After the No. 9 Oregon Ducks (1-0) defeated the Stanford Cardinal 35-14 this past weekend in their season opener at Autzen Stadium, I kept thinking one thing: The Ducks’ future is so bright, I gotta wear shades. One of my biggest takeaways from Oregon’s much-anticipated debut was the youth of this team. According to the University of Oregon, the Ducks’ …
Read options, designed quarterback runs, multi-level RPOs, numerous deep passes … are we sure the team that wore green and yellow at Autzen last Saturday was Mario Cristobal’s Oregon Ducks? The Ducks’ offense still has the same ground-and-pound mentality that head coach Cristobal loves, but for the first time in a while, Oregon’s offense feels … creative. It has only …
Marcus Mariota is the greatest Oregon football player of all time. He won Oregon its first Heisman Trophy and still holds most of the quarterback records for Oregon. Tragically, though, Mariota suffered the all-too-frequent fate of many great college players; he was drafted early by a team that had no idea what to do with him. At Tennessee, he played in …
We have every reason to believe the Cougar Curse it is behind us. The Ducks beat Washington State last year (barely), Mike Leach has moved on, and WSU has a new head coach and starting quarterback. The Cougars seem to be descending from a certain perch of theirs. On the other hand, the Ducks are the more talented team, they’ve …
CJ Verdell is an anomaly. The junior running back has rushed for 1,000 or more yards in each of his first two seasons. Despite the high yardage total, Verdell has only just surpassed the freshman single season total of Royce Freeman, who had an astounding 18 touchdowns in his first season. Sitting at 19 career rushing touchdowns, Verdell seems to be …
I wonder if the Oregon head coach is snookering everyone, as he has the Ducks winning by a good margin against Stanford, but they didn’t look overly impressive. The offense is showing some surprises, yet mostly keeping it vanilla. The team’s superior depth from recruiting is beginning to show, but they’re not Alabama-good yet. Is this Oregon ball-coach trying to …
First, the bad news: with every football season there is uncertainty. This season is already bad. Shadowed by COVID-19, which has the potential to cancel games, or the season in the worst case, the Pac-12 schedule has been shortened to seven games and doesn’t begin until November, closer to winter than autumn. Add to this Oregon coach Mario Cristobal‘s challenge …
The idea of the Oregon Ducks perhaps adding the GoGo offense is an exciting one. As we’ve learned from Coach Mosier and Mr. FishDuck the last couple days, the GoGo is an offense that can give defenses all kinds of fits. Though the GoGo can apply substantial pressure in the run game through its unique, twin-back formations, that pressure makes …
The GoGo Offense is unlike anything you have witnessed in college football. While we know Oregon’s coaching staff has been introduced to it, whether we fans will see it this season (or ever) remains educated conjecture. But even if we don’t see the GoGo implemented at Oregon, a quick analysis of this emerging trend can only add to our collective …
Oregon fans have heard much this off-season about the innovative, up-tempo Run-Pass-Option (RPO) offense new offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead ran at Fordham (picture above), Penn State and Mississippi State. Yet I believe there is a possibility of even more innovation by Coach Moorhead this season in the form of the GoGo Offense, an entirely new offense that correlates with the objectives of …
I never thought I would do this, but, I’m going to apply Bob Dylan to sports. (Stick with me, folks!) As Dylan once sang, “Oh the times, they are a-changin’.“ As talk of an amendment to the NCAA’s transfer rules heats up, Dylan’s words may prove more true than ever. In a move that could rock college sports to the …
This Halloween weekend took me down memory lane over 20 years ago to my final year of college in Eugene. There was a big Halloween Party that all my friends were going to, but I had to work until 10 pm that night at my part-time restaurant job. When ten o’clock hit I flew out the door, sped home, threw …