. 

Basically that's a long whine to ask: Does anyone know of a guaranteed way to watch the game online?  Or a way to guarantee which games are on O-Zone?  As far as I can tell, only the Utah St game is going to be aired on O-Zone although with the newly signed deal between Comcast and OSN, who the hell knows.  Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.  Or stories on lengths you've gone to watch a game.  My plan B is to start going through all the seedy dive bars in town to ask if they're going to be showing the game.  I somewhat shudder at the thought.

Has anyone ever gone to games at Martin stadium?  I'm going to be in Spokane the weekend of the WSU game and I'd like to get down for the game.  Problem is that I'm also going to be with family and will be in a party anywhere from 3 to 6 people and don't want to end up shelling out $300 for the whole group to go.  Anyone know of vendors or websites which sell at a better price than goducks.com? 

Also, does anyone have any experience buying outside the stadium on game day?  I figured with such a large group it would be hard to get tickets together but by then WSU will also probably be anywhere from 2-2 to 0-4.

And finally, does anyone have any knowledge of the stadium, i.e. where the visitor's section is, where the student section, where the best deals in the house are, etc.   Given that I'm going with family I'm looking for good seats over being amongst fellow Ducks.  Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Go Ducks!

I almost hate to make the first fanpost about tickets and not the team but...

I've never been to Pullman for a game before.  I'm going to be in town for the September 27th game and I was hoping to take my family along with, anywhere from 2 to 5 more people.  They'd all like to make it but not necessarily at $50-$60 a pop.  I was wondering what the best method would be to get tickets for a group of that size.  Any specific websites or venues?  Day of the game outside the stadium?  In the name of full disclosure, I'm a  U of O alum and amped to see the Ducks and they're going for $52 per ticket on the official website but I assume that's in the visitor's section in an end zone somewhere.  Can anyone give me an idea of where in the stadium I should be looking as well?  Which section is student seating, etc?   Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks a lot!

LaMichael James committed to the Ducks today!  He's a dinky little dude at 5'9" and 180 lbs but he fashions himself as a Reggie Bush-like runner.  Rivals fancies him a 4-star RB while Scout fancy him a 2-star.  And ESPN rates him as an 80, on par with Darron Thomas and...Kelly Page?!  Regardless, we picked up some depth.  I figure to see him competing in 2009 to fill the JJ role.  I assume this was the verbal that Rickert referred to this morning.  

After seemingly getting our hand in on every non-committed QB recruit left in the country (Terrelle Pryor, MarQueis Gray, Chris Harper, Boo Jackson, Jacory Harris, etc.) we finally nailed down a commitment.  Welcome to the Ducks, Darron Thomas!  

http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/viewprospect.asp?pr_key=58304

It'll be interesting to see how our recruitment goes from here, whether we back off of some of these other QBs or maybe put more pressure on the JuCo guys.  Plus, we could still push for a guy like Harper to play RB.  All in all, our recruiting class is really starting to build up, with or without the interest from Pryor

Rickert posted a link to Ted Miller's blog at the Seattle PI wherein he calls out the Ducks.  Among the points he thinks he makes:

-USC is a winner.  Oregon is a loser.
-the Ducks lacked "the gumption to dig deep" and they lack pride.
-Va Tech, Georgia and LSU did it, why can't Oregon?

He also calls us a "national joke".  

The best part though is this comment, left by an unregistered user:

"Ted - Awesome article. Seriously, well thought out and perfectly written. Then that was a nice defense in the comments section calling fans out, too! Anything to get them fired up, right? Stellar journalism. I don't understand why more people don't get what good writing is all about. You're the best.

- John Canzano"

Guess who's 78th our of 79 Wide receivers by DPAR according to footballoutsiders.com and also sports a nifty 38% catch%, 5 points lower than any other wideout with 40+ catches?  Hint: We used to affectionately call him D-Jack.  

I assume that terrible QB play factors into that but good god.  Laveranues Coles and Jerrico Cotchery rank 32nd and 34th. D-Jack's negative DPAR is enough to completely negate Dallas Clark, Isaac Bruce or Cotchery.  It almost looks like it didn't matter who drafted with that fourth-rounder, as long as that man never saw the field we saved ourselves at least a win.

Update [2007-11-13 14:13:34 by Dave]: Bumped from the diaries. This topic is just too provocative not to give a feature spot to.--Dave

This season is once again going to end with a clusterf*%& at the top of the rankings with multiple teams claiming to have been shafted out of a shot at the national title.  This will invariably renew calls for a "+1 playoff system" or some other sort of one-and-done tournament for some of the top BCS teams.  When this discussion comes up it seems the pundits allow us but two options.  Tweak the BCS formula, like they do every year, or completely re-haul the BCS to include a playoff format.  To be straight here, I've always been a proponent of allowing conference winners to play in traditional bowl matchups and let the various poll voters of America decide who the best team is.  I think money and egos are what drove the creation of the BCS and wrecked and overwrote what was a 100+ year tradition.  

Some of the rational arguments in favor of a playoff system make sense.  In particular, I'm drawn to the argument that says it allows the Boise States and Utahs of the world a chance to compete against the big boys and play Cinderella.  In the previous and current systems, these guys had no chance at national titles and the only way to remedy that would be to allow a playoff.  This is the one valid point I admittedly have no defense for, especially since I don't have a vote in any sort of meaningful poll.  Had I a vote, Boise State might have been ranked higher last year.  

This one smaller point doesn't override the real reason behind a playoff system: the crowning of a true, undisputed national title winner.  I believe the affinity for this comes from what NCAA basketball has created with March Madness.  Four weeks of exciting basketball with everyone playing for their tourney lives.  On any given night, a highly ranked team can lose to a lower ranked team.  Upsets galore, abundant intrigue and a four week window where the only thing that matters is NCAA basketball.  You have to believe that NCAA football is envious of this, especially with the plethora of utterly meaningless bowl games.  But one description of the NCAA tourney jumps out at you: "upsets galore."  How are we really producing an undisputed national title contender if we're putting teams through another one-and-done tournament?  We already have something similar.  It's called "The Regular Season."  Think about what the playoff format has done to the NBA, with teams in the both sides of the bracket angling themselves for a favorable first-round matchups, or angling to get out of the Spurs bracket for as long as possible.  Think about the NFL, where we have games like Seahawks v. Packers in 2005.  The goal for NFL teams is to become one of those top six in your conference.  Think about a scenario where we're guaranteed our spot and seed in a playoff.  How conflicted would you feel if we benched Stewart and Dixon in Autzen against the Beavers because we'd rather they're ready to go against Va Tech in the first round of the playoffs?  

I'm not saying that the playoff system should be universally scrapped in sports.  It makes some sense to take the best teams and have them compete against each other because, as I said, it allows intrigue, upsets and excitement and then crowns a champion.  But the bowl system has long been something characteristically and uniquely College Football which brings up another one of my issues with the BCS.  The Rose Bowl has lost all of its prestige in today's system.  I'm not old enough to pine for the 50 years when we got to see Big Televen-Pac 10 in the Rose Bowl but I am old enough to long for the 10 years I got to see matchups like Washington-Michigan, Oregon-Penn State or Arizona State-Ohio State.  As a Duck fan this season, my worst nightmare is for the Ducks to earn "just" a Rose Bowl berth.  I say give us back our traditional bowl matchups.  

Another problem that will have to be dealt with when/if a playoff system is implemented is the issue of selection.  The whole system will have to be revamped to not allow things like #4 Ohio State (9-2), #6 Notre Dame (9-2) and #7 Georgia (10-2) being selected in favor of #5 Oregon(10-1).  In particular, the Notre Dame clause will have to go.  But do we then simply go with the top 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 teams?  As we know, it's pretty hard for those mid-major teams to crack the higher ranks of the BCS, all but eliminating the one argument in favor of the BCS I agreed with.  Boise State finished 8th last year.  Does anyone believe that college football would allow for 3 weeks of playoffs, which would allow for a full 8 teams to complete?  No, last year Boise State would have most likely been shut out of the most discussed playoff system, which would only feature the top-4 teams.  

The old system of poll voters declaring a national title winner had/has its own flaws and most are rooted in the error of human perception.  The SEC is better, so 7-3 Florida is better than 9-1 Boise State.  Kansas has no losses and is from a "BCS Conference", so has played superior competition when compared to, say, Hawaii (not necessarily so, when all is said and done).  I say rather change the system you need to try and change the way voters use their votes.  Let's stop ranking teams in tiers based on their W-L and instead incorporate W-L into your thinking of who is a better team.  Every year we read articles about how so many teams are essentially knocked from the race for a national title because they lose late in the year as opposed to early.  Guess what, as a writer you have the power to change this.  If you really believed that Ohio State was better than Arizona State but worse than West Virginia before they lost to Illinois, that shouldn't have changed.  Obviously this argument runs both ways but that's what has always made college football unique.  The title winners in this particular sport have always been decided through a combination of opinion and win-loss records.  The BCS changed this by first turning it into a calculation rather than a vote and now by trying to turn it into a playoff system.  I feel that before we make the headlong push to follow the format adopted by all other major sports, we should take a moment to consider what we're quickly leaving behind.  I doubt we'll ever return to the old system, no matter how many national title controversies we have to endure but we should keep in perspective what we're running from when we're deciding what we should be running to.