Stuff and Shenanigans: It Reigns at Autzen

Intros are absolutely insane on a day like today puhlease.

A 34-37% Sober and 100% Accurate Rundown of Absolutely Everything

So what did we learn, Palmer?

Well, we learned tackling is shit — although an eensy weensy bit of credit to Oregon for making it shit-er than normal, given that it was so much worse than normal that generally in these instances you have to give credit to the opponent for forcing that...

And we learned that the run blocking was also shit.

Sidenote: People who know (I am one of these people, not to think too highly of myself), know that all football players would improve their tackling with rugby experience. But an under-mentioned thing that would benefit from rugby is run blocking; while it’s hardly a one-to-one comparison and football blocking involves more complicated angles, particularly in zone schemes, clearing the ruck to secure possesion after the tackle in rugby is like the cousin of run blocking. You will not see more glorious “Fuck you get out of my space” moments than in rugby’s ruck cleanouts (or counterrucks), and rugby players in these instances generally produce far better leverage than their O linemen counterparts.

So, we’ve established the tackling and run blocking — two generally quite important aspects of playing football good — were more or less horrific.

You mean to tell me that a Washington team failing at two of the most critical aspects of football came into their rival’s hostile stadium as two-touchdown underdogs and still beat them?

At any Oregonians reading this for what I can only assume is a weird masochism thing: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*hack cough*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Shit yo, imagine how good this team’ll get if they clean those things up.

Once we learn to tackle it is OVER for you fools! You hear me? OVER! And lord help you all if we find a competent cornerbacks coach.

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I suppose that sums up my two primary takeaways; normally I’d have a more complex assessment of a game, but Oregon-Washington tends to make my frontal lobe haul ass past “thoughts” in favor of vague brain wave shrieking and/or synesthetic vibes that would make Roberto Matta swoon buuuuuut aren’t particularly translateable towards whatever this is.

So, uh, yeah. Instead of having a handful of measured, reasonable takeaways, my response to Saturday is just:

1. Go gargle a bowl of cat turds Oregon WOOOOOO oh and el oh el at your bitch-ass attempt at acting, which made history by surpassing the previous two roles tied for worst performances of all time. I’m speaking of course about Hayden Christiansen in Star Wars Episode III and The Room’s Tommy Wiseau. Congratulations Duck, you’ll never regain your dignity and humanity is richer for it!
2. Seeing Washington have multiple critical flaws and still win has me extremely excited for the future. Hell yeah.

Of course, this is all quite inconvenient for my own mental wellbeing given that I’d spent the last couple years reevaluating how emotionally attached I could be without it having adverse effects on my health. You mean to tell me after a couple years of convincing myself Jimmy Lake was a blessing in disguise by tanking the program to the point where I actively re-assessed the value of my time and emotional investment and how it would be healthier to invest both of those elsewhere, that Kalen DeBoer has the gall to just march on in here, grab that existential assessment of mine by the throat, and just hurl it out into the Salish Sea?

What the hell man? I was just starting to be sane again. What... gives... you the right?

Yeah, the corners are a liability on par with Ryan Gosling in Remember The Titans and yeah, the tackling is a liability on par with Ryan Gosling in Remember The Titans, and yeah, the run blocking is a liability on par with... not quite Ryan Gosling in Remember The Titans, but um... shoot, one moment while I figure this out...

Okay, got it *ahem* “and yeah, the run blocking is a liability on par with Ryan Gosling’s friend Steve Carell in Crazy Stupid Love.” Fixed it!

But here’s the thing: For all intents and purposes, I don’t care. When your team is fun as shit and they win a fun game over a corporate villain-ass institution whose financier tries (and fails — lol suck on that Phil Knight you crybaby dork) to buy elections and whose fortune is made with slave labor and whose fans are half a bunch of weirdos from Florida and Ohio who’ve never even been to The PNW but like shiny neon jerseys and try to talk shit about a history and culture they don’t even know because they don’t know shit about Oregon and Washington and aren’t even a part of this...

When *gestures at the above paragraph*, I don’t care if your team has Ryan Gosling-shaped imperfections. Fun plus schadenfreude wins out.

Oh and one more thing: Peyton Henry. That’s all.

Lines of the Week

Live look at Oregon players getting their highlighter uniforms:

Watching your rival gain three hundred and twelve American rushing yards against you and losing:

Thinking about rushing for 312 yards and losing:

Michael Penix after throwing that oh-so-awful interception:

Seeing an Oregon player do the most obvious injury faking I’ve ever witnessed because it was their only hope:

Peyton Henry strutting up for that last field goal:

And the whole state of Oregon to Peyton Henry:

Do good things, don’t do bad things, and bow down to Washington.