Good gosh! How many times have we been aggressive and bold in our predictions at FishDuck.com and consequently been skewered by other sites … only to be proven correct in the end? I have quite a list of those, and a new item appeared on the list this week with our own Justin Herbert being selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. Let’s set the scene as a former writer, the Grizzled Ol’ Coach, and I went to a fall scrimmage, where we expected to see a veteran transfer at quarterback guide the team along with a number of other QB hopefuls for the future.
Buried in the QB depth chart was the freshman Herbert. Below is what the Grizzled Ol’ Coach wrote in August of 2016 with, the full article right here for those who wish to see comments about other players. Many of the players in the article turned out to be celebrated busts, which makes reading about them so much more interesting.
Remember Dakota Prukop?
“I’ve seen the Ducks’ next 1st-round draft pick QB, and he’s a true freshman. Dakota Prukop, Travis Jonsen and Terry Wilson looked like I thought they would, as they are very talented, but there is still a lot of room to get better. Some excellent plays by them were mixed in with (probably too many) mistakes. There is good-to-excellent potential among them, which is about what I expected.
On the other hand, Justin Herbert, (6-6, 225, true freshman) was incredible, especially considering his amount of practice time. But, even if he were a veteran, I’d have thought he was the best of the Duck QBs. The dude is simply incredibly smooth and flawless, and he just didn’t make any mistakes. He has the best arm out there, and for this one day at least, the most poise and decision-making ability of any of the QBs. And I haven’t even mentioned his running ability, which he strongly displayed in an early drill period.
When FishDuck asked me for a comparison, I said, ‘A bigger, much faster version of Jared Goff,‘… and we all know what happened to him! Can/should he start or burn his redshirt year? He was running with the two’s for the entire practice… A very similar guy from Hawaii, whose initials are M.M., had to redshirt.”
2016 was a tough year for a freshman quarterback and Oregon football.
There is an owner of another website out there that focuses on recruiting, and when he saw that headline and article in a message board thread, he declared that such talk was “just silly.” Of course, he was the guru that everyone worshiped. We know the rest of the story, as Herbert became an eventual starter that season, and now with what transpired this week, the vindication for me is fun. It is not brave to report things when they become obvious; it takes guts to go out on a limb and make a bold prediction as we did here.
It may not be very noble, but you have to toot your own horn because nobody else is going to!
Covering Our Beloved Ducks During COVID-19: Back to the Future?
Let’s face it…this is a tough time as a writer on this site because we enjoy doing Opinion-Editorial articles to express our thoughts, and also to enjoy the banter with the readers. However without a Spring Game and all the football information that would have surfaced, Op-Ed subjects are about as numerous as the number of times a University of Washington COVID-19 Model was correct. There just is not enough material to write six of these types of articles per week (Analysis being the seventh is on every Thursday), thus we have to call an audible at FishDuck.com.
Since we have been publishing for over eight years, we know what works and the particular profiles of types of articles to run. Again, we are not Sports News as other sites are, but we simply wish to discuss what is going on in the Oregon world of sports. So we are turning to articles that would not be as popular during the season, but do exceptionally well during the off-season, when there is less material to discuss due to fewer sports events going on.
And that is especially true now…
Reuben Droughns will be in the house!
New/Old Topics that are TASTY?
So beginning this next week you will see fewer opinion articles, more about recruiting in terms of players signed last February, and what I call “Redshirt Reviews” where we delve into the players who signed with Oregon in February of 2019. They may have redshirted completely or played in fewer than five games, thus we probably don’t recall much about them. Our objective is to re-introduce them, renew their recruiting story, their anticipated position with the Ducks, how they’re doing now, etc.
We are also going to have some history articles by Jerry Thompson and Jim Maloney, as both of these have contributed articles in the section of the Oregon Football Repository titled “History of Oregon Football.” There are some interesting periods in the past that I do not believe have been covered before, and it will be fun to examine them during a time when there are few other tidbits available about Oregon sports.
For a diversion from reality, this site will allow all of us to retreat into our “Duck-Bubble” and escape the scary stuff and have some fun for a short time each day. This schedule will run up through September 1, and once we know the future beyond that, I’ll plan the schedule for the site accordingly.
Mase Funa is a player I want to learn more about!
Sign Up for the New Commenting System Coming Soon!
I am delaying the release of our own forum, the Our Beloved Ducks Board, until we have a football season. My reasoning? If we have trouble finding material to write just one article a day now, how will we have enough topics for daily discussion on a message board? There is nothing worse than a dead message board…
So our transition away from the frequently malfunctioning Disqus system and to our own needed to happen with a new message board/forum eventually, so why not implement it for the comments below the articles now? Consequently, we will have a signup in the near future for the new commenting system, which will also automatically plug in later with the new forum. It will be good to get the kinks out ahead of time, so do keep an eye out for the signup.
I wish to congratulate this wonderful Duck community as we had only 26 comments deleted in the first quarter of this year out of 5,189 total comments. While it would sound like Mr. FishDuck deleting 26 comments in three months is quite a bit, this deletion rate is only half of 1% of all comments/posts written. This is superb and shows again why I focus on protecting the 99% and not worrying about the less than 1% who cannot exert impulse control. We have something special here!
Bottom line is that the big plans I have for the site will happen; the only question is when due to the COVID-19 crisis. We will have football again, and when we do, things at this site will really blast off. I urge you to be along for the ride!
“Oh how we love to discuss Our Beloved Ducks!”
Charles Fischer (FishDuck)
Eugene, Oregon
Top Photo from ESPN Video
Bob Rodes, the FishDuck.com Volunteer editor for this article, is an IT analyst, software developer and amateur classical pianist in Manchester, Tennessee.
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Charles Fischer has been an intense fan of the Ducks, a season ticket holder at Autzen Stadium for 38 years and has written reports on football boards for over 26 years. Known as “FishDuck” on those boards, he is acknowledged for providing intense detail in his scrimmage reports, and in his Xs and Os play analyses. He is single, has a daughter Christine, and resides in Eugene Oregon where he was a Financial Advisor for 36 years.
He now focuses full-time on Charitable Planned Giving Workshops for churches and non-profit organizations in addition to managing his two Oregon Football Websites, of FishDuck.com and the Our Beloved Ducks forum. He is a busy man!
He does not profess to be a coach or analyst, but simply a “hack” that enjoys sharing what he has learned and invites others to correct or add to this body of Oregon Football! See More…