Oregon Final Four Bound? 3-Seeded Ducks Better Than Last Year’s 1-Seed Team

Aaron Lewis Editorials

Oregon is three wins away from the Final Four. Given the Ducks have already run off 8- and 17-game winning streaks this season, the Final Four feels like the Oregon’s destiny. But we’ve been here before. The Ducks have made the Elite Eight six times, including last year, and only made the Final Four once, but that was during the FDR administration …

Ducks Basketball Falling Short of Expectations But Potential Still There

Aaron Lewis Editorials

The expectations and excitement around the Oregon basketball team coming into the season was a welcome reprieve from the disaster of a football season that unfolded this fall. Many media experts picked Oregon to make a Final Four run and even win a national title. Pollsters also put Oregon in the top five of the preseason poll for the first time ever. …

Bowl Game: Key to the Rebuild of Duck Football

Aaron Lewis Editorials

Ducks Need a Miracle to Reach Bowl Eligibility After some signs of life in a victory against ASU, the Ducks returned to playing really badly in their blowout loss to the USC Trojans. With the loss, the Ducks now sit at 3-6, their worst record through nine games since 1991, when they also sat at 3-6. No one on the Oregon football …

Ducks’ Struggles Could Cost Huskies a Playoff Spot

Aaron Lewis Editorials

For more than a decade, the Washington Huskies watched their hated rivals to the south rise to the upper echelon of college football. This rise was accompanied by the annual beating the Ducks put on the Huskies each fall for 12 straight years. As Ducks fans are painfully aware, the decade of domination over the Huskies has ended. The Ducks are 2-4 and licking …

Has Oregon Football Descended From Elite Status?

Aaron Lewis Editorials

Soul Searching Until Saturday, the idea of Oregon losing to Colorado any time in the foreseeable future was unimaginable. The Buffaloes have been the punching bag of the Pac-12 for years – the automatic win on the schedule for essentially everyone in the conference. Oregon fell to an improved Colorado team last weekend, and the football team has been doing some soul searching …

Under-the-Radar HS QBs Finding Great Success at Oregon

Aaron Lewis Editorials

Over the past couple of decades, Oregon has developed into a top Pac-12 program and a force to be reckoned with on the recruiting trail. Oregon’s unique culture, exciting style of play, success on the field, world class facilities, flashy uniforms, etc., have enabled the Ducks to pull in a number of blue-chip recruits from around the country including De’Anthony Thomas, Royce Freeman, …

Oregon So Close to Being 10-1 … or 4-6

Aaron Lewis Editorials

Through their five-game win streak, including their most recent convincing 48-28 win over USC, the Ducks have looked very much like the Ducks of the last few years — Duck teams that relied on almost unstoppable offenses and opportunistic defenses to dominate the Pac-12. Unfortunately for the Ducks, they they did not look like this through the first six games. As we fans …

Realistic Expectations for Oregon’s Last Five Games

Aaron Lewis Editorials

With the Ducks currently on a bye week and just over half-way through the season, it is a great time to reflect on the first half of the season and look forward to the final five games. Oregon Offense Through Seven Games Despite the exceptional talent at RB and WR and a solid O-line, the struggles at the QB position have slowed …

Ducks Miss on Another LB Recruit, but Future Still Bright at LB

Aaron Lewis FishWrap, FishWrap Archive

Friday evening, the Ducks experienced a blow to their recruiting momentum. Highly-recruited four-star LB Bryce Youngquist committed to the Oklahoma Sooners despite saying in June there was a “90 percent” chance that he would commit to Oregon. This comes on the heels of Oregon narrowly missing on many of their top linebacker targets in the class of 2015. More recently, in addition …

Examining the Realistic Expectations for the Ducks in 2015

Aaron Lewis FishWrap, FishWrap Archive

Expectations have become perpetually high in Eugene for the Oregon football team. The Ducks have been ranked in the top five of the preseason AP and Coaches’ Polls for each of the last four years. The Ducks have then backed up these expectations by making it to the National Championship Game twice in the last five years and by being …

Mariota Looking to Buck Trend of Ducks Busting in the NFL

Aaron Lewis FishWrap, FishWrap Archive

Former Ducks football players can be found across the NFL. Oregon even had the distinction of having more former players starting in last year’s Super Bowl than any other college team with three. Over the last 20 years, 71 Oregon players have been selected in the NFL Draft, including nine first-round picks. In the 2015 draft, Marcus Mariota became the …

College Football Needs More Non-Conference Games Between Power 5 Teams

Aaron Lewis FishWrap, FishWrap Archive

College football finally got a playoff last year, and based on the record-setting television ratings for both the semifinals and championship game,  fans really enjoyed it. The playoffs gave us what we wanted — the best college football teams in a playoff on the biggest stage. That is of course unless you were a Baylor or TCU fan which finished …