Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out Duck fans saw their fondest dreams and deepest fears unfold Saturday night in a victorious offensive battle against FCS Eastern Washington. The Ducks tied the NCAA record for most consecutive games (69) with at least one touchdown pass. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only passing record involved in the Saturday night scorefest. Eastern Washington receiver Cooper Kupp broke …
Influencing the Defense in the Option Game
Football is a game of position and space, and coaches spend a great deal of time analyzing their schemes to incorporate wrinkles and techniques that will influence the opposition. In most cases, causing a slight hesitation, or a few small steps in the wrong direction, can result in a big play. Option football, which includes the zone read, is predicated on this. …
Ducks Dominate the Top Players List of the Pac-12
Over the past month, Jack Follman from “Pacific Takes” at SB Nation, has been doing a six-part list of the “Top 100 2015 Pac-12 Players,” and naturally, there are several Oregon players listed. So, let’s discuss how the list ended up. The Ducks take the top spot on the list with 17 players in the top 100, with UCLA and USC …
A Tale of Two Games…and Two Offensive Lines
Charles Dickens famous opening to A Tale of Two Cities perfectly captures Oregon football and illustrates the vast range of emotions that its fans have endured in the last five years. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, …
Comparing Ducks’ 2013-’14 Season to 2014-15 Season Performances
When it comes to the Oregon Ducks football season this year, the accomplishments the team and program made are unreal. For the team, for individual players, for the coaches and the university, it was more than a successful season; it was a historical one. After the 2013-’14 season ended last year, a group of writers for ESPN wrote team-by-team season …
Two Oregon Ducks Listed in First Round of Kiper’s Latest Mock Draft
Toward the end of the college football season, a man with a very distinct voice and a ridiculous haircut is brought on the set of ESPN and asked to give his opinion on the pending NFL Draft. This man is named Mel Kiper Jr. and despite what people say about him, he is the one on T.V. giving his opinion on which college football …
Two, Four, Six, Eight! Who Do We Appreciate?
The correct answer to this grade school cheer is readily apparent for lovers and haters of this site: The Oregon Ducks. (I realize that the technically correct answer to this is probably Ohio State, but this site is not named FishBuckeyes). Of course, appreciation exists in a variety of degrees. Older Ducks fans remember the infamous Toilet Bowl, a veritable …
Pac 12 Making a Bowl’d Statement to the ACC
There are many reasons to believe Oregon will defeat the Florida State Seminoles this Thursday in the Rose Bowl, but how premature would it be to predict the game’s result based on each team’s conference records this Bowl season? Well if I did it certainly wouldn’t be pretty, because among the 11 conferences with teams playing in College Bowl games, the …
College Football Drama and Elephants in the Room
Mike Merrell’s Three and Out Despite a mid-season hiccup that had bandwagon fans clinging for their dear fan-lives, the Oregon Ducks are in the first College Football Playoff as the Rose Bowl home team facing the Florida State Seminoles. It’s a great matchup: East vs West, North vs South, this year’s probable Heisman winner vs last year’s Heisman winner; and, …
Will Oregon Fans Miss Former OSU Head Coach Mike Riley?
This week, long time Oregon State head coach Mike Riley left the farms of Corvallis for — wait for it — the farms of Lincoln, Nebraska, in a somewhat surprising decision earlier this week. It seems that Nebraska wanted former head coach Bo Pelini out of Lincoln ASAP, nullifying his $3 million a year contract, and to bring in Riley, the lowest paid …
Why the ESPN-SEC Conspiracy is Nonsense
The release of the first playoff rankings for 2014 saw three of the top four spots being taken — not surprisingly — by SEC West teams, and the other by the unbeaten defending national champion Florida State Seminoles. It also saw its fair share of fan conspiracy theories, especially from those fan bases whose team is currently on the outside …
Stanford Week: It’s Gut Check Time
Let’s be frank. I hate Stanford, you hate Stanford, we all hate Stanford. If we’re being honest, our hate comes from respect more than anything else. For whatever reason, Stanford has been a thorn in Oregon’s side recently. The Ducks have lost a total of seven games (excluding bowl games) dating back to the 2009 season; three of those losses …
