Posts: 12,767
Threads: 1,966
Joined: Dec 1969
Masoli is very good...but he\'s no Cam Newton. Masoli isn\'t as tough a runner as Newton, and I rate Newton better as a thrower. (Newton\'s YPA: 9.3; Masoli\'s in 2009: 7.) (One small note: as excuses go, Newton\'s isn\'t bad. Apparently he broke his computer and mistakenly bought a replacement for cheap. It was cheap because it was stolen. Newton claims he got nervous when the police showed up. If true, it\'s understandable though obviously wrong. It\'s a fairly plausible story, so I don\'t have any particular reason to disbelieve it except for the general suspicion that anyone, anywhere might be lying.)
The thing about Oregon\'s offense (and Auburn\'s too) is that it requires the quarterback to take so many hits. It\'s not an accident that their preferred quarterback has missed significant time every year for a while now. Michigan has discovered this too: Denard Robinson is an incredible talent, but you don\'t want a 190 guy taking a hit nearly every play.
The solution is to find someone bigger, someone who might be 6\'6, 250, like a certain Cam Newton or Terrelle Pryor or what-have-you. These guys tend to be recruited by just about everyone, so I suppose Oregon\'s odds are low of getting any one particular guy, but eventually a 6\'6 230 athlete from L.A. or somewhere will flip on the TV, see Oregon put up 60 against some Pac-10 school, and think to himself: "That\'s me."