Oh come on … the title is not so far-fetched! Haven’t all of us fans of Our Beloved Ducks thought about this at one time or another? There are so many positive and negative facets to consider, and I am interested in your thoughts. Where would Oregon Football be if Chip Kelly had decided to pass on the NFL? If …
If Chip Kelly were the Julius Caesar of football, or more importantly of Oregon football, then that would make Mario Cristobal Caesar Augustus. If you are not already aware of the magnificent FishDuck Repository, you should take a look at it. It has some great articles concerning the Men of Oregon, and today we are going to look at one …
There are two types of head coaches. First there are the field-commanders, who call the plays from the sideline. Oregon fans are familiar with this style of coaching, as Chip Kelly is the definition of field-commander. These coaches tend to be the flashy innovators of the sport, and Kelly’s time at Oregon exemplified this. Then there are the commander-in-chief head …
On the night of November 17, 2012 the Stanford Cardinal came into Eugene, and ripped a national championship away from the Ducks. To this day, it might be the most painful regular-season loss for the Oregon Ducks in their history. Ducks fans have experienced many painful losses, but this one especially resonates because of the implications it had. 2012 was …
Oregon started the 2020s right, beating Wisconsin 28-27 on January 1st in front of a massive crowd of more than 90,000 screaming fans. The Ducks started the previous decade in the Rose Bowl as well, falling to Ohio State. The following year they lost the BCS National Championship to Auburn, before finally getting their first bowl win of the 2010s …
Another decade of Oregon football is just about in the books. This one was a little bit different. After the long coaching tenure of Mike Belotti, the Ducks saw four different coaches at the helm: Chip Kelly, Mark Helfrich, Willie Taggart and lastly, Mario Cristobal. Each of these coaches formed their teams to have a unique identity to ensure success on …
Blur. No huddle. Hurry-up. These were the defining characteristics of Chip Kelly’s hyper-exciting offense. But was that the whole story? Kelly perfected a strategy that forced lumbering defenders to make split-second decisions in space, play after play, with little or no rest intervals. That much is clear. But what made his offense revolutionary was its relative simplicity, transferring a “shell …
In 2013, Chip Kelly walked away from Oregon football, but as it turns out, he probably should have walked away from football altogether. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, but if posterity was of the utmost importance to Kelly, had he just walked away from it all, he could have become the Jim Morrison of college football — a few …
In defense of Pac-12 Commisioner Larry Scott, he did start his tenure with guns blazing. He successfully re-branded the conference, inked a big, fat television deal, and made a bold attempt at stealing away the top Big 12 schools. He corrected several things that were long overdue for a conference that was falling behind the times under former commissioner Tom …
Mario Cristobal is not Chip Kelly. Kelly is an offensive mastermind, whose fast-paced, spread-option system took the country by storm. His innovations, matched with some of the most dynamic athletes in the game, led the Ducks to their most successful period in team history. But for all of his acclaim, Kelly couldn’t get over the hump. Although his offensive brilliance …
Coach Mario Cristobal had to be thankful that UCLA made a ton of mistakes in Chip Kelly’s return trip to Autzen Stadium. The Bruins are very young, with fewer senior starters than Oregon: one on offense and two on defense — which might account for the five turnovers and 11 penalties, not to mention a flurry of dropped passes. Cristobal …
Oregon’s football season is now just days away! The long wait is nearly over. Expectations are high for Our Heroes. Every team is undefeated now, with visions of grandeur and — of course — championships. The harsh reality for those 129 programs is that only one will obtain the brass ring. Getting to the Penthouse requires building and taking the …