Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out The czars who run college football must be ecstatic! With just a week to go in the regular college football season, the landscape is a complete mess. For the post-season lineup, there’s all sorts of room for drama, unfairness, passing out of unjust rewards, snubbing, hypocrisy — pretty much everything that we’re supposed to like about college …
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 …
Vernon Adams is a ringer. NFL scouts are stalking DeForest Buckner. His defense is creating turn-overs now and gets the ball back to Adams. Does anyone really think that the 2015 Ducks aren’t a top 5 team if Adams had stayed healthy? A five-fingered Adams completes the 4th-quarter pass to Byron Marshall against Michigan State. That’s a rematch Adams deserves. But …
When the College Football Playoff rankings were released last Tuesday, one-loss Notre Dame found itself among the top five, creating a stir, as the Fighting Irish were ranked higher than eight undefeated and all one-loss teams, except Alabama. The inevitable, and pointlessly early arguments about Notre Dame’s ranking soon began to bubble and squeak, ignoring the fact that these debates tend …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out In a football season that has certainly had its downs, the Oregon Ducks have emerged as one of the best — if not the best — teams in the conference. A national championship is out of the picture, but a return to the Rose Bowl, while highly unlikely, remains at least a mathematical possibility. That’s something nobody …
I’ll be honest. I didn’t know what to write about this week. I considered several times writing to Charles Fischer and the editors and letting them know I was out of ideas, out of articles, I could write no more, I needed a break. All told, I’ve put down five articles of more than 1,500 words each since early September and had …
A lot can happen in three games. Three games ago, Oregon’s season appeared on the brink of disaster. The Ducks were perched at 3-3, and had just lost at home to Washington State, making FCS Portland State the only team from the state of Oregon to beat the Cougars this year. If Oregon couldn’t beat Washington State, who could they beat? Were …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out As the 2015 college football season turns the corner toward the home stretch, the Oregon Ducks are finally starting to hit on at least six or seven cylinders, but as far as a playoff berth goes – it is too little too late. Still, it’s turning out to be a reasonably decent season for a year in which the …
This is a slightly shorter version of a full interview conducted with Eddie Pleasant. To read the full story, please visit Game On’s blog. Nothing came easy for Eddie Pleasant. The former Oregon Duck spent the first six years of his life growing up in Compton, one of Los Angeles’ toughest ghettos. But when Pleasant discovered his talent in football, he decided …
Vernon Adams was given an impossible task — be the quarterback who replaces Marcus Mariota. Media and fans tried to temper expectations, but it was clear from early on; no one said they expected Adams to be Mariota, but secretly they were evaluating his performance based on the same standards — winning the first Heisman Trophy in school history can …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out Reminiscent of the Joey Harrington-led Miracle in the Desert of 2000, the Oregon Ducks once again broke hearts in Tempe, Arizona with a 61-55 triple overtime win over the Arizona State Sun Devils Thursday night. In what some fans would call a rebuilding year and others would call a year to fire all the coaches, the Ducks …
Dominance is defined as “the condition of being dominant,” and to be dominant is to “occupy or be in a commanding or elevated position.” For a team to be dominant in college football is now somewhat rare, and apparently becoming more so. Regardless of how you define dominance – including which era (No. 1 ranking in a poll or polls, BCS champion, …