As a fellow fan, it’s tough to lose a game – especially the way the Nebraska game transpired. Nonetheless, we wish to continue to build the “Oregon Playbook” within FishDuck.com and continue to learn from the evolution of the Oregon Spread Offense. There are ongoing permutations off of fundamental plays such as the Sweep Read, which we wish to identify and understand …
In keeping with our announcement of shifting the site toward more total analysis (including the bad plays to learn from), I offer a brutal assessment of the Oregon football team from Mike Morris (the Grizzled Ol’ Coach). Charles Fischer What I saw: Probably like most of you, the Ducks defense surprised me only in the number of points [not] allowed, and the offense …
I’m still flummoxed that the Cornhuskers ever hired Mike Riley. He seems likeable enough but, even as the winningest coach in Oregon State’s storied football history, one struggles to call him a “successful coach” by any meaningful measure. When the Cornhuskers needed an institutional change from Bo Pelini, whose worst season was 9-4, Mike Riley did not jump to mind; at …
With the exception of a few lightning-in-a-bottle plays, the only thing electric on the field Saturday night was the Ducks‘ yellow uniforms. Against an over matched Virginia Cavalier team, the offense looked anemic in the second half, and the defense was pedestrian for most of the game. The victory was hardly ever in doubt, but with the clock winding down …
Given that the landscape of the Pac-12 has changed so dramatically it’s worthwhile to dive into the schedule and attempt to project the teams that will present the stiffest tests for Oregon. We lost to Washington State at home last year but so far this year they look like a train wreck. The teams at the bottom of the Pac-12 (Colorado, …
Spoiled. Of the hundreds of words spoken on that show, it was the one that resonated. Yet, unlike most sports talk shows, that label wasn’t thrown at a player, but this time aimed at fans. Not the fans of the opposing team, either, but the very fans of the team around which the program centered. It was an episode of CSNNW’s ”Talkin’ …
Seventeen years ago, the Ducks football team changed its identity. With a new uniform redesign courtesy of Nike, head coach Mike Bellotti’s troops began the 1999 season looking very different from Duck teams of seasons past. Gone was the interlocking “UO” logo on the helmet in favor of the elegant “O” insignia that remains today. Gone were the yellow pants …
The Oregon offense under head coach Mark Helfrich continues to progress and add new components to keep its attack fresh. I was pretty surprised to see a new play that seemed to have elements of an Outside Zone Read combined with a Power Play, and the Grizzled Ol’ Coach identified it as the Inverted Veer play! It was made famous …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out After a rousing win over the Idaho Vandals this past weekend, our purple friends of the north moved up two places in the Coaches Poll to the # 9 slot, while maintaining the # 8 position in the AP Poll. Oregon continues to get mixed, minced, sliced, diced and chewed for imperfections, but the pollsters just keep …
I admit it. I am one of those spoiled Oregon fans that others write so negatively of. I don’t just want to win … I want Oregon to win big and when they don’t, I am disappointed. However, since I began this website I’ve been able to view the Ducks through the prism of a 30-year ticket holder and one …
For the second consecutive season the Ducks are being led not by someone recruited to Oregon, but by a transfer. Not by someone who came in as a 17 or 18-year-old who learned the system from the ground up. Not by someone who’s knowledge of the Oregon offense was built systematically, step-by-step, day-by-day, little-by-little, until it became second nature. No, …
There is no substitute for hard work and preparation, and if anyone is the perfect Week 1 embodiment of this mantra it is true freshman linebacker Troy Dye. Dye wasted no time making an impact in his first collegiate game, loudly introducing himself to the UC Davis backfield and the yellow-clad Oregon fan base with back-to-back tackles on the fifth and …