That was Choke City for Cam Newton. Cost his team a TD. With that play, he and Darren Thomas are about even. I can't believe he just did that.
I hope Oregon CB Cliff "Kash" Harris wins MVP so he can impart his wisdom on the millions of viewers... he spews nothing but pure gold out of his mouth. Here's how Kash introduced himself to the Ducks when he arrived in Eugene: You may wander why he chose Oregon... well here's his reasoning: And his role on the team:
so an illegal shift could determine the national champion. what an awful play call with the way auburn has been busting into the backfield. get in the f'ing shotgun and give yourself a chance to get it away if something goes wrong. run against a superior d-line and that's what happens. also, i've never understood the rule that the whole ball has to be out of the EZ. it makes absolutely no sense. the nose of the ball is the spot of the ball in every single other situation. it's how we measure forward progress and where they measure against the chains, and yet for some reason if you're in the endzone it's now the back of the ball that determines forward progress. much like the non-recovered fumbles through the endzone go to the defense, i wonder who writes these rules and why no one tries to correct them.
It makes sense - it's effectively the same rule applied in reverse. The endzone is like a magic invisible plane, extending infinitely in all directions, once the ball is stopped without fullly clearly it on the backend, it's the same as just getting the nose over on the front end....it make the magic invisible alarm go off and the heavens tremble and the earth shakes. Though technically if you wanted to be 100% consistent, it would be automatic safety anytime you get possession in your own endzone, I suppose, but I don't know if that rule is workable.
given that they have all 3 timeouts, oregon needs to waste more time on this end of half drive. you're gonna give it back to auburn and get burned if you don't watch out.
but the nose is forward progress on every play. just like the nose getting in the EZ is a TD, the nose of the ball leaving the EZ should mean forward progress is out of the EZ. if the whole ball doesn't have to get in the magical endzone area to be a TD, then i don't see why it becomes so magic when running out of it. but whatever, football is cool with it and the fumble through the endzone rule so i'll just deal with it.
the fact that gene chizik is hours away from having the same number of national championships as mack brown and bob stoops and jim tressel is amazing. looking at the reversal of fortune for mack and chizik is amazing. after the 2005 title, our D in 2006 was poor enough that chizik could only get a job at iowa state (and we didn't do a lot to try to keep him). then he has 2 terrible years at iowa state. at that point, mack is a blake gideon INT from playing for a title and chizik has to be wondering if he'll ever get another head coaching gig for the rest of his career. now 2 years later, chizik somehow fails upward into the auburn job, has a mediocre 8-5 (3-5 in conference) season and then cam newton shows up on a campus and he's a few hours from a title while mack brown is picking up the pieces from the worst UT football season in 50 years and is wondering if he'll ever get back on top again. mack pretty much does nothing but win for 2 straight decades (racking up 10 win seasons like most programs rack up bowl appearances) and is a chris simms meltdown from playing for a title in 2001 (though miami would've killed us), is a blake gideon gimme catch from playing for a title in 2008, and is a colt mccoy injury in the national championship game from possibly having 2 titles, but he still has 1 title. bob stoops has done pretty much nothing but put up top 10 seasons at ou, with tons of conference championships (much to my chagrin), and 4 national title game appearances, and he has 1 title. tressel has consistently won conference championships, beat michigan, been in the hunt for the title, and appeared in 3 national title games, and he has 1 title. gene chizik has had 2 awful years, 1 mediocre year, and now might have 1 title. it just seems like he hasn't earned it. maybe it's just because his interviews always give me that les miles "i'm not really sure what's going on but good things keep happening, so screw it" vibe and i don't think it's really any genius on his part that's going to get him up into the coaching elite after this game.
He's like that at every single interview I saw this season. Oregon's poor play-calling in the 1st half and Darren Thomas' mistakes left so much out on the field. Long way to go.
This game on high definition.. wow. Am I the only one who thinks Oregon has great uniforms (more variety than most teams too ), especially those neon-yellow socks and shoes? Must have something to do with Nike's founders being alumni.
