The Oregon Ducks football team is a family. This is something stated often, the family atmosphere that surrounds the football program and its connection to the community. It’s an easy thing to claim, but difficult to fully comprehend until seen first-hand. It starts at the top, with the majority of the Oregon Ducks coaching staff having been a part of …
Kevin, the chief writer and editor of College Football Zealots, a southern-leaning football blog that covers the nation, sent me an email the other day with six questions on the Ducks: 1. Oregon has to replace a lot of starters on the front seven of their defense. Who are some of the new starters that will need to step up …
Football is a beautiful game, complex in nature and thrilling to watch. It is also an ugly game, one that pulls at every emotion while brutally wreaking havoc on the body physically and mentally. For the participants, they work year round for that opportunity to perform; for the fans we anxiously anticipate all year those few days when we can …
“So much for elbow room,” says my friend I.C. Green as we watch Oregon’s morning practice wind down from the soccer stands at Kilkenny Field. “I remember when there were only three or four of us at fall camp. Rich Brooks used to come over and chat us up. How times have changed. “But at least then we were standing …
Tennessee Titans backup quarterback Chris Simms has pleaded not guilty to driving while under the influence of illicit drugs, in this case marijuana. On Tuesday, in a lower Manhattan court room, a police officer told jurors that on July 1, 2010, at around 1:00 a.m., Simms made a “tire-squealing “turn” just before a police sobriety checkpoint in lower Manhattan. The …
Well here we go, we’re under 2 million seconds (1,296,000) until football season starts, and the tension continues to build as we wait for the Ducks to take the field in Dallas. LSU Defense Let’s just jump right into it; the biggest point of debate is Oregon’s undersized offensive line against LSU’s physical and fast defensive line. The most notable …
He tore the labrum in the third week of summer workouts in 2008, getting tangled up with a safety. It was never completely right after that. He greyshirted that year, enrolled Winter Term of 2009. He shined in Spring Practice, nabbing three balls for 111 yards in the 2009 Spring Game. One of Oregon’s first recruits from Texas along with …
It had been a time of great suffering, 26 years to be exact, since Oregon had last played in a bowl game. There had been opportunities, but the heartbreaking trend known as “Duck-Luck” repeatedly reared its ugly head preventing Oregon from elevating itself above the mire; unfortunate injures or odd circumstance always getting in the way. For a time Oregon …
It’s inevitable when you write about football for a passionate audience, and the team you cover plays in a big intersectional game: the flamers come out of the woodwork. What I can’t stand are the big-bellied guffaws and quick assumptions, stuff like “y’all don’t understand that football is won in the trenches. Your team doesn’t have the strength and size to compete …
I find myself asking this question way too often these days, “is it football season yet?” Like a scratched record or kid in the backseat on a family roadtrip, this line gets repeated far too often as the clock winds painfully slow towards kickoff. If you were to ask me what my fondest memories of growing up with Autzen stadium …
In Oregon we have our natural cycle of summer transformations, of the warmth with the lush green vegetation everywhere that will begin to change. We see the geese begin going south, and we now see Duck fans flocking to Eugene to live the beginning of our football season. For many of us—we cannot help ourselves, as it has become part …
Katelynn Johnson can still be spotted on the sidelines of football stadiums. Her infectious laugh remains. So does her unflagging energy. But no more pom-poms. No more whipping up the home crowd. No more green and yellow and black and gray (at least not in public). Now, it’s all about microphones and cameras and joshing with fans of every stripe. …