True freshman make it on to the field every season in college football and just about every team finds one that they expect to become a big impact player. Barring injuries or off-the-field issues, many of those players find themselves a starting position by their sophomore year assuming the depth chart ahead of them isn’t loaded. Ifo Ekpre-Olomu played …
Third. Fourth. Second. Those have been Oregon’s rankings in the final AP college football polls the last three seasons. Three consecutive years of top four finishes are impressive for any school – Oregon is only school with a current streak that length – but what would it take to finish in the top four for fifteen consecutive years? That is …
Last weekend, as the world watched Phil Mickelson stumble to another second place finish in The U.S. Open at Merion, I couldn’t help but correlate his failures to a more local team. The squad that huffs, and puffs, but can never blow the house down. It’s too soon to compare the Oregon Ducks football team to “Lefty,” who has come …
It seems like right now all we have to look forward to is hearing about lawsuits involving the NCAA and a few select schools. We are also hearing more reports of coaches trash talking one another, recruits committing to schools (even though they will flip to another school in three months) and other random things going on to entertain fans …
Kickers might be the most polarizing athletes in all of sports. Their only job is to kick the football between two goal posts, often during the fourth quarter when games are close, so the results of their kicks leave room for two possible narratives; If they make the field goal, they’re heroes. If they miss, they’re awful, disgraceful, should-be-playing-soccer scapegoats. …
There is a reason Eugene is known as Tracktown, USA. One of those reasons is that reading a list of Oregon’s Track and Field head coaches is like reading a list of who’s who in the sport. Since the track and field program was established at Oregon in 1895, there have been only seven permanent head coaches. Of those seven, …
Every week, as I approach the time to talk to you folks, I wish for just two things. I wish for the conclusion of the NCAA investigation, and for the beginning of my happy dance with full knowledge that at my age it will likely look more like this: Two weeks ago we were teased …
One of the interesting things about Chip Kelly taking over the Eagles is how connected this team is to the Pac-12. Consider the quarterback competition, which reporters back east can’t stop talking about, even though Duck fans know Kelly won’t make a decision until right before the season starts. There are five quarterbacks on the roster, though no one considers …
In Part 3 of this series on Vitamins, Minerals, and Nutritional Supplements, we will explore some of the dietary supplements used by athletes to improve performance. Future articles will continue this discussion, as a full discussion of all of them would require a very long article. In addition, many semi- and non-athletes may use these products as well. These articles …
For every Marcus Mariota, there is a Dane Ebanez, J.R. Maffie and Axel McQuaw. For every first-round draft pick there are scores of players who come to practice every day, hitting the trenches and working just as hard as the stars. Yet these players pass quietly through the hallowed halls of Oregon with little or no acclaim, sometimes without scholarships …
The huge question on defense is, who will be the leading tackler in the fall? From 2009 thru 2011, the final Oregon defensive statistics listed John Boyett as one of the top two tacklers on the team alongside Casey Matthews and Spencer Paysinger. The next season after the BCS Title game, Michael Clay, DeWitt Stuckey and Kiko Alonso stepped in for Matthews and Paysinger to rack …
Today, the college football landscape requires an exceptional amount of athleticism. Bigger players are now faster and more specialized than they used to be, and size has become a true emphasis in the game. This is proven by the recent success of SEC teams that play host to physical freaks such as Alabama’s D.J. Fluker, a 6-foot-5, 340-pound run-blocker, or …