The Oregon offense under head coach Mark Helfrich continues to progress and add new components to keep its attack fresh. I was pretty surprised to see a new play that seemed to have elements of an Outside Zone Read combined with a Power Play, and the Grizzled Ol’ Coach identified it as the Inverted Veer play! It was made famous …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out After a rousing win over the Idaho Vandals this past weekend, our purple friends of the north moved up two places in the Coaches Poll to the # 9 slot, while maintaining the # 8 position in the AP Poll. Oregon continues to get mixed, minced, sliced, diced and chewed for imperfections, but the pollsters just keep …
I admit it. I am one of those spoiled Oregon fans that others write so negatively of. I don’t just want to win … I want Oregon to win big and when they don’t, I am disappointed. However, since I began this website I’ve been able to view the Ducks through the prism of a 30-year ticket holder and one …
For the second consecutive season the Ducks are being led not by someone recruited to Oregon, but by a transfer. Not by someone who came in as a 17 or 18-year-old who learned the system from the ground up. Not by someone who’s knowledge of the Oregon offense was built systematically, step-by-step, day-by-day, little-by-little, until it became second nature. No, …
Don’t kid yourself into thinking any concrete conclusions can be drawn from one week of college football. That said, Pac-12 foundations were poured from Eugene to College Station, Seattle to Sydney. The concrete is still soupy but with the right reinforcements Oregon has a legitimate shot at the Pac-12 … If No.1: If the Pac-12 conference continues to look mediocre … …
As most know, Oregon is known for going for surprise two-point conversions during the usual PAT process. The recent game against UC-Davis provided some superb examples for us to learn what works and why, along with what does not work, and why. While I (Charles Fischer) am writing parts of this article, the primary analysis segments are provided by new …
While I am known for being a Sunshine-Pumper when it comes to my beloved Ducks, the team of coaching consultants at FishDuck.com are much more grounded and can give a realistic assessment concerning the state of the Oregon football team after one game. Yes, you have seen opinions from sportscasters who are not any better at knowing things than the …
As it is time to reveal my 2016 Oregon football predictions – and the reasoning behind them – I look back to the last two weeks and marvel at how some notable sports journalists got called out here on FishDuck.com. Senior Editor Mike Merrell eviscerated Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports and then skewered Todd McShay of ESPN a few days …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out It’s time for my fourth annual calling out of three teams that I think are overrated. Qver the past three years, I’ve been right on 7 out of my 9 picks. Of course the two times I’ve been wrong, I’ve been very, very wrong (See Ducks, below, for explanation.), so take it to Vegas at your own …
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 …