It has been an exciting ride ever since Oregon hired Coach Willie Taggart back in December. We’ve seen Coach Taggart put together a top notch coaching staff, and then upgrade it, pull a top 20 recruiting class with only a month on the trail, and install awesome offensive and defensive schemes. Today we’re going to focus on another play that …
Others Receiving Votes: Toledo (68), Oregon (64) It was following a game against Utah in 2009 that the Ducks last found themselves voted off the AP Top 25 island, so it is only fitting that a game against Utah, mark their first return outside of it in six years. The 98 weeks in-between provided a glorious run of historical proportions …
Understanding the game of football can be a complicated process, but just being a fan and sitting down with your friends and family to cheer for your favorite college football teams on Saturday afternoon is simply fun. There are many words a football coach in Kentucky could use to describe the Oregon Ducks, but the one word that I always equate …
What if the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil began a chain reaction that set off a tornado in Texas? This notion raised by MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz has implications for causation in physics, economics and yes, football. The rise of the spread offense in the 21st century generated a butterfly effect on defenses. Coaches in bastions of the …
Although Marcus Mariota won the Heisman Trophy in 2014, it is not a stretch to say the man protecting his blind side saved the Ducks’ playoff hopes. Jake Fisher was not supposed to be Oregon’s left tackle last year. However, an ACL injury to the slated left tackle Tyler Johnstone forced Fisher’s move from right tackle to left, where he had …
When a fresh-faced Chip Kelly brought his shiny new version of the spread to the University of Oregon, he probably didn’t know he was about to start a revolution that would take over football from top to bottom. He probably didn’t know he was about to create an archetype that coaches and coordinators would break their blackboards over for the …
The list of college coaches who have transitioned well to the professional level is not a long one, and shorter still is the list of those who have done well right away. Often it’s an inability to deal properly with professional players, other times the intense demands of the job are more than the coach is prepared for. Still other …
Top photo courtesy of Keith Allison and Matthew Straubmuller I’ve been resisting the endless discussions about the Eagles’ quarterback competition, because as Chip Kelly has said, he simply won’t have the data to make a decision until he sees his players wearing pads and getting tackled. It’s the same exact policy he used in Oregon. In addition to training camp …
First it was Nick Saban, then Florida coach Will Muschamp. Now, the latest high-profile coach to bash the spread offense is new Arkansas coach Bret Bielema. Three successful, smart, influential coaches, all of whom are calling for rule changes to slow down the spread offense and give defenses a better opportunity to substitute, get a breather and avoid injury. So …
A note from FishDuck.com: Today we have a unique treat, this article from a highly successful coach gives an inside perspective football fans don’t often get to see, the direct insight of football concepts from a coach in the know. This week Coach Curtis Peterson of Glenbard North High School and owner/editor of StrongFootballCoach.com. We encourage other coaches that are …