Fresno State @ Oregon Predictions

Before the season started if anyone told me that Oregon would be 2-0 with combined margin of victory of 53 points, I would have told you that Oregon is headed for the national title. However in reality what do we really know about this team?? The answer is not very much. Despite the fact that Oregon is 2-0 (with two quality wins), Oregon still appears to be an enigma with question marks still at nearly every position.

QB: Is Dennis Dixon actually good?? I thought he would be pulled at halftime of the Houston game, and then he turns around and is the national player of the week @ Michigan. He certainly looks better this year than he did last year, but would anyone really be that surprised if he went 11-24 with 3 INTS against Fresno??

RB: Is Jonathan Stewart an above average running back or a great one?? As good as Stewart looked @Michigan, he was that mediocore against Houston. Stewart and Johnson have both proven to be pretty good running backs, but are they elite???? Stewart is probably going to be a 1st round draft pick, but other than trying to hurdle every defender he encounters he still hasn't proven much on the college scene.

WR: They looked good against Michigan until you realize that Jaison Williams only caught 50% of the passes that were thrown at him. (4 catches, 4 drops). Paysinger appears to have emerged as a legitimate weapon, but the lack of any proven go to player in this group still scares me. Cameron Colvin needs to get kicked off the team already so he doesn't continue to break my heart each week.

Defense: Oregon has done a good job getting turnovers this year (9 of them), but in all honestly how many of them were actually "forced" by the defense and how many of them were just lucky. It wasn't anything Oregon did that forced Chad Henne to randomly throw the ball 80 yards down the field to a wide open Matthew Harper, that was just Henne being a typical Michigan quarterback. Also lets not forget that in the 1st 6 quarters this season, Oregon gave up nearly 900 yards of total offense. That is not exactly the sign of a respectable defense. Oregon's defense could be a ball hawking bend but dont break defense, but they just as easily could be really bad.

Fresno State:
A lot of media people have been saying that Fresno's close loss @AM is a sign that the Bulldogs are back to their "giantkiller" ways, but I don't buy it. Texas AM nearly lost to Army early last year, so I dont put to much faith in anything they do before Big 12 play starts. Likewise Fresno looked very mediocore in their game against Sacremento State to open this season, so I think Fresno going to 3 overtimes against an overrated big 12 squad doesn't mean that much.

However, Fresno does have a history of of being a top tier mid-major and their QB play (the main reason they sucked last year) appears to be a lot better this season. Given Pat Hill's history of fielding competitive teams it's unlikely that Fresno is actually bad for a second straight season (4-8 last year). On top of that, the main reason Fresno stunk last year was QB play, and their QB this year appears to actually be good.

In spite of all of that, the biggest thing going for Fresno in this game is their mindset. Fresno seems to only care about beating big time opponents. It seems that the program has adopted the "giantkiller" persona and values its non-conference games against BCS opponnents more than its league games. (Evidenced by the fact that Fresno has zero league titles under Hill).

Because of that past history of this series (all games decided by 7 points or less) and the fact that Fresno wont be intimidated by Oregon at all, it is virtually assured that the Oregon-Fresno game will be a close game (unless Fresno just comes out drained becaue of their game last week). However just like in years past, Oregon should have just enough of an edge (can you say Pac 10 refs???) to sneak past the Bulldogs and get to 3-0.

Fresno 24
Oregon 31