The Great College Football Schism is Coming, and it will leave College Football divided between the Semi-Professionals, those blue bloods who have the money and recruiting ability to be apart of the two Super Conferences in the B1G and SEC, and the Traditionalists, which will be everyone else who cannot afford to put the same resources in place to compete …
The Great College Football Schism is Coming
The great college football schism is coming, and it will fracture college football in a way that will shake the very sport and institution of college athletics to its foundation. This is something that isn’t going to happen overnight and it will take years to develop — probably anywhere between five to 15 years. It will leave the sport divided …
The New Overlords of College Football
This will come as no surprise to any of you, but the NCAA is dead. It ceded away its power to the major conferences through its reluctance to complete investigations of recruiting violations in a timely fashion, not to mention SEC favoritism, where Pac-12 schools would be punished severely for violations but the SEC has gone largely ignored. Mr. FishDuck …
The Pac-12 is Geographically Isolated From the Rest of the College Football World
Recently in a John Canzano Mailbag article, he was asked whether or not the Pac-12 should consider expansion. Canzano’s answer was that the Pac-12 powers that be will talk about it, but probably not do anything about it. It will likely upset some fans who think expansion is the key to the Pac-12’s survival, but the Pac-12 doesn’t really have …
Unlimited Official Visits Will Only Make College Football Worse
College Football has always been composed of the “haves” and “have-nots” and that isn’t going to change, but there is a desire to make the sport more competitive. The transfer portal and NIL have both increased the gap between the groups, and the NCAA prepares to make yet another move to relinquish any notion that they actually govern college sports. …
What If Vernon Adams Didn’t Break His Finger in 2015?
The 2015 season saw Oregon turn to a one-year graduate transfer in Vernon Adams, and that move could have led to so much more than the 9-4 record shows. This season lived and died on Adams’ right index finger, and Mr. FishDuck lamented it with me when I pulled him away from super-sic-bo.com to discuss it. With Adams sidelined, it …
Fun Matters More than Ever for Oregon Football
The biggest thing that keeps getting repeated during spring practice is that the team is having fun again. Mario Cristobal was and still is all about the “grind” — and there is absolutely a time and place for that. However, it really does seem like Cristobal’s culture was wearing thin on the players. By contrast, Dan Lanning has breathed new …
Culture Cannot Be Just a Buzzword
In the age of NIL, culture must be more than a buzzword. Coaches love to throw around the term “culture” all the time, and each coach wants to claim his unique culture produces what it takes to win big. The reality is that there are few programs that have the culture required to win a National Championship, and that is …
It’s Time for a Real Spring Game
The Spring Game is just a glorified scrimmage. It’s something all fans know, but we still get excited about the prospect of seeing new Oregon players show off their potential. It also gives fans something to talk about after a long and uneventful February. National Signing day is over, which is even less eventful now with the early signing period …
The Targeting Rule is Not About Player Safety
The NCAA recently announced changes to the targeting rule. These changes are not yet in effect, but there will be a vote in April to adopt these proposals. In short, there are really no changes, other than that players can now appeal their suspension from a targeting penalty issued during the second half of a game to the conference. This …
80 Plays Per Game is More Than an Offensive Goal
Back on National Signing Day in early February, Offensive Coordinator Kenny Dillingham said that his Oregon offense is going to play fast and put up a lot of points, with the goal of running 80 offensive plays per game. Coach Eric Boles outlined what he thinks this up-tempo, pro-style offense may look like this upcoming year. No matter what this …
A Defense of Helfrich’s Recruiting Legacy
Mark Helfrich is generally considered the worst recruiter in modern Oregon football history. He is a coach who oversaw some of Oregon’s highest and lowest moments in the past twenty years. He was fired with a 37-16 overall record, a winning record. Most fans would say it was Helfrich’s inability to recruit that led to his demise and the demise …