I'll update this as I go, but I've had a chance to watch a few of the games and here are my thoughts on each of the teams I've seen.
Oregon: Explosive and exploitative. If you lose your composure, they'll bust you. They were down for the first 20 minutes against Bowling Green before BG lost its composure and the floodgates opened. The have immense amounts of speed on defense, and this mostly takes away the option to leave someone unblocked on the backside of any play. Justin Herbert, not Khalil Tate, is the most dangerous runner in the Pac-12. You expect Tate to break big plays- you don't expect Herbert to break off a 40 yard draw and stiffarm your DB into oblivion on his way out of bounds, but he can and he will. They swing for the fences like crazy on offense- especially with Johnny Johnson. Herbert will throw impossible balls and if Johnson catches them, great, if not, they'll try again 10 plays later, covered or no. This is a team you have to be absolutely surgical to beat, and that makes me think that teams like Stanford and Utah are going to absolutely beat their ass, but they'll drop 50 on some other poor souls this year. With Herbert, this could be a 9-win team.
Oregon: Explosive and exploitative. If you lose your composure, they'll bust you. They were down for the first 20 minutes against Bowling Green before BG lost its composure and the floodgates opened. The have immense amounts of speed on defense, and this mostly takes away the option to leave someone unblocked on the backside of any play. Justin Herbert, not Khalil Tate, is the most dangerous runner in the Pac-12. You expect Tate to break big plays- you don't expect Herbert to break off a 40 yard draw and stiffarm your DB into oblivion on his way out of bounds, but he can and he will. They swing for the fences like crazy on offense- especially with Johnny Johnson. Herbert will throw impossible balls and if Johnson catches them, great, if not, they'll try again 10 plays later, covered or no. This is a team you have to be absolutely surgical to beat, and that makes me think that teams like Stanford and Utah are going to absolutely beat their ass, but they'll drop 50 on some other poor souls this year. With Herbert, this could be a 9-win team.
