Go Beavs.

Thanksgiving week is one of my favorites of the year. Reminds me of playing football with friends as a kid, after eating a big dinner and napping. Just a special feel in the air this time of year.

On top of that, we get the Beavs the day after. Should be a fun few days.

I’m going with Oregon 35, Beavs 21. I don’t see the Beavs able to stop the speed or run game of Oregon. This Duck’s team is not that good, but they’re good enough to win by two scores. Anything can happen in these rivalries, but that’s the logical prediction.

I won’t be around most of the day, and only will be able to catch the first half of this game.

I’m sticking with 31-21, Beavs. We always play Cal well. Phil Steele has my back, I saw. We can still win the North with a little help!

If anyone wants to discuss this game, have at it.

The thing interesting here is how the early start time plays. The Beavs have looked sluggish to start both games, and I’m wondering if that’s a product of the late starts.

I’m going 31-21, Beavs.

What’s the logic on the latest 4th and 1 call?

If they kick the FG, they’re tied in the 4th quarter vs a team playing equally poor as they were. The Washington QB was awful. I’d take our chances with kicking the FG to tie, having Washington use the run game and scoring a TD, and then the Beavs probably getting one drive to tie the game (and go for two then, if you want to go for the win. That’s the time to do something aggressive).

If you don’t get it, or the refs screw you, you’re pretty much done. People think going for it on 4th is “aggressive” and “going for the win!”, but it’s also going for the loss. The Beavs are now 1-4 on these calls. Yet, it is “going for the win”? Seems delusional to me. I can play an aggressive move in chess, like e4, Bc4, Qf3, Qf7 to attempt mate in four moves, but it only works versus poor players. Smith is like an amateur chess player randomly swapping pieces with no real plan.

Smith is confirming to me what I have suspected since the Nevada loss: that he’s an impatient, degenerate gambler. I was bullish on the hire, and he’s pretty good at most things, but he’s too much of an in-game liability to continue this experiment. I’m one step from saying fire the guy, but I feel that’s coming soon. Smith needs to look in the mirror starting 2 years ago, and he has to admit his gambles aren’t working and learn from the mistakes. This is how anyone in any field progresses.

The real problem with being aggressive that early in the game is there are too many “choose your own adventures” – too many variables and permutations. Late in the game, if you play it straight until then, the variables reduce to just a few, and you know the real probabilities of the move. This again is a lot like chess.

Regarding Gebbia: I think he will be a good player at some point (he showed this vs Oregon and WSU), but he’s clearly got something wrong right now, and it appears mental. He has happy feet and is generally way too fidgety in the pocket. Maybe he got blindsided in Fall camp or something, and now he’s got PTSD. I’m not sure. But I’m totally fine moving on from him for now, let him work that out in practice, and let’s see what Nolan can do. Nolan’s film was good and he can run a bit better, so it might fit with this poor offensive line more than Gebbia.