You know how it is; Oregon Spring games are hard to truly gauge for accuracy going forward. I could list a ton of examples from the past, but I’m sure you have experienced frustration and fascination from what has unfolded in the many Spring Games you’ve witnessed in the past. For the moment–I simply wish to give those who did …
Today, we’re going to take a look at some possibilities for the Oregon Duck offense, specifically the running game, this coming season. We’re at a point in the offseason where we don’t know a whole lot about what the coaching staff is planning for this offense. We’ve seen a couple scrimmages so far that have told us a little, but after …
The Pin and Pull is something I’ve lightly touched on twice in the past year. Once was in the article about the Oregon’s Buck Sweep play, and the other was in a piece I wrote on the Stretch play that the program started to run at the end of the season. The fact that Coach Mario Cristobal brought the scheme …
More than any other hire that the Oregon has made this off-season, I am excited about the hiring of Jim Mastro as running backs coach, whom Head Coach Mario Cristobal was able to lure away from Mike Leach and Washington State. Mastro’s biggest calling cards is that he helped Chris Ault create the Pistol Offense while at the University of Nevada. A …
The Ducks have to get better on defense. Coach Willie Taggart knows this, Coach Jim Leavitt knows this and the fans know this. Besides getting better players how do you do this? Good defense starts with taking away or limiting the opponent’s run game. The easiest offensive play is to snap the ball and hand it off. If an offense …
As a fan, there are plenty of moments of dejection and frustration watching the Oregon defense, yet there are examples of hope on the horizon from Oregon’s younger defensive players. Following the new FishDuck.com method of showing what went wrong and how the same action is applied correctly – I am excited watching the play of Keith Simms, the freshman Middle Linebacker …
The anticipation of the ShrineDog Awards always makes me happy. If you’re not familiar with this FishDuck.com original award, you may get a better explanation from the first ShrineDogs article here. Another signing period is over, so that requires me to evaluate and analyze the talent that pledged for the next three to four years to their university of choice. Of …
In last week’s analysis I investigated Oregon’s yards allowed per play, an important statistic by which defenses are measured. Although important, however, yards per play does not define a defense. So this week I continue on my quest to discover how the Oregon defense has evolved over the past decade. In future articles I intend to compare Oregon’s defense to other …
This has truly been a season of unpredictability. The Cal game turned out much different than I thought it would a month, hell, even a week ago. The good news is that things appear to be trending positively, as we all witnessed the improvement on both sides of the ball against the Golden Bears. I found some other improvements within …
In the tradition of FishDuck.com articles that make you ponder, I ask Duck fans to address questions concerning a quarterback at Oregon most have already written off: Morgan Mahalak. You will learn some new things here, and they have not come from an interview with Morgan, but from snippets of interviews with other Oregon players who have happened to mention him. There are …
Can we learn from a tough loss? In the case of last Saturday’s game, absolutely – especially with an opponent as talented as Michigan State. The Oregon game plan featured a new play variation of the new Oregon Power Play featured last week: a Quarterback Power Play. It sounds odd, considering Oregon QB Vernon Adams is on the smaller side, but let’s look …
Did it start in 2012 when the Ohio State Buckeyes robbed the Oregon Ducks of highly touted all-purpose back Dontre Wilson right under their noses? Or did it begin before that when Ohio State out-recruited Oregon for top high school prospects? Either way, the 2015 recruiting class will not be different, with the Buckeyes winning this contest by a large margin …