cooking up the offense like he's cooking ravioli

I watched the Oregon vs. USC game yesterday. I think everyone in town, except Rachel, was either at the game or watching it on TV. The whole day, everywhere we went, you could feel the excitement of the upcoming game against the number 1 team in the nation. I seriously think every single person in town was wearing at least one piece of U of O gear, many in excess five.

Since most people couldn’t have even watched the game on TV if they wanted to, I will give you my take on the game. First let me say that USC is amazing and I in no way think that Oregon could have or should have beaten USC. Reggie Bush has got to be the best player in college football. The game should have been closer, though, if it weren’t for awful officiating. In the second quarter the Ducks scored a touchdown only to have it taken away because of unsportsman-like conduct during the play. They thought one of the lineman punched an oncoming rusher as he broke free. Replay showed that wasn’t quite the case. Oregon was not able to recover from the 15 yard penalty and I think they went on to miss the field goal attempt on that drive, even.

In the third quarter, the officials missed an obvious block in the back that led to a USC touchdown. Of course, USC can move the ball better than any team in college football right now, so they probably would have scored anyway.

In the fourth quarter, the officiating took a turn for the even worse. Oregon made a great drive and eventually put the ball in the end zone on about a 10 yard run only to have it called back because of an illegal block. The block was bad and certainly should have been penalized, but it happened probably a full second after the ball carrier crossed the line for a touchdown. He had already thrown the ball on the ground and had his hands in the air celebrating before this illegal block was even committed. I don’t know my college football rules too well, but I think they should have tacked the 15 yard penalty onto the ensuing kick-off rather than take the touchdown away. Needless to say, Oregon couldn’t recover, again, from the 15 yard penalty.

In the end, it was 45 – 13, but should have been at least 45 – 27 (from events that actually happened) and you never know what the extra points would have done to the players and fans momentum. The crowd was so loud at the beginning of the game that they caused a few communication errors for USC which resulted in a couple of turnovers and penalties. As USC put up 21 points in the third quarter, the crowd fell silent.

I guess I don’t know why I just recapped the game. You could have gone to the espn site and read a professional recap that would have fact checked (for instance, I am not really sure which quarters the atrocities about actually occurred) and proof-read the article before publishing – I did neither. I just spent a few hours of my Saturday enjoying the game and felt like sharing my view.