If the nation’s 2017 No. 1 recruit, running back Najee Harris from Antioch, California, stays true to his verbal commitment to the Alabama Crimson Tide, he will follow QB Blake Barnett as another recent top-rated California high school football player opting to play for St. Nick Saban. Indeed, Blake was “committed” to Notre Dame and then to Oregon (for a nano-second) before he tripped to Alabama, was seduced by …
May rabies ravage the Dawgs and anthrax annihilate the Aggies! It’s not as if Oregon‘s Athletic Directors haven’t made a valiant effort. The Ducks once had home engagements scheduled with the Georgia Bull Dogs and the Texas A&M Aggies, only to be left at the altar by that castrated, chicken whip, canine University of Georgia, as well as being dumped …
The Oregon pitching staff has underwhelmed to say the least. None more so than Matt Krook, whose return was supposed to elevate the Ducks’ rotation to elite. The lefty has struggled with control and consistency, and two poor starts in a row have resulted in his banishment to the bullpen. Krook’s 3-3 record and 4.70 era are nothing to boast …
In 2015, the College Football Playoff Committee (Committee) seemingly paid no attention to strength of schedule (SOS.) The Committee, by design or lack thereof, has no standard metric to judge a team’s SOS. Accordingly, overall wins in 2015 trumped any evaluation of the quality of a team’s victories against both out of conference (OOC) and in-conference opponents. 11-1 Oklahoma with a bad …
The Diamond Ducks are running out of time. Head coach George Horton and his players reminded reporters on Wednesday afternoon that anything can happen in the game of baseball. It’s true that the Ducks are a paltry two games out of first place in the Pac-12. In a vacuum, that’s good news for Oregon fans. The Ducks are 6-4 in …
Oregon’s annual Spring Game will kick off the 2016/17 football pre-season for our beloved Ducks. The highly-anticipated action at Autzen Stadium should make for a very intriguing springtime Saturday. After every season another exciting group of players leaves the University to seek illustrious careers in the NFL, thus leaving us with a bunch of questions heading into the spring game. With alumni …
I was 10 years old in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik. I can tell you with certainty that Uncle Sammy’s reaction to being eclipsed technologically by the Red Menace was far more tepid than the SEC’s response to college football (CFB) satellite camps. The U.S. turned to NASA to bridge the gap. The SEC …
Oregon’s pitching has not been great. The highly touted rotation has pitched well, but has failed to reach the levels we expected back in February. The bullpen is questionable, as well. As mentioned last week, the back-end is set, but as evidenced by the madness of the Oregon State game Monday night, the long-relievers/spot starters are anything but a sure …
The 2016 preseason Top 25 college football (CFB) polls, including ESPN’s FPI rankings that we reviewed last week, are pounding down the Pac-12. In the four ‘big time’ polls, the putative 2016 champion Stanford Cardinal is ranked as follows: ESPN 8; FOX Sports 11; Sports Illustrated 11 and CBS 14. The Oregon Ducks are not ranked higher than 20 in any of these polls. …
The Ducks have pitching weapons in reserve. The heavy and light arms will have to continue to move Oregon forward until the punchless offense decides whether they are committed to the “small ball” approach of years past or if George Horton has decided to blaze a new trail for the second half of the year. Optimism about surging bats and …
Any college football (CFB) fan with anything more than a passing interest in the game knows that it is next to impossible to escape CFB’s ESPN media supremacy including The Worldwide Leader’s ubiquitous prediction machine, the Football Power Index (FPI). In the near future I will be offering up my preseason 2016 CFB Dandy Dozen; the 12 teams that I believe …
Nearly a month and a half into the season the Ducks have not flown as high as I had hoped this winter. But their performance has been more in line with what we had expected. The pitching staff has performed well and the offense is still finding their groove. After the 10-1 shellacking of Portland on Wednesday evening, there is …