It was 5:12 in the evening on New Year’s Day, with the sun beginning to set over Pasadena and the San Gabriel mountains. The sun also seemed to be setting on Oregon’s hopes of winning the 106th Rose Bowl. But in a dramatic turn of events than now ranks with the great moments in Ducks football history—unfolding in less than …
My friends, on Mario Cristobal‘s coffee table in his office in the Mo Center is a big book about Oregon football history that was written by Brian Libby, a professional writer who contributes a guest article from time to time to FishDuck.com. He gives us a perspective that few can, with his incredible knowledge of Our Beloved Ducks. He is …
Remember the Chicago Bears? They’re that team that’s been to the playoffs once in the last decade, right? You know, the guys who haven’t had a Pro Bowl quarterback since Jim McMahon in 1985? Well, this year you can also call the Chicago Bears one of the most improved teams in the NFL. In particular, you may notice a host …
When Oregon unveiled its 2018 uniforms a few days ago, it was not just a fresh look to christen the Mario Cristobal era. It was coming full circle. Which, if you think about it, is appropriate for a team with an O logo. Oregon’s uniform odyssey began twenty years ago this December. On a beach in Honolulu a few days …
If you look at Oregon’s current 5-5 record this season under Willie Taggart and think the results of last two games on the schedule don’t really matter, think again. Better yet, think back to a fateful moment in Oregon football history: December 16, 1989. Playing in the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl that cold evening in Shreveport, Louisiana, the Ducks …
Watching this college football season play out, be it Oregon‘s collapse or the rise of teams like Washington and Nebraska, I was reminded that there have always been two ways of looking at the world. In the west, where monotheistic religions (Christianity and Judaism) are the most common, we traditionally believe that time is linear: a one-way progression of history. …
Imagine the horror: your team has patiently built itself from its historically-mediocre origins to become one of the nation’s elite, with a succession of conference titles and high NFL draft picks, when one year suddenly everything falls apart. Your genius coach is gone and his successor is suddenly, after years of riding the coattails, struggling just to post a winning …
Seventeen years ago, the Ducks football team changed its identity. With a new uniform redesign courtesy of Nike, head coach Mike Bellotti’s troops began the 1999 season looking very different from Duck teams of seasons past. Gone was the interlocking “UO” logo on the helmet in favor of the elegant “O” insignia that remains today. Gone were the yellow pants …
Handicapping the 21st-ranked Ducks’ chances of proving prognosticators wrong. This August, preseason polls have been unkind to Oregon compared to recent years, with the Ducks ranked No. 24 in the first Associated Press poll and No. 21 by Sports Illustrated. In 2015, by comparison, the Ducks were ranked No. 7 by the AP going into the season, and in 2014 were ranked …
Although Oregon has now been a winning program for more than 25 years (dating to the 1989 Independence Bowl season), and much of that success has been due to the continuity of its coaching staff — with assistants like Don Pellum, Steve Greatwood and John Neal‘s tenures stretching across multiple head coaching regimes — there have always been necessary course …
When Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston said after last year’s Rose Bowl that the blowout game could have gone either way, it was laughable. When Georgia State’s players and head coach talked after today’s game about having an opportunity in the second half to make a comeback against the Ducks, it was hard to deny. Though undone by four turnovers, …
In yesterday’s article, we began the process of ranking Oregon’s 25 greatest teams. Today, we look at the best of the best: the top 10. Debate online about which Ducks football team is the greatest has been, as one might expect, mixed. In an Oregonian poll last month before the national title game, an overwhelming majority (65 percent) picked 2014 …