Coaches as Salesmen Coach Willie Taggart inherits the legacy of the past five coaches and, as explained below, his ability to sell the program will be a major influence on its success. Signs so far should lead you to be very optimistic. A football coach sells to sets of customers. Number one, the most important, is the fan base and is …
This article by the Grizzled Ol’ Coach, Mike Morris, has been edited to conform to our protocol on the site. Words and punctuation have been added or changed to match other articles, hence not all of what you read below are precisely his words, but match his intent. Charles Fischer The Oregon defense showed excellent improvement defending the run in …
The top and bottom of the food chain is fairly easy to predict. The shark eats the minnow every time. Predicting what happens in the middle of college football’s food chain, however, is another matter. And this is the first season in ages that Oregon fans are entering with general expectations to be somewhere in the middle. Not a minnow. …
If you missed the inaugural Saturday Night Live July 29 in Autzen Stadium, you missed a great day for die-hard Ducks fans. Nevertheless, if you weren’t there, FishDuck.com still has you covered with some recruiting analyses of a few players and some other tasty tidbits. By now everyone has seen the fruits of Oregon’s SNL. Four players committed prior to the actual …
The Oregon Ducks football team signed some terrific between-the-tackles running backs in the 2017 recruiting class and certainly Mountain View, California athlete Cyrus Habibi-Likio was one of them. According to MaxPreps, Habibi-Likio carried the ball 400 times for 2,343 yards and 23 touchdowns in four years at St. Francis High School in Mountain View, Calif. He was ranked three stars …
Oregon football has a legacy of accomplished receivers. Let’s examine the attributes they have had in the past and what this year’s group needs to continue a fine tradition. We’ll look at the talent side first. Speed Fast is always good. Stretching defenses is critical, and breakaway speed does that in spades! Patrick Johnson and Sammie Parker were past burners …
The Dawg Daze effect lingers. I’m getting a little panicky. We’re running out of time to grunt, groan, and gas about the past, before lightning strikes and our Frankenstein comes back to life. Obviously, I am still shaking my head at our not-so-ducky 2016 season. It’s not helping me lose the belly fat I added trying to cushion the blows …
Charles Fischer [the head man at FishDuck.com] keeps telling me that many fans, and he, are confused about the configuration of the Oregon front 7: the defensive linemen and linebackers [LBs]. So let’s have a look. At first glance, Coach Jim Leavitt’s most used/base front, appears to be a typical 3 [linemen]-4 [LBs] defense. But the devil’s in the details; …
You are as stunned as I am. We as Oregon fans cannot believe what the Willie Taggart staff is doing with football recruiting, as we are experiencing our own recruiting Nirvana, Valhalla, Duck Elysium or whatever your description for a result often dreamed of, but never thought was possible. Our beloved Ducks have 22 verbals on August 6th, with 11 of …
SPECIAL EDITION: Please tell us your predictions below in the comments section This past week, two of FishDuck’s finest made their regular-season predictions on how many games the Ducks will win this year. On Monday, young (OK “middle-age approaching”) and fatally cocky Padawan Jedi Darren Perkins predicted that the Ducks would party like it’s 2005 and win ten games. While …
We have all been guilty of playing down a development that has huge implications by making a joke of it, or rationalizing it away. With my beloved Ducks–I’ve rationalized extensively with two out of the three Mark Helfrich recruiting classes, and I’m sure many fans are not giving much thought to the announcement earlier yesterday about moving Brenden Schooler from …
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 …