It's not often that I'll come over here to write something. In fact, I can't even say that I read this blog everyday. It may sound rude of me to not support a colleague, but quite frankly, I could care less what is said about Oregon State on this blog. This is a rivalry. Trash talking is part of rivalries. But it's gotten to the point that I need to say something.

Addicted to Quack and Building the Dam are different communities. We're fans of different schools. And our schools are rivals. 

Addicted to Quack is the giant tailgate party for Duck fans. Building the Dam is the tailgater for Beaver fans. While some things that CV3000 have written may have been over the top or crossed the line, it's nothing that you wouldn't hear on gameday in Corvallis or Eugene. 

CV3000 is one of the most knowledgeable people on Oregon State football that I know. He's already demonstrated that on BtD. What he can take away from a game or a practice eclipses what I could on my own, which is why he has and will make a good addition to BtD. 

Every fan and blogger is different. Every blogger chooses the way they want to present themselves to their community. If CV3000 wants to take some jabs, I don't see a problem with that. At the end of the day, this is football. There are many things more important than football. Many things.

"Bragging rights" is a term that comes up frequently when fans refer to rivalries. Right now, Oregon State has the bragging rights. Had Oregon spiked the ball to stop the clock at the end of the fourth quarter and given their FG unit time to line up, this would be a completely different story.

We have the bragging rights this year. There is now way to deny that. When the Beavers and Ducks meet at Reser on November 29, bragging rights will again be on the line.

Myself and CV3000 definitely have different styles.  And the addition of CV3000 to Building the Dam has definitely shaken things up. I realize this, but still stand behind my decision to add CV3000 to the mix.

Look forward to reading the comments. Hope I made myself clear. Call me out if I didn't.

--jake (www.buildingthedam.com)

Not a hoax

It's not a hoax as I'm sure most of you know. Spoke with someone close to the athletic dept and it doesn't look good. 

Better now than in in the middle of the season. Maybe we'll get lucky and it wont be to serious. 

Roper's got 9 days to prepare so hopefully he'll be ready. Not a good way to start off the year.

Go Ducks

Look, lately, there's been a lot of hissy fits (myself thoroughly included) over the writing over at BtD. The Beaver trolls haven't been around in a week or more, so this is the only thing Beav related that's been getting in our heads. And I think it should've stopped by now.

We've been noticing more and more, the simply rude and uncalled for animosity from writers such as CV3000, and the subsequent agreeing or encouraging from others. I have been especially riled up and have moseyed over to BtD to give him a piece of my mind a few times (once I felt I crossed the line, apologized almost immediately by replying to myself, and he fired back one more impolite jab.) You've also probably seen me, sometimes Joe, MIcDuck, et al. letting off some steam about the BtD writing over here. I apologize for this too. 

Look now, this is just blogging. The Beavers themselves we don't have a problem with, but their seemingly 8-year-old bloggers get our tits in a knot? Come on guys. We want this place clean. Not stooped to their level. BtD may be a chute-de-crap, but that shouldn't concern us. We do our thing, they hate our thing. The little brother parallel has been drawn so many times I think it's getting nearer to infant sister. Premature infant sister. 

I have long wondered how the likes of Mr. CV3000 could possibly be highly regarded on a blog, but hey, why do humans have appendixes? Well, to have appendectomies of course!

The reason I posted this is so we can get all of this out of our system. No more "ZOMGZZ!! LOOK @ WUT BtD SEZ BOUT US 2DAY!!" That just, as has been said, fuels the fire, fans the flames, frosts their cupcake, chalks another up for Fonzie, what have you. This is a Ducks blog. They are a Beavers anti-Ducks blog now, it seems. And you know what? Let them go ahead and do that. Stewing in their own pool of loathing and tantrums only hurts them, and it only hurts them more if we don't bat an eye.

So, for the sake of blogger integrity, don't give them the time of day. Make them nothing more than a Beaver in primal scream therapy trying to get a Duck to listen.

I will continue to post at BtD, but with this, my pointless posts of frustration and pissiness will be no more. All of you may go over and post there, and observe what happens there, but it will more than likely end up in frustration, confusion, and pity. See: noxious gases not recommended for inhalation.

He'll get a shot.

He's been invited to preseason camp with the Blazers, and there's one potential spot open on the roster.  He's had a rough go with injuries but, like Joey, its been long enough that you have to start thinking he's just really not that good at the next level.  I really hope Luke proves us wrong, because he's my favorite Duck ever (my son is named Luke, after all).

Make it happen, Luke.  I love Brandon Roy, but his Huskyism does need some counterbalance.

This post is going out to the locals i.e. those who live in Eugene, Portland and surrounding areas.  I am coming out for the BSU game with two other friends and I need some info on hotels.  I have heard that the Bronco faithful travel well.  I need to find us a hotel in or around Eugene(Springfield, Santa Clara) that isn't gonna cost me an arm and leg.  We would like to keep it to $75 a night MAX. 

Please if anyone can make any suggestions for a specific hotel or a decent place that might fall in those price parameters and locales I would be greatly appreciative.

Moseley reports Hamani Stevens was practicing at Center again today. 

I, for one, really like this A LOT. With our O-line basically rebuilding in '09 (which we can expect to be, christ, a dropoff year. Beaver trolls get preemptive fodder here), we get Stevens a tiny head start in adjusting to college level D-lines.

Another thing, I'm noticing a pattern in quality guys we're bringing in. I mean, quality people. Not just players. JJ, Blount, WT3 (although cocky, he's good team captain material next year), now Stevens, and many more. Stevens was fully willing to move to DE to add depth, as the team needed it. Never reluctant, you gotta love the willingness and commitment. Model citizens and good teammates does a family-like-team make.

Your thoughts?

If we get bored of talking about Stevens, an alternative is a venting session about the bootcamp that is Daily Doubles on a high school football team. Or your favorite LOLcat image. Any preference?

Two more Oregon games are now online:

The Washington State game is now up. As is the Washington game.

Here is the current list of games available:
Houston (cut)
Michigan (cut and PAL, which won't play on a normal TV)
Fresno State (cut)
Stanford (cut)
California
WSU
Washington
USC
Sun Bowl - USF

If anyone has the entire ASU and OSU games on DVD, or any other old games on DVD, those would be greatly appreciated. All games listed as cut are not online at the moment, though I can put them up by request. They are in divx format and have in between each play cut out, so the game becomes about one hour long.

So to help with the down time, I figured I would crunch a few numbers on a rarely used, but extremely telling statistics. Many duck fans don't like Nick Allotti's defensive schemes. While Bellotti often calls it "Bend but don't break defense", apparently Allotti doesn't care for that title.

Call it whatever you want, it definitely doesn't match what old typical Big-12 teams would call a "Good Defense". Ted Miller touched in this a bit in his mail bag earlier this week. 7th in the Pac-10 isn't great, but I could care less if we were 10th in the Pac-10. In my opinion, the best gauge of defensive effectivity is when it gets cornered into their own Red Zone. Suddenly, Oregon doesn't look too bad.

Continue reading this post »

Did anyone besides me watch Dixon play the fourth quarter of the Steelers-Bills preseason game last night?

Dixon went 6/15,  and led the Steelers in rushing. His completion percentage would have been better, but for 2-3 dropped passes by third-string receivers. Frankly, he looked a good bit better than Leftwich did out there, bringing Pittsburgh within 3 on a 47-yard touchdown run (shown below) and almost engineering a game-tying/winning drive but for poor clock management.

Check it out here.

A while back on "Duck Feed," the goducks.com blog, Andy McNamara reported that Patrick Chung wanted a nickname the Ducks' secondary. He proceeded to request fan suggestions. Today, Chung, Byrd, and Thurmond narrowed the names down to four. The Flock, Autzen Air Patrol, The D-Boyz, and The Fog. Autzen Air Patrol is out in front with about 44% of the online vote of the four names.

I suggested the name "The PICK Crew." Any more good ideas from the people of ATQ?