Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out Throughout history, entire populations have been duped into following charismatic leaders with no scruples whatsoever. The unwitting populace draws power from the promise of the spoils of war, and celebrates the exclamation that they are the chosen, that they are the master race, that they are better than everybody else. Under these leaders, hubris and disregard for …
Last week, I listed Florida State as the biggest villain Oregon has faced in recent memory. When their pairing with the Ducks was announced for the playoff, Oregon fans rejoiced at the ultimate matchup of good versus evil. As I sat down to write this week, I was fully prepared to crank up the hate machine and fire off a …
We are only six days away from watching our Ducks run on the field in Pasadena, CA to face the Florida State Seminoles in the Rose Bowl. All of the players got to go home to spend some time with their families last week and then departed to California on December 25. Although I am sure that this upcoming semi-final …
Everyone understands Marcus Mariota is, to borrow baseball great Reggie Jackson’s famous quote, “the straw which stirs the drink” in terms of whether the Oregon Ducks will beat Florida State and advance to the championship round. Yet we all realize too, that other players on both sides of the ball will need to elevate their level of play. These are …
It may be a sad realization Duck nation, but Marcus Mariota is not coming back. If he were to do so for some reason, he’d be making the biggest mistake of his life. Mariota is coming off not only the best season of his career, but perhaps one of the best years in College Football ever. The redshirt junior accounted …
Along with a berth in the first college football playoff, the Heisman — with this year’s recipient being Oregon’s own Marcus Mariota — has cast the spotlight on the “team that could” from the upper left hand corner of the country. So how will this affect Oregon football’s 2015 recruiting class? Mariota bringing the statue back to Eugene should make …
If you recorded the Heisman Trophy ceremony, and your recording ran long (a highly recommended practice, by the way, given that the ceremony always goes over in time), you would have caught the first few minutes of the ESPN documentary “The U Part 2“, a follow up to the 2009 documentary (obviously titled, “The U”) about the University of Miami …
Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out Florida State’s ability to win close games this year is an enigma. Is it a team strength that the Seminoles always seem to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? Or is it a weakness that they find themselves needing to often enough to give their fans ulcers? In 2012 and 2013, Stanford was that sort of …
It’s that time of year again. Mel Kiper, Todd McShay, and every other football expert in the country have begun to speculate how the upcoming NFL Draft will unfold. I’ve looked at several of these mock drafts, and the consensus is that the two quarterbacks that will square off in the Rose Bowl, the past two Heisman Trophy winners, Marcus Mariota …
Just like how it’s been all season long, Florida State is coming into a matchup against a team whose win-loss record is not as good as theirs. In fact, that’s been the story for the past two years. Florida State hasn’t lost a game since 2012, yet somehow they are marching into Pasadena to play the Ducks as a 9.5 …
The future for the Oregon Ducks keeps getting brighter. If Oregon maintains its current trend of snatching elite playmakers from around the nation, the 2016 recruiting class is sure to be a platoon of offensive fire-power. On Thursday, Oregon confirmed that it has offered a scholarship to Centennial High School receiver and Rivals.com four-star receiver Javon McKinley, according to Andrew Nemec of The Oregonian. And based on McKinley’s Twitter …
Well, if there’s one thing we can say about the Ducks over the next few years, it’s that there will be a lot of people with a chance to replace Marcus Mariota under center. As it stands now, Jeff Lockie, Taylor Alie and Morgan Mahalak are the QB’s on the roster, but as of yesterday these Ducks just gained a little more …