A pickup basketball game between the football coaches of the University of New Hampshire and Brown University in the 1990s was the first of many meetings between two future NFL head coaches. Then-New Hampshire running backs coach Chip Kelly and a Brown assistant coach named Bill O’Brien exchanged ideas about X’s and O’s on the first of many occasions. O’Brien was …
It’s Breather Week for the Oregon Ducks, who are fresh off another easy win over Washington State. A never-in-doubt, always-in-the-bag, easy-peasy lemon-squeezy win over the Cougars — who were never in it. But, since we at FishDuck.com/imaduckfanbornandaduckfanbredandillitalicizeduntilimdead aren’t just Duck fans, but college football fans as well, we wanted to preview some of the conference games on the slate this week. …
Football Recruiting News Around four months ago, I had a conversation with an Oregon fan who’s very much in the know. Quarterback Kyler Murray (4-Star/Allen, TX/Rivals100) had just committed to Texas A&M and my mood was shot. That someone, however, told me not to fret as Murray was “still in play” and to keep a close watch on the shifty …
Well, it was my best week yet. Not by much, only three points actually, but it was enough to vault me to the very top (No. 1, baby!) of the Fans of Oregon Ducks group. Out of 2,658 people, through four weeks, I’m the cream of the crop. Out of the millions of people that play ESPN’s College Football Challenge, I’m …
Conditioning. Tempo. Team Speed. Everyone knows of these components that the Oregon Spread Offense attacks the defenses with, and it is assumed that process can be confusing for defenses in lining up during the haste before the play begins. What about the other elements of the attack that create confusion? Today we look at how one facet of the Oregon Football …
Marcus Mariota shines under pressure in conference opener The first road trip for the Oregon Ducks was not pretty despite managing to survive. Highlighted by seven sacks, the Washington State Cougars exposed Oregon’s obvious weakness in Week 4. With three starting linemen sitting out Saturday due to injuries, the Oregon running game never got going, and the health of Mariota became a concern. Luckily we have this …
There are those Duck fans with the attitude that anything less than a three touchdown win is just unacceptable, and they are heaping criticism on the Duck coaching staff. Some even go so far as to say that the only reason Oregon beat WSU was a favorable non-call on pass interference toward the end of the game. One writer even …
This is what we wanted, right? The Oregon fan’s burden has always been that there will never be enough respect for the Ducks: that the offense is a gimmick, that their schedule isn’t tough enough, largely due to playing in an underwhelming conference. They’re told the Pac-12 isn’t anywhere near as good as the mighty SEC, winner of seven of …
The Concept of Tempered Steel If you aren’t a huge science guy (I for one am not), you might mistake the process of tempering steel for hardening a metal. While increasing steel’s strength, tempering is actually all about softening a metal through the use of heat to make it more flexible. In season three of Oregon’s best quarterback in school …
The narrow loss to No. 2 Oregon wasn’t considered a statement game, according to Cougar head coach, Mike Leach, but “a step in the right direction today.” He went on to say, “I think we just need to focus on practicing and improving, but I thought we played extremely hard the entire game.” WSU dropped this well-fought battle by a score of …
These are the weekends we live for as college football fans. The drama off the field this week, however, was just as good as on the field thanks to Jameis Winston. This week showed a lot of top teams struggling for the victory while others took care of business. Let’s get into the Top-25 action from this weekend. 1. Winston needs …
What a difference a couple of games makes in our impression of the Ducks and Head Coach Mark Helfrich! With the losses to Stanford and Arizona, along with the poor momentum at the end of last season–it all pointed to a big make-or-break year in 2014 for Coach Helfrich in the eyes of many fans. I heard it often … the …
