How do you fit five pegs into four holes? The obvious answer is, “You don’t.” You leave one out. AZcentral.com and SEC born-and-raised Andy Staples have another solution. You whittle one of the pegs down to nothing, pick up a few of the scraps and glom them onto one of the four remaining. Naturally, the one that gets carved up—according …
Imagine being a linebacker tasked with making a split-second choice between taking on Outland Trophy winner Penei Sewell as a pulling tackle or trying to cover a speedy receiver like Mycah Pittman or Jaylon Redd out of the slot. The RPO (Run, Pass, Option) is an offensive scheme that mixes together different run and pass options based on defensive alignment …
Before Andy Avalos introduced his brilliant defensive schemes last fall, Oregon’s glaring weakness was its inability to defend players in space. Ducks defenders often looked like ghosts pursuing pac-men all over the football field. Former defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt shored up some of the weaknesses, but it was Avalos who put a stop to the flow of embarrassing big plays …
The Pac-12 Conference is in a nose dive. And the announcement on February 11 that Colorado (CU) head football coach, Mel Tucker, was leaving CU for Michigan State likely evidences that the dive has reached terminal velocity. You know what I think? It doesn’t matter what I think, especially when compared to the thoughts of the people cited below and …
Sports have been around for a while. Cavemen probably competed against each other by throwing rocks against trees. “Hey Og, see that squatty little tree way over there? I’ll bet you five clams that I can hit it and you can’t!” But since that was before recorded history, we can only guess about Og, the rocks, the trees, and any …
The success of the 2019-2020 season has jacked up the stoke level for Oregon football, and yet many questions loom. The Ducks replace four starters on the offensive line, a four-year starter at quarterback, and an offensive coordinator who left to be head coach at UNLV. Sure, there’s a stable of young studs returning, and we can expect them to …
Oregon’s now-former offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo took us on a bit of roller coaster ride this year. While his offensive play-calling was at times boring and predictable, at others it looped and zoomed with the excitement of a Disneyland thrill ride. Extending his tenure to coach the Rose Bowl game, Arroyo came California Screamin’ out of the chute, engineering a …
Football teams at any level want to build their roster around a quarterback, the most important position in the game. This is especially true in recruiting at the collegiate level. The Oregon Ducks 2019 early signing period is only a few weeks away, and they have a commitment from a good one in Mount Si High School signal caller Cale …
The Oregon Ducks signed a stellar class of offensive linemen in the 2018 recruiting cycle. It is an imposing group of five young men averaging 6-foot-6 and 340 pounds, recruited from several states including Utah, California, and even Pennsylvania. But one of these is an Oregon-native and life-long Duck fan in Dawson Jaramillo. Dawson played at Lake Oswego High School (enrollment of about …
There’s a buzz building in Eugene. The Ducks have gotten off to a 3-0 start, and are welcoming College Gameday back to Eugene for the first time since 2014. Fans and prognosticators alike are beginning to jump on the Oregon bandwagon, and many have the Ducks pegged as a sleeper for a conference championship or even a playoff berth. There’s good …
What does “It’s better to be lucky than good” mean? And how does this statement apply to Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens? In 2016 Mullens parted ways with Mark Helfrich after two disappointing seasons, and embarked on Oregon’s first true head football coaching search in decades. He eventually found Willie Taggart, and whether Taggart sank or swam Mullens (and his …
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 …