Good:

• Duck fans normally wouldn’t consider a missed game by De’Anthony Thomas a positive thing, but for this week, it might actually be beneficial. On Tuesday, multiple sources — including running backs coach Gary Campbell — said Thomas will miss Saturday’s game against Colorado. Accounting for Boulder’s high elevation and the fact that Oregon is heavily-favored to beat the Buffaloes, resting the week before the Ducks’ big showdown against Washington could possibly be the best thing for Thomas and his team. After Colorado, Oregon’s schedule gets extremely tough, so having a rested Thomas could only help them.
• Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams were ranked in the top 5 of the latest USTFCCCA National Coaches poll. The women actually dropped two spots from No. 3 to No. 5, but the men jumped eight places to No. 4, coming on the heels of a dominant performance at last weekend’s Boston College Cross Country Invitational. The men’s team hadn’t been ranked this high since 2011.
• For the first time in 21 years, the Pittsburgh Pirates competed in a playoff game. They didn’t just make a postseason appearance, though, they won their Wild Card game 6-2 over the Cincinnati Reds in front of an electric Pittsburgh crowd at PNC Park. Pirates catcher Russell Martin hit two home runs and starting pitcher Francisco Liriano pitched seven strong innings to lift their team to the National League Division Series, where they’ll play NL Central rival St. Louis in a five-game series starting Thursday.

Bad

• It was announced that next week’s Oregon-Washington game will kick-off at 1 p.m. Pacific Time. That time isn’t too early, by any means, but many Ducks fans would likely prefer a game in primetime. Saturday is a prime sleep-in day, after all. One positive about the 1 p.m. start time is that fans will have plenty of time to celebrate after the game if the Ducks beat the Huskies, but imagine if they had all day to get pumped up for it.
• California’s Jared Goff might have lost his starting quarterback job after playing an awful first quarter against Oregon this past Saturday. The depth chart Cal released on Tuesday lists Goff or Zach Kline — who replaced Goff during Saturday’s game — as the top QB, meaning either player could start against Washington State this upcoming Saturday. Going into the game against Oregon, Goff was near the top in all of college football in passing yards.

Ugly

• The National Football League’s took another hit to its image regarding the ongoing concussion issue. In their new book entitled ”League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth,” authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru reported that the NFL denied any connection between playing football and brain damage. The league, according to the book, went great lengths to keep the public from knowing the true effects football had on players’ brains. The NFL’s strategies included discrediting  results discovered by independent scientists and using flawed research to show that the violence of football didn’t cause any major brain issues in their players.