More than any other hire that the Oregon has made this off-season, I am excited about the hiring of Jim Mastro as running backs coach, whom Head Coach Mario Cristobal was able to lure away from Mike Leach and Washington State. Mastro’s biggest calling cards is that he helped Chris Ault create the Pistol Offense while at the University of Nevada. A …
In the last couple weeks we have learned that Oregon’s offense going forward is going to be a mixture of what Willie Taggart brought from South Florida and the offense new play caller Marcus Arroyo helped orchestrate at Oklahoma State, with wrinkles from head coach Mario Cristobal’s days at Alabama. One of those Crimson Tide concepts is the Stretch running play. First things first, I’m going to …
This week has been a gut punch to the University of Oregon and its community. I know as well as any just how tough things have been with Willie Taggart deciding to take the Florida State head coaching position. I have defended Taggart a good number of times in my articles this season. I’ve defended his play-calling when it was …
With it being a bye week for the Oregon Ducks, I have decided to go back a couple weeks and take a look at a play Oregon used against the Utah Utes. The play is Buck Sweep, often referenced by Mr. FishDuck on the site as the Sweep Read. This is a play Gus Malzahn has famously run at Auburn; former Duck …
Against the Utah Utes, we didn’t have to wait very long to see where Braxton Burmeister’s game has improved. On the first drive of the game we saw a good amount of growth in the passing game from the young quarterback. In this analysis, we take a look at four plays in the game’s opening drive that show how Braxton is …
It hasn’t been pretty. It rarely is. Braxton Burmeister is a true freshman quarterback thrust into a starting role before he’s ready for the speed and complexity of the college game, and he has looked the part. This whole situation really started to take shape in the spring. Oregon had good depth at quarterback going into the 2017 season, and …
Dominant. If the performance of Oregon’s offensive line against California had to be summed up in one word, it would be dominant. We saw flashes from the offensive line early this season and then witnessed the hiccup against Arizona State. On Saturday night at Autzen Stadium, everything came together for the guys in the trenches. Mario Cristobal has done a fantastic job …
Something became somewhat obvious in Oregon’s first two games. Then it became crystal clear against Wyoming: Coach Taggart is going to utilize Justin Herbert’s running ability, no matter how some think the quarterback should and should not be used. Honestly, it’s a smart move. When I say that Taggart is going to use Herbert in the run game, I don’t mean this …
The wait was finally over. It was time to see what these Ducks had, after grinding through the rigors of the offseason under the command of new head coach Willie Taggart. Ducks football had arrived at Autzen, and so had the Counter Trey. The Counter Trey is something we have touched on here at FishDuck, with Coach Morris leading us through …
I was highly anticipating this year’s spring game, as it was our first look at both a new offense and defense. Coach Willie Taggart was installing his version of Oregon’s power spread offense, one that is a bit more smash-mouth than what Oregon had been doing. Then there’s Coach Jim Leavitt’s 3-4/3-3-5 hybrid defense. To be honest, I was pretty …
What is the “Two-fer” defense? It is simply looking at what everyone else calls a 4-2-5 defensive alignment, and truly following the textbook definition of how to define an alignment. Most coaches would state that the first number indicates how many defensive linemen have a hand-down, and that would mean that the defense that Coach Boles is going to review …
It has been an exciting ride ever since Oregon hired Coach Willie Taggart back in December. We’ve seen Coach Taggart put together a top notch coaching staff, and then upgrade it, pull a top 20 recruiting class with only a month on the trail, and install awesome offensive and defensive schemes. Today we’re going to focus on another play that …