Mr. Hondo Carpenter of the website SpartanNation.com contacted me for an interview about the upcoming Michigan State-Oregon football game on September 6th. This website has a network of television and radio stations it is associated with. There are improvements I can make, but considering I am not a radio professional — I thought it went well. My game plan is get interviewed …
DeForest Buckner: A New All-American Emerging?
There are some interesting defensive tactics that appeared in the Alamo Bowl win in addition to the continued emergence of DeForest Buckner on the defensive line. His star has been rising and the trendline of his growth manifested itself again in the Oregon Spring Game. Let’s look at what he is doing so well, and how Defensive Coordinator Don Pellum …
An Elite Showdown: Anthony Barr vs Tyler Johnstone
One of the great unknown elite match-ups of the 2013 season pitted the UCLA All-American and 9th pick in the NFL draft, Anthony Barr against Oregon’s Tyler Johnstone. As the game approached, I was worried about the protection of Marcus Mariota’s blindside, and yet I knew it would be quite entertaining to examine in slo-mo later. Barr was picked early …
Oregon’s Preparations for Stanford in the Spring
The window for us fans that is the Spring Game revealed much more this year than many would believe as I too had a hard time fathoming what I was seeing on the field from Head Coach Mark Helfrich. Just as he has been aggressive in recruiting and charging ahead faster than previous coaches in pursuing recruits–he is doing the …
The FishDuck.com 2014 Spring Game Analysis
By Charles Fischer and the “Grizzled Ol’ Coach” Mike Morris We have ALL been fooled by Spring Games of the past, as players who starred in these May games would not ever see the light of day on the football field in the fall – or they transferred out. Yet other times they have shown us glimpses of the potential some of …
An Oregon Unknown: No Duck Coach Better Than Mark Helfrich — EVER
The name tag at the Oregon Coaches Clinic simply said, “Charles Fischer,” and the staff kind of smirked at me as I picked up the intro packet before the first speaker began. I was surprised at the brevity of my ID considering that all the other attendees had their name, and the high school they coached at, written on their …
An Oregon Unknown: The Trap Play That Never Was …
Every team has a “Trap” play in it’s offense, and as a high school offensive lineman I loved to pull in a “Tackle Trap” and nail the first defensive lineman who showed up in front of me. You blast them from the side, and usually you have caught them by complete surprise. It seemed like such a natural play for the …
Can You FORGIVE Mark Helfrich?
We, as loyal and dedicated Oregon fans, are all still going through a mental transition from Chip Kelly to Mark Helfrich, and for most of us it has been difficult and even illuminating our true nature of being an Oregon fan, learning about ourselves within this conversion. Never has Oregon had such a charismatic and successful coach who went on to storm …
Recruiting Methodology Drills Deep at Oregon
Coach Mark Helfrich pulled the curtain aside for just a moment recently to let Oregon fans get a glimpse of some of the deeper recruiting strategies implemented by Oregon football. We know how Chip Kelly began a much more intense ‘vetting process’ when he became HC, but it has become apparent that Mark Helfrich has stepped it up even further. …
Two Recruiting Revelations That Surprised FishDuck
We all know of them, the “Web Wackos” who post crazy stuff about Oregon football on the major recruiting message boards. You would think they had never experienced a recruiting season before, and perhaps for some of the 14-year-olds posting (in maturity, if not biological), that is true. Sitting at the recruiting luncheon in Eugene, Oregon, a week ago made …
The BEST Zone Blocking Analysis on the Web
Coach Levi Steier gave us an analysis of Zone Blocking that had been a regular article in our “FishWrap” in the past. It was such an extraordinary article that I placed it in our Offensive Tutorials in the “Directory” (tab at top of site) and tons of coaching sites found it. I was astounded to see the year end …
Taylor Hart’s MONSTER Two-Gap Alamo Bowl
Everyone knows that linebackers get the bulk of the tackles in a game, thus it was huge surprise to learn that Taylor Hart was Oregon’s leading tackler in the Alamo Bowl, in what was his pinnacle career game with the Ducks. I consulted with one of the members of the Coaching Team at FishDuck.com to learn HOW Taylor pulled off such …