The Morning Haul: 10/5

I just realized that I totally missed an opportunity at a “10/4 good buddy” joke in yesterday’s Morning Haul. God damn.

Anyway, it’s Friday, so my preview and predictions for the Oregon game will be up around 11 or 12 today, as I’m writing them up right after I finish this.

For me, I think the most interesting element to this rivalry game is that, while the majority of people, and certainly pretty much all Oregon fans, are pretty sure it’ll be a win, there’s a certain level of unpredictability due to Washington’s defensive performance against Stanford. It may seem like a silly, oversimplified question, but really think about it: what if Justin Wilcox solves the Oregon offense?

He beat them in the infamous Blount-Punch game, though that was years ago and things have changed since then, and he has shown himself to be a defensive coordinator capable of scheming specifically for a certain team as well as capable of making the correct adjustments to his play-calling and personnel groupings throughout the game.

It may not be likely, but if you aren’t asking yourself what if, you aren’t enjoying the run-up to this game as much as I am.

Stories Especially Worth Reading:

The Dawg Pound not only brings us their defensive position preview, but also a Q&A with Addicted to Quack.

Condotta with his Week Six Picks.

A story on what effect the blistering speed of the Oregon offense has on the Duck defense.