A vast colosseum lies brooding on the banks of a wide lazy trout-filled river. Surrounded by nothing but forest and thick grass, both barely waving in a gentle breeze under azure cloud-dappled skies. Such is the vision of Autzen Stadium from the top of Skinner’s Butte on game day in the fall. A stadium, a field, soldiers marching to battle …
Handicapping the 21st-ranked Ducks’ chances of proving prognosticators wrong. This August, preseason polls have been unkind to Oregon compared to recent years, with the Ducks ranked No. 24 in the first Associated Press poll and No. 21 by Sports Illustrated. In 2015, by comparison, the Ducks were ranked No. 7 by the AP going into the season, and in 2014 were ranked …
Twenty-one Power Five coaches won nine regular season games in 2015. Nineteen of those coaches are back with the same school this season. Of the two coaches not returning, one is Art Briles, formerly of Baylor, who was fired not for how his team’s on-field performance, but rather his team’s horrifying behavior off of it. The other nine-win coach who …
This isn’t a case of man love, but you’ve got to admit that ESPN’s Todd McShay is one handsome dude. That suit he’s wearing had to cost more than my entire clothing budget for the century so far. McShay is a former college quarterback. It was at the University of Richmond where he served on the scout team before a …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out In Mark Helfrich’s short tenure as the Ducks head football coach he’s taken a team to the national championship game, developed a Heisman winner and turned a dismal 3-3 start into a 9-3 regular season finish. Yet who gets the kudos as top Pac-12 coaches? Stanford’s David Shaw you can understand. Utah’s Kyle Whittingham? Well, he’s done …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out As reported by ESPN at the recent Pac-12 Media Days, Washington coach Chris Petersen turned the tables and begged the dogs — to not get their expectations up too high. It’s not false modesty. It’s an honest assessment from the one insider who knows the Huskies best. Petersen also knows that man’s level of satisfaction relates highly …
ALERT: The following quotes by Defensive Coordinator Brady Hoke are NOT accurate. He stated a very polite version of what you will read, and I dramatized it to make a point. (I am known for drama … but I always back it up as you will see) Coach Hoke cleared his throat and eyed the 60-70 high school football coaches …
In a recent article, Charles Fischer laid out his observations and visions for the new Oregon defense. One of his insightful takeaways was that, under Brady Hoke, we can expect to see more turnovers and shorter opponent drives. These insights inspired this article, which projects how the Oregon offense will benefit from longer time of possession TOP) and an improved turnover …
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 2015, the College Football Playoff Committee (Committee) seemingly paid no attention to strength of schedule (SOS.) The Committee, by design or lack thereof, has no standard metric to judge a team’s SOS. Accordingly, overall wins in 2015 trumped any evaluation of the quality of a team’s victories against both out of conference (OOC) and in-conference opponents. 11-1 Oklahoma with a bad …
The 2012 recruiting class for college football was full of stellar defensive line prospects that had big dreams and huge hopes of becoming the next legend for the school that each prospect signed to play for. DeForest Buckner (DeFo) was not an exception when the 6-foot-7 inch Hawaiian declared to play at the University of Oregon. He had many options …
“Whatever is the natural propensity of a person is hard to overcome. If a dog were to be made king, he would still gnaw at his shoelaces.” The Hitopadesha Although he is in the process of doing it incrementally, I certainly hope that Johnny Manziel will not confirm his father’s fear and commit suicide in one fell swoop. New Age folk will, of …
