Oregon_Optimist

This one's pretty much on point.

Nike will go as plain/oldschool/traditional as a client prefers (See USC and Alabama). Phil Knight uses Oregon athletics as a test bed for new materials, designs, and concepts as this is the arrangement he and his company have with the school. This is why Oregon rarely uses the same uniform more than twice.

Great observations. well said. Oregon will be in for a long day if Nebraska can stay positive in runs between the tackles and Armstrong stays accurate with his passing. Oregon will be shallow at linebacker going into this game due to recent injuries.

if Virginia can bend them I think we can break them. They are still high powered in the offensive skill positions. Should make for an interesting match up! Agree with the above poster, the battle in the trenches when the skers are defending will be a way to either take control of the game or get mauled in the run game big matchup there.The game was more like 44-20 rather then the 26. I get this only from the box score as I did not see the ending of the game due to how late it was, but I would imagine Virginia scored in garbage time, and I am sure most of those yardage stats are skewed as Oregon probably had their backups in early in the second half. One thing was certain, early on in that game Virginia was able to run the ball with huge holes. Hopefully Newby and Ozigbo have big days. Another way to stop Oregon is to keep their offense off the field, so just run on them all day if you are able to. They left their starters in the whole game I think. The announcers actually made a joke about it late in the 4th. I know the QB played the whole game. Just watching Oregon it felt like NU would have been having a field day on the ground, and could easily put up 35+ (which we'll need to). If ypu spread the ducks out and run it between the tackles they're going to have issues. Virginia was also penetrating defensively on runs but didn't have the athletes to finish plays before they broke loose. The receiving corp and QBs ability to keep plays alive is what scares me. Along with those jet sweeps they love to run. We've been good at stopping those so far, but we haven't seen anybody run them with this much speed. I'm frankly a little worried that we may be too slow on defense. We've got a real chance if we can just play sound football on defense. If the offense can play mistake free it will be a big day. The Oregon starting QB took the snaps on the final drive of the game when Oregon could have kneed to finish, and decided to keep running plays anyways. They received criticism for it. I'm scared of the offense too, but a team who's starters can only put up 44 on Virginia's D and give up 26 to an opponent who only scored 20 on their FCS foe a week before, I'm feeling positive. This was just the 2nd game for the transfer QB with this roster and this environment. Coach Helfrich knows their needs to be work on timing and chemistry between the new QB and young O-line. No better place to improve those than in a live game situations. Bell-cow Freeman and some of the other offensive starters did sit out a good portion of the 2nd half.

Both teams are a work in progress. Hopefully we can all refrain from saying the sky is falling for the loser and the winner is going to be a league title contender. Rankings this early in the season mean very little and with Nebraska playing at home I think the Vegas spread is justified. At this point of the season, these teams seem to be pretty even. I give the win to the team that commits the least turnovers. Much respect to Nebraska. And your coach is a class act. Let's hope for a exciting, injury-free ballgame.