[Goose]

Play action only works when the defense fears your running game and feels the need to bring a safety up to help deal with it.  We're not there yet. 

Very True. We were "there" early in the year (SDSU, SC) based on last year's performance. The box was "full". Costello showed he could beat that look, but our run game wasn't doing anything. Defenses started to react to this fact.  Oregon mixed things up more, and didn't put 8 in the box all the time. However, we still got lots of one on one coverage. There wasn't much reason for this, as our run game wasn't going to bring us back from the deficit we were in. Probably Oregon's DBs were just not good enough to cover our receivers even with safety help, and you have to single up somewhere. Notre Dame played it much more straight up, because they felt they could handle our run game with less safety support. They also had better (and bigger) DBs. As the game went on, we were behind and Love got hurt. Our OL wasn't blocking anybody, so ND didn't stack the box at all anymore and KJ was throwing into coverage.
We are going to see lots more pass defense and less run defense until we prove all over again that we can run the ball. Play action is totally ineffective if nobody on the defense is afraid of your running game and both safeties are playing pass. They aren't going to buy the run action, figuring the front seven can do the job if you are actually going to run the ball.  Until you prove that isn't so, there will be no hesitation in the defensive backfield caused by run action.
Equally importantly, if you can't block the DL, it doesn't matter much what you call. It isn't going anyplace.

[Goose]

Play action only works when the defense fears your running game and feels the need to bring a safety up to help deal with it.  We're not there yet. 

Very True. We were "there" early in the year (SDSU, SC) based on last year's performance. The box was "full". Costello showed he could beat that look, but our run game wasn't doing anything. Defenses started to react to this fact.  Oregon mixed things up more, and didn't put 8 in the box all the time. However, we still got lots of one on one coverage. There wasn't much reason for this, as our run game wasn't going to bring us back from the deficit we were in. Probably Oregon's DBs were just not good enough to cover our receivers even with safety help, and you have to single up somewhere. Notre Dame played it much more straight up, because they felt they could handle our run game with less safety support. They also had better (and bigger) DBs. As the game went on, we were behind and Love got hurt. Our OL wasn't blocking anybody, so ND didn't stack the box at all anymore and KJ was throwing into coverage.
We are going to see lots more pass defense and less run defense until we prove all over again that we can run the ball. Play action is totally ineffective if nobody on the defense is afraid of your running game and both safeties are playing pass. They aren't going to buy the run action, figuring the front seven can do the job if you are actually going to run the ball.  Until you prove that isn't so, there will be no hesitation in the defensive backfield caused by run action.
Equally importantly, if you can't block the DL, it doesn't matter much what you call. It isn't going anyplace.