Despite losing to Stanford this past week, Oregon still has a legitimate shot to make the College Football Playoff this year. I know many of you may assume it’s time to pump the breaks on this notion, and as we have talked about at FishDuck for a fair bit now, the Oregon community buzz is falling away from the program …
As the 1960s were exploding with counter-culture social awareness across the United States, Buffalo Springfield’s For What It is Worth proffered, Something’s happening here, What it is ain’t exactly clear. While 2020 certainly isn’t the 1960s, and we’re far removed from the Vietnam War and concurrent cultural revolution the Springfield’s Stephen Stills sang about, his words could easily describe an interesting trend in …
The Pac-12 conference has been left out of the playoff again. That is news to no one. The conference’s best bowl game will be the Rose Bowl, featuring 9-3 champion Washington. The Pac-12 is the only conference without either multiple “New Years Six” bowl teams or a team in the College Football Playoff. The case could be made that since Marcus Mariota left Oregon, there hasn’t been …
There isn’t a single college football team in history that has had great seasons year in and year out. Although I have run into several fans who seem to think their team has always been great and can do no wrong (I’m looking at you, Bama and OSU fans), it simply isn’t true. Every elite team goes through cycles of …
Oregon football is having a down year, one the likes of Duck fans have not seen since 2004. College football is cyclical, competitive and a zero-sum game. So ‘down’ years, although tough to go through in present time, are going to happen. It is what a program learns and adapts to that make those downturns minimal. One program that has been …
The 2016 preseason Top 25 college football (CFB) polls, including ESPN’s FPI rankings that we reviewed last week, are pounding down the Pac-12. In the four ‘big time’ polls, the putative 2016 champion Stanford Cardinal is ranked as follows: ESPN 8; FOX Sports 11; Sports Illustrated 11 and CBS 14. The Oregon Ducks are not ranked higher than 20 in any of these polls. …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out No bones about it, the 2015 football season freaked out its share of Oregon football fans, proving that there’s a difference between living in the present – which calls for focusing on doing your best — and getting caught up in the moment – which calls for abandoning all rational thought. Despite the sluggish start and mid-season …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out It’s incredible and yet it’s still surprising. Beating Georgia State, 61-28, using a generous helping of second, third and fourth stringers just wasn’t enough blood for too many fans. What seems to be forgotten is that September 19 is still fairly early in the season. We’re still only half way to the selection committee’s first way-too-early declaration …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out For Duck football fans, it used to be about beating the Beavers and the Huskies. Then it moved on to being about winning the Pac-10/12. Now with a Heisman in the trophy case, there’s just one bridge to cross to garner total respect: a national championship. That brings up a new group of rivals, most notably Ohio …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out Ordinarily, when a reputable football news source publishes bowl projections or preseason rankings, you’d say the predictions were “released.” This past week, Athlon Sports published its preseason Top-25 and final four lists, and there’s no way these things were released, not even with a locked-on ankle bracelet. Athlon tabbed Ohio State, Auburn, Alabama and Baylor as its preseason …
The Oregon Ducks football team is one of only a few NCAA teams using a high-tech GPS device for training and practicing purposes called the Catapult. This device helps coaches and trainers keep track of their athletes in ways that haven’t been possible until now. So, you’re wondering what the Catapult is. Well, the product’s website catapultsports.com says, “Catapult is a physiological/biological monitoring …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out To nobody’s surprise, the present four-team playoff system is proving to be at best a Band-Aid to stop the bleeding until a real solution is in place to crown a national champion in Division I-A football. Right or wrong, there seems to be a semblance of consensus over the top three teams, but it’s a train wreck …