True freshman make it on to the field every season in college football and just about every team finds one that they expect to become a big impact player. Barring injuries or off-the-field issues, many of those players find themselves a starting position by their sophomore year assuming the depth chart ahead of them isn’t loaded. Ifo Ekpre-Olomu played …
A Duck in Florida: Streaks, Malls, and the TSA’s Role in Recruiting
Third. Fourth. Second. Those have been Oregon’s rankings in the final AP college football polls the last three seasons. Three consecutive years of top four finishes are impressive for any school – Oregon is only school with a current streak that length – but what would it take to finish in the top four for fifteen consecutive years? That is …
US Open Failures Remind Us That Nothing Is Guaranteed
Last weekend, as the world watched Phil Mickelson stumble to another second place finish in The U.S. Open at Merion, I couldn’t help but correlate his failures to a more local team. The squad that huffs, and puffs, but can never blow the house down. It’s too soon to compare the Oregon Ducks football team to “Lefty,” who has come …
Give Thanks to the Little Guys
For every Marcus Mariota, there is a Dane Ebanez, J.R. Maffie and Axel McQuaw. For every first-round draft pick there are scores of players who come to practice every day, hitting the trenches and working just as hard as the stars. Yet these players pass quietly through the hallowed halls of Oregon with little or no acclaim, sometimes without scholarships …
Who will lead the 2013 Oregon Ducks in tackles?
The huge question on defense is, who will be the leading tackler in the fall? From 2009 thru 2011, the final Oregon defensive statistics listed John Boyett as one of the top two tacklers on the team alongside Casey Matthews and Spencer Paysinger. The next season after the BCS Title game, Michael Clay, DeWitt Stuckey and Kiko Alonso stepped in for Matthews and Paysinger to rack …
Athletic supremacy – the Battle of Birds
As the 2012-2013 college athletic season comes to an end, very few of the 346 Division I schools can say they had success across all sports. This makes perfect sense, since some schools tend to focus on one sports program over another. For example, Duke and Mike Krzyzewski are awaited by fans and media to contend for another national title …
Gut wrenching times with Chip Kelly
With the new era of Helfrich football just over the rise, I thought it would be a good time to look back at the Chip Kelly era. Specifically the most gut wrenching parts of it. As we are all huge Ducks fans, some of the most vivid memories we have over the last four seasons are the losses. Chip Kelly was such a …
Rivalry Losing Steam In Politically Correct World
The debate over rival-rooting-etiquette came into question this week on a local radio show, prompting passionate calls of “We’re all in the same state,” and “I root for both teams unless they’re playing each other.” Quite frankly, I had to turn the channel. I wrote an article after the Newtown shooting talking about the lines between passion and insensitivity in sports being blurred, with …
The Ten Most Exhilarating Games of the Last Ten Seasons: #5-1
If you missed #10-6, find it here. 5) 2006 vs. Oklahoma Most of the games on this list share the same reason for their exhilaration value: a winning outcome despite all evidence to the contrary that victory was possible; the bleaker the situation prior to winning, the more exhilarating the outcome. Few games looked bleaker than did Oregon’s 2006 …
The Ten Most Exhilarating Games of the Last Ten Seasons: #10-6
How good has the recent history of Oregon football been? It was a challenge to determine what the most exhilarating games of the last ten seasons were. Over the last three seasons, the Oregon Ducks have had four losses, yet only three wins by two touchdowns or less. Close wins have been few and far between. (Not surprisingly, two of …
Recruiting Update: Baker to “Quack?”
Football Recruiting Commitments Oregon has never been the biggest player in the JUCO ranks due to a crop of venerable prep recruiting classes. Recently however, stars such as former offensive lineman Kyle Long seem to have upped the Ducks’ interest in the junior college pipeline. Last week, Oregon received commitments from two highly touted recruits in that of defensive end Tui …
Switching Sides – Who’s Your Pick?
Dion Jordan came to Oregon as a 6′-6″ freshman, standing like a small forward on the hardwood at a lanky 210 or so pounds. Receiving reps at receiver for a short time before moving to tight end, no one could foresee the defensive monster that would be released a few years later. The Ducks are known for recruiting athletes …