With an all-time top ten list featuring players like Derek Loville, Saladin McCullough, Reuben Droughns, Jonathan Stewart, LaMichael James and Kenjon Barner — the Oregon football program has always done well with running backs. The way they have been used has evolved over the years, but the emphasis on stocking the backfield with high quality players remains unaltered. The iron-man-bell-cow-three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust …
Dear Coach Saban, Thanks to you and your friends, the NCAA, recently announced they would be considering a rules change to prevent offensive units from snapping the ball during the first 10 seconds of the 40-second play clock, thus allowing defensive units to make substitutions during that time and ostensibly promote the safety of the players. It comes up for …
Disingenuous, adjective: “Not truly honest or sincere: giving the false appearance of being honest and sincere.” (From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.) They should call it the Bret Bielema rule. Or perhaps the Bielema-Saban rule, since it is, in part, due to these two coaches’ influence that this rule is now being considered. For those who are unfamiliar with this proposal, …
The perks of working for FishDuck.com are ridiculous. I’m writing this from my timeshare week in Aspen, and its less than a month after this Super Bowl party: But there comes a time, every year, when we have to pay the piper for all of these perks. When tax season rolls around free-lance writers take it up the . . …
Two of the signature days on the football calendar brought the season to a close last week. The first was last Sunday in the form of the Super Bowl, sport’s biggest spectacle, but also one of the truest meritocracies; the team that executes better on the field wins, and does so by presumably having the best combination of player talent …
Oregon will never win any recruiting championships. While teams such as Alabama, USC and LSU tend to dominate in the rankings, the Ducks rarely crack the top-15. Year after year they bring in solid, but unspectacular recruiting classes, yet year after year, Oregon takes those same recruits and turns them into champions. Why is that? What is the key that allows teams without …
National Letter of Intent day has come and gone. How your Webfoots fared depends on who you ask. National publications list Oregon’s class in the 22-26 range. Those posting on Oregon message boards rank the class anywhere from “The bestest class in the history of classes, sure Hall of Famers every one,” to a class on par with the likes …
When the clock hits zero at the Super Bowl, it also serves as the conclusion to the football season each year. Seemingly long after all of the bowl games have been played at the college level, the NFL has a way of temporarily filling the void before dropping fans into the abyss of the long off season. Events like National …
National LOI signing day is a lot like Christmas for those of us who follow recruiting. A few of us have rich parents and expect the world, while others come from blue collar families. All of us wake up early and wait in agony for mom and dad to come downstairs so that we can start opening presents. Sometimes, we …
We all love rock ’em, sock ’em football, but with all the recent concern for player safety, we need to give thought to just what can be done to make the game safer for the players. Basically there are only two ways to do this: more protective equipment and further regulating the conduct of those involved in the game. You …
A little over a month ago, Budda Baker, a prized recruit out of Bellevue High School in Washington, had Duck fans screaming with joy and Husky fans howling in agony when he announced he was going to play football at Oregon. It sounded great — here comes the next De’Anthony Thomas! But two weeks ago he made a U-turn that …
Signing day is just a few days away and every school is putting forth its “best” effort to get those undecided recruits to sign. While the coaches are out recruiting, the players back on campus are trying to join unions. We all know they are only trying to join a union to get paid for play. With …