Oregon beat Stanford on Saturday, and the result was never really in doubt … Well, to everyone except Stanford Head Coach David Shaw, apparently. Shaw didn’t think that his team was far from pulling off the upset, opening his press conference by saying: “The game boils down to five or six plays, and the score will look like we’re not …
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 …
There’s been a lot of grousing about preseason rankings and critics. When did Ducks fans develop such a thin skin? Rather than pound the table, I say bring it on. To the national pundits we’re known as the Blur or Track Town, USA. Speed may impress, but it doesn’t always earn long-term respect. We hear it all the time. They …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out My first direct contact with a big-time football coach came in fall of 1966 when John Robinson — then an assistant at Oregon — blessed us incoming freshmen swimmers with a pep talk. It was all about what a great athletic family the Ducks were. With a fist waving in the air, Robinson declared that when you …
*Please note that this story is completely fictitious, and meant to be nothing more than a satirical look at the Conference of Champions. Any and all references, conversations, and situational humor is strictly fiction, and in no way depicts any actual situations that have occurred in real life. This was done as a collaboration by FishDuck.com writers Caleb Couturie and …
The Stanford Cardinal come to Autzen Stadium this week, in search of their third consecutive victory over our Oregon Ducks. FishDuck.com/whatdoesittaketogetintheSECWest is, of course, not willing to take that lying down. So we dug up some interesting information. Some of it is true. Some of it is rumors. Some of it was dreamed by Charles Fischer when he got into …
A couple of years ago, as Andrew Luck suffered another 20-plus point defeat to the Oregon Ducks at Stanford Stadium, a familiar statement was circulating around that “Stanford has an Oregon problem.” Of course, this refers to the fact that Stanford, but for a loss to Oregon in two consecutive years, would have been in the BCS National Championship Game. …
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Pac-12 is one of the best conferences in the country. The conference has changed vastly since its conception, but one thing has always stayed the same: winning. With the addition of Utah and Colorado three years ago (how time flies), the Pac-12 was split into two divisions: North and South. Though the North …
Chicago, Ill. September 3, 2015 — Saturday’s matchup between last year’s Pac-12 Northern Division runner-up Stanford and Northwestern has been canceled due to Stanford’s refusal to cross union picket lines that were established when the Northwestern Organization for Growth of Immense Revenues for Labor in Sports (NOGIRLS) voted to strike. In a complex chain of events, a Seventh Circuit federal …
After three-and-half quarters of domination, the Stanford Cardinal barely outlasted a furious Oregon comeback, to win 26-20. Coach David Shaw said “in the back of my mind, all of us, everybody in this room, you all know they were going to make a run. That’s who this team is. We were ready for it, we knew it was going to …
Next man up. That mantra doesn’t apply only to the roster, it applies to Oregon’s coaching staff as well. 1977 was the last time the Ducks didn’t hire their previous offensive coordinator to fill their head coaching vacancy. On Sunday, Mark Helfrich became the latest one to follow that path, and in doing so allowed a staff that had previously …