ATTENTION DUCK FANS! We’ve got a shot at this whole playoff thing. On Tuesday, the College Football Playoff Committee announced its first set of top 25 rankings. As expected, Oregon was ranked seventh in the country behind a pair of Big Ten teams, three SEC teams and Clemson. There were a few surprises in the rankings, such as Ohio State …
Mario Cristobal has convinced me that he has chops. However, the exact size of those chops is still an open question. Ugly Duckling wrote a great piece recently that focused on how absolutely critical it is to the long term success of winning programs to have proper roster management. That got me to thinking not only about roster management, but …
The 2018-2019 school year has concluded (not including summer, but who counts summer when there are no Duck sports?). The major sports are over for the year, and now it truly is the offseason. We have no scrappy basketball squads to watch on deep tournament runs, no underdog baseball teams to read about, no softball dance videos and no more …
There’s a 6’6″, 233-pound elephant in the room. Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, one of the best players out west and a highly regarded NFL draft prospect, has a decision to make, and fans are holding their breath in anticipation. Will the strong-armed phenom take his game to the next level after the Ducks’ bowl game, or will he play his …
All good things must come to an end. Unfortunately for Washington fans, that sentiment may apply tomorrow afternoon, as the Huskies’ status as the premier program in the Pac-12 is in jeopardy. There’s no doubt that Washington currently sits atop of the food chain in the Pac-12. They’ve completely overhauled what was an underachieving roster and transformed it into a juggernaut. …
Picture this: you sit down with your loved ones around the TV to watch your favorite show. You’re all snuggled in as the episode starts, but soon everything looks familiar, too familiar. It’s at that moment you realize you’ve seen this episode before. This is how I felt watching the first quarter of Oregon vs. Bowling Green. I’ve seen it …
BRUTAL SPEED: A Marriage Made in Heaven? Mario Cristobal and Nebraska’s Scott Frost have expressed remarkably similar strategies to pursue a national championship. This season, the two coaches plan to deliver two what-should-be-fascinating examples of combining Oregon speed and tempo tactics with brute-force football learned at Alabama and Nebraska. The goal: punish your opponents with dominating physicality, while simultaneously dazzling them …
Have you seen the T-shirt that says “My favorite team is Oregon and whoever’s playing Oregon State?” Flashback to 2011, the day before the Oregon-Auburn National Championship in Glendale, Arizona for a moment. At this Duck pep rally 24 hours before the game there’s some guy from Alabama wearing a sign stating that he came all the way from Alabama …
Congratulations, everyone, WE MADE IT! We survived the football dead season and have made it into the football teaser season. Spring football is here and it brings with it a delicious taste of the sport we love. But even though football is back, the spring can be bittersweet. Although the team returns to practice and we get a fresh influx of …
The 2018 Oregon Ducks basketball season ended with a big thud last weekend. And while it would have been nice to see the Ducks make a run in the NIT, I get the feeling that Duck fans didn’t lose sleep over losing in the second round. With five straight NCAA Tournament appearances, Oregon fans have become accustomed to getting more out of …
Well, here we are, Duck Fans. We’ve made it to the quiet time. The games have been played, the recruits have been signed and there are only a few more loose ends to tie up before we can close the books on the first term of the Cristobal Era and stash them away to gather dust. It has been a …
Oregon Football has been built on a foundation of continuity, innovation and those diamond in the rough players that we, as Duck fans, have loved over the years. Our program has felt like a family, with familiar faces on the sideline and in the locker room. We were comfortable, we were confident and each year, when our recruiting class was …