What once used to be considered a “gimmick” has now turned into a dominant program. Ever since Mike Bellotti transitioned into an up-tempo spread offense team and then handed the reigns to Chip Kelly, the Oregon football program has since been in question. After making a Rose Bowl appearance in 2009 followed by a national championship game appearance in 2010, …
Let’s get greedy! Oregon played for the national title and picked up a top-20 recruiting class in 2015. Now is the time to use that momentum to bring in a boatload of top prospects for the next recruiting cycle. Top 10 recruiting classes in the Helfrich era may start in 2016 and be similar to the 2011 top 10 class, which …
Once Oregon gets consistently into the Top Five…wins major bowls, becomes one of the top winning programs in the nation–and if the Ducks play twice in five years for the National Championship–THEN our beloved Ducks will recruit like the BEST. Hey you Greybeards. You know who you are in age, and like me, you have thought the above. Heck–I didn’t …
With limited official visits Coach Mark Helfrich is making the most with what he’s got, but is running out of time. The Ducks may have three more commitments available for this 2015 recruiting cycle after getting two commitments in the last week. Signing day is February 4th and that leaves little time for Coach Helfrich and staff to attempt to snag …
It has become a statement acknowledged as fact: Recruiting is paramount to an effective team. As such, you might not like what I have to say. But when I look at the college level of the sport as a whole, I see the hype of recruiting, National Signing Day and related hoopla overblown in terms of significance. We are talking …
With about two weeks left until the national letter of intent day (NLI) or signing day on February 4th, who is not looking at the prospects and trying to figure out how to get key commitments to Oregon from players and juggle the limited official visits? Due to sanctions, Oregon lost one scholarship in each of two years (limiting the …
Did it start in 2012 when the Ohio State Buckeyes robbed the Oregon Ducks of highly touted all-purpose back Dontre Wilson right under their noses? Or did it begin before that when Ohio State out-recruited Oregon for top high school prospects? Either way, the 2015 recruiting class will not be different, with the Buckeyes winning this contest by a large margin …
Oregon is known as a winning-prone football team in the last decade, and should have no trouble recruiting elite high school players year in and year out. With 10 wins this season, the Ducks have their seventh straight 10-or-more-win season, which is tied for first with Alabama. The Tide is appealing to football recruits these days because of their massive …
While the 2014 college football season is currently reaching the height of recruiting for the class of 2015, Oregon also has interesting features in planning for the 2016 class. There will be two high school juniors in attendance for the Stanford game on November 1st. With two commits already in this class and potentially one more announcing by the end …
A widespread change might be in place for football. The National Collegiate Athletic Association recently voted in favor of giving the five “power conferences” autonomy, to allow the student-athletes to participate in governing the entity they are bound in playing for at a Division I university. If sustained by the end of October, 2014, how will this affect the recruiting …
My FishDuck Friends — I wish to roll out a new feature called “Scott’s Turf” on the site that will appear on every Monday, which will have opinion-editorial pieces written by Scott Reed. Scott has been writing recruiting and game analyses articles every week for the Oregon franchise of Rivals.com Duck Sports Authority for many years. I’ve known him long before FishDuck.com …
The recruiting wisdom of Mark Helfrich is becoming more evident as time goes on. Most recently comes the news that Hawaii defensive tackle, Ratu Mafileo, got his “eligibility” green light from the NCAA and can now attend and play football at UO. The nephew of former Oregon great, Haloti Ngata, sheds new light on a 2014 recruiting class that was …