Not the same team we were last year at all. Much better offensively and defensively. We turned the ball over 4 times last year against LSU and continued to do so all year. Ducks have rarely turned the ball over this year, ball security is much improved.

I think Oregon has the offense and the defense to beat Alabama, LSU, or Georgia this year. However our non-existent kicking game would haunt us as it did with Stanford. You have to be able to score on every red zone opportunity and TDs will not be there on every red zone trip against a great defense.

Regarding the SC game...our TD drives against USC were about 90 seconds - 2 minutes long. USC had a lot of possessions because of how quickly our offense was scoring. The shoddy play of our defense was just an aberration. We were missing tackles left and right that we made all year. Even then we gave up about 42 or 43 I think, that last TD was a garbage time TD scored against our 4th string guys.

Stanford was our off game offensively, defense showed up in a big way. Our receivers were not executing on offense, they were missing blocks all night. One missed block in particular prevented a 77 yard run from turning into a 90 yard TD run. We ended up turning it over on downs in the redzone on that series, and that haunted us. RS Frosh QB also choked under pressure once Stanford tied it and tried to make the home run play instead of hitting the wide open receivers about 10 yards down field and moving the chains.

We still need to get better and more consistent in order to become a complete, elite team. We are definitely not there yet. This is a young team. Hopefully we take that step next year.