Upon further review

REPLAY OFFICIALS GETTING IT RIGHT

The first quarter of the Oregon Washington game saw plenty of replay action as several plays were looked at by the replay review official in the booth.

For all of the anger that sometimes accompanies these delays, each call was right and each call was necessary. When Josh Huff stretched out towards the end zone, it was questionable whether he fumbled or whether he touched the ground. Mariota did not score on his run; and, no, conspiracy theorists can stop already, the refs did not "give" Byron Marshall the touchdown.

There was no conclusive evidence to suggest otherwise.

Avery Patterson's interception? It did touch the ground first and it was the right call to overturn the ruling on the field.

Watching the Oregon State game, there was another instance where replay made the right call as the Cougar running back clearly got the ball across the goal line before he fumbled it; the reversal was made giving Washington State a touchdown rather than a turnover.

While it may be a nuisance to have the replay delays, it is nice to see the ability of the refs to get the calls right.

PAC-12 GETS DEFENSIVE

I did an interview with Yahoo Sports Radio earlier tonight and one of the questions the host asked centered around the defenses in the Pac-12 and the intensity. He was really impressed by the defense in the Oregon game today for both teams.

I agree that the offense has seen so much of the credit in this conference for a very good reason. Defense gets overlooked far too often.

ORegon played dominant defense for most of the game against the Huskies. Though you can never "take away" plays from reality, Oregon dominated the Huskies for most of the game on defense with the exception of four plays.

Running back Bishop Sankey was responsible for three of those with runs of 60, 25 and 17 yards. Outside of those three runs, Sankey carried the ball 25 times for 65 yards. That is a strong, dominant effort against one of the nations leading rushers.

The pass defense? Oregon gave up two explosion plays of 28 yards each with one to Jaydon Mickens and the other to Austin Sefarian-Jenkins. Outside of those two throws, Keith Price went 17 of 30 for 126 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. That is a dominant pass defense.

Washington was a better team this season than last, especially on offense. But so too is Oregon better this season, especially on defense.

Defense may be the difference in this Oregon team versus teams of the past.