Legends say Oregon can play with the big boys

After Oregon dismantled perennial Pac-10 power USC in Eugene on Saturday, the Legends Poll became the only collegiate top-25 poll to rank the Ducks in the top-5. The Legends Poll voters were overwhelmingly impressed with the way Oregon dominated the Trojans. On this week’s conference call, the Legends Channel had a roundtable discussion with the voters, and former BCS commissioner Roy Kramer joined us to offer his take on the fifth-ranked Oregon Ducks.

Dick MacPherson: Everybody who plays Oregon better know how to defense the spread or they’re in trouble.  Because they’ve got a guy who knows exactly what to do if they don’t have the defense right and I think USC blew it.

Frank Kush: I watched that game very closely and I was so impressed with the diversity of their offense.  Not only the quarterback running the ball. Masoli, he’s very capable of passing, running, etc but their running backs too.  They’ve got two running backs —James and Barner — that I think are exceptionally good.  But above all I think the coaching is remarkable and the diversity of their offense is just as good as I’ve seen in the country.  They attack just about every hole at the line of scrimmage.  Whether it’s the quarterback or the running backs, whoever it may be, they’re pretty dog gone athletic.  James, that running back, to me has to be one of the quickest I’ve ever seen.  I was really impressed with them.  They just kicked the hell out of (USC).

Kush: I don’t think the entire Pac-10 matches up with the SEC what I’ve seen of them.  Southern Cal has talent but I don’t think they were into it for some reason.  Just watching the Pac10, Cal was over here (Arizona) and I wasn’t impressed with them even though they kicked Arizona State’s butt.  But the interesting thing about it is that Oregon and Oregon State, in my opinion, get the maximum out of what they have from the standpoint of talent.  But I think the Southeastern Conference, from what I see, has a heck of a lot more talent than the other conferences.

John Cooper: I’m going to tell you guys, Southern Cal has as much talent as anyone in the country — including Florida, LSU, and any of those teams down South.  And for Oregon to beat up on them like they did…I think if they play like that I think if you were to play them on the west coast or in Pasadena they could beat anybody in the country.  Based on what I saw.

Kush: They were remarkable.  No question about it.

John Robinson: I think SC hasn’t developed as a team.  They started out having to replace 10 defensive players and they just couldn’t do it.  They just haven’t matured as a team.  They got preoccupied with the quarterback position and it seems like they just forgot about the rest.  Now Oregon. Utah was like Oregon a year ago.  I think they had an undefeated year and nobody thought they were any good and they go down and beat Alabama badly in a bowl game.  So those teams out West don’t see the spread as much and it’s effective especially when you put the speed element with it.  SC hasn’t seen it very much, doesn’t know how to defend it.

Robinson: I think Oregon for the last few years has really recruited speed.  They’re little guys, they all look like midgets when you see them but they can RUN.  And they teach speed.  I remember back in the wishbone, teams like Oklahoma were faster than everybody.  I think Oregon and Texas who throw the ball a lot are tough to handle.  And I know we’ve been talking about all this conference stuff, but what it comes down to is one team playing one game.  We don’t know that Oregon doesn’t match up with anybody in the country for one game.  Now, they’ve lost a lot of defensive players.  I think they could get embarrassed on defense against a really strong powerful team.

Robinson: SC is not the team it wanted to be and it’s slipped away from them.  The good players are not playing the way they’d like to be playing and it’s an anomaly for them because Pete Carroll’s teams have always played really well.  The story out here is Oregon, and I think they’re going to go the rest of the way and that’s a great thing for the Pac-10.

Pat Dye: I was impressed with Oregon’s defense against Southern Cal, and I know everyone’s going to be impressed with their offense…that quarterback is like Houdini, but I thought their defense was quick and they ran to the football.  After looking at them against Southern Cal, I guarantee you that you can call Nick Saban or Urban Meyer and neither one of them is going to want to play them.

Roy Kramer: I think Phil Knight gave Oregon new shoes to wear because I’ve never seen so much speed against Southern Cal as I did that night.  They were impressive.  You know they’ve got that loss to Boise State and in all fairness if you look at the ratings across the board, Boise State is riding Oregon’s balloon.  And if that balloon were to burst it would affect Boise State as much as Oregon.  This makes TCU a much stronger outside candidate because they beat Clemson at Clemson, they had that good win over BYU and if they beat Utah they’re going to have a better resume across the board than Boise does.

The only good thing about it at the BCS is that it sort of plays out with the rankings because Florida and Alabama play each other and I think Texas can ride it out to the national championship game.  You can argue about the other people but I think it’s hard to argue against Texas and the SEC champion playing for the national title.

If you asked me about the two best-coached teams in the country I agree that Oregon and Iowa should be it from what I’ve seen based on what they’re playing with.

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