Greetings Cyclone fans. Thanks for having me on your forum.
I'm looking forward to this match up, if only because these two schools have never met. I don't have any sharp Oregon analysis for you, mostly because I think the Ducks are something of a mystery. They've not had a real opportunity to gel this season, so I agree with the poster who said ISU is the better team. Still, Oregon has quite a bit of talent, but they aren't the Sooners, that's for sure.
I can't argue with the criticism of Shough; he's been inconsistent to say the least. But to me it's the old expression "You dance with the one who brung ya." I think it would be a mistake to throw Brown out there against ISU's defense with only a handful of snaps under his belt.
I'm also not sure about Oregon being the "marquee west coast team," but I don't know if the west coast has one of those. Oregon has won four NY6 bowl games in the past decade, which is more than any other school in the west over that span. The Mark Helfrich experiment was obviously a failure, and then the Ducks had "One Year Willy" Taggart, but they seem to be on the right track with Cristobal.