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Good thought. But you can bring in experience, as Oregon did with Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel, Miami did with Cam Ward and Carson Beck, and Indiana did with Kurtis Rourke and Fernando Menzoza. One of the four Final 4 transfer QBs will win a title this season. Transfer Will Howard won a title last season. Tom Brady won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay. Experienced faces in new places is true today for every position. You have to make sure you bring in high-character, coachable guys who love to play football to accompany solid recruiting. I think a playoff-quality O-line is as difficult to develop as any position, including QB. Dan and his assistants did a fantastic job this season of getting many new starters on both sides of the ball to play together. Dante goes pro, and I expect a transfer to start for OBD next season. BTW, the Kentucky starting QB is in the portal. Novo to Lexington?

I'm waiting on a post submitted to this site about who is projected to transfer to Oregon if Dante Moore declares. I was just on ESPN.com and their second leading story is that Brenden Sorsby (Cincinatti QB) is visiting Texas Tech today, and then he flies to LSU on Sunday or some time in the coming days. I had hoped that if we beat TT that it might sway Sorsby to come here. It would be a 2 for 1. A win and a new QB. Hopefully, Sorsby can wait until after the National Championship to make a decision- and immediately book a flight to Eugene for a visit. If you google who is likely to transfer to Oregon, Google AI points to a CBS Sports article from a few days ago written by Cory Nagel: "If Moore exits, Oregon would be aggressive but selective in targeting its next quarterback. Names like Dylan Raiola, Sam Leavitt, and Josh Hoover would immediately surface as potential fits. The Ducks offer something few programs can: a proven pathway to statistical production and NFL credibility." Raiola or Leavitt? Are you kidding me?!?! No. This is Oregon we're talking about. Not Washington or UCLA. Come on.

Dante balanced his Indiana and Texas Tech issues with his performances at Penn State and Iowa. If there’s one thing that may bring him back for another year is to grow out of his inconsistency issue.

If it wasn’t for the unfolding quarter final pattern of 1st round byes losing to 1st round winners (4 out of 4 in 2024, 3 out of 4 in 2025), I’d tend to agree. That basketball doesn’t allow higher ranked byes not only levels the playing field, but makes upsets feel genuine. Football’s CFP quarter final “upsets” not only now appear as a disadvantage for the higher ranked bye team, but are beginning to taint otherwise great wins for the lower ranked 1st round winners. To get all teams involved in the 1st round, the answer seems to be to either to shrink the format back to eight teams, or (sigh) expand it to sixteen. Either way allows for seeded 1st round games without the odd number outcome of a 12 team format. However this issue eventually resolves, it’s getting harder to ignore how the “one and done” intensity of CFP games seems to give the advantage to the team that is allowed to better sustain its game ready fitness and attitude.

Cignetti has coached a long time. It must be the overall win/loss record.

Jerry that is. Seems he was with him at UCLA Beloved ex-UCLA coach Jerry Neuheisel lands an interesting new job I wish them both well except maybe once a year.

'It motivated us;' How Oregon used Texas Tech hype to fuel CFP shutout “It motivated us a lot," defensive line coach Tony Tuioti said after the game. "You know, at the end of the day, we always want to prove to everybody that we're the best in the country. And so anytime we can, we feel a challenge, we want to step up to the challenge."

Oregon TE Kade Caton declares for transfer portal Oregon Ducks walk-on tight end Kade Caton announced for the NCAA Transfer Portal as the official window opened

I'd like a requirement for "winningest head coach" of 4 years, and as head coach at the same school. I wasn't sure we'd ever have another Oregon coach with a good shot of exceeding Chip Kelly's 4 year winning record of 86.8%. But Lanning is certainly going for it. After 3 years, 87.3% is just crazy nuts.

Great article. Here are my three things learned. Lanning still has a gambling problem. Situational awareness and risk/ reward need much more scrutiny. Up 13-0 near mid field going for it again on 4th down and fail. Why? Just pin them back deep. Let the D keep dominating and get the ball back around mid field. Poor decisions like this could become huge momentum swings for no reason. OBD can ride the D. Watching the team squander scoring opportunities with sloppy red zone plays and 4th down gambles instead of taking points was made much less stressful by a defense that absolutely controlled the game. Finney is the man! The Ducks have the highest remaining ceiling and the lowest floor. If the O and D put together two complete games, the Ducks will be national champions. If domination doesn’t match the scoreboard like the TT first half or the first 3 quarters against PSU, they won’t survive. This teams history will be determined by their growth in the next seven days.

Thanks, funny things is by the time I saw the contest there were mostly high scores perdicted so I just went the other way.

Thanks, as that was very kind of you to look that up. We have a couple of people like HDuck who bring in great information for the benefit of us all, and I certainly want to encourage you and everyone to chip in like this; thanks again.

I found this to be pretty interesting for those interested on this topic.

RE: "Otherwise Cignetti would have the highest percentage, I believe." I think this depends on how you present Cignetti's coaching record. Cignetti is 25-2 at Indiana but he's has been a head coach a lot longer than Lanning. Previously, he's been a head coach at JMU (5 years w/ 52-9 record), Elon (2 years/14-9), and Indiana University Pennsylvania (5 years, 53-17). By my math his complete record as a head coach would be 144 - 37 with an very impressive winning percentage of 79.6%. However, Lanning as a first time head coach at Oregon is currently sits at 48-7 or 87.3% winning percentage.

I feel like the label "blue blood" should be stripped from a program if they haven't won a national championship in 20+ years...no college player on a roster would remember or even be alive in that era (not to mention anyone still working in those respective programs in that span).

If Indiana brings a similar aggressive rush from the edges then I hope WS makes an adjustment and have a TE help with blocking, particularly on the right side since Harkey was having a tough time against Davidson.

Nowadays it's going to be a rarity for a starting QB to stay more than 2 years (whether recruited from HS or plucked from the transfer portal). That makes it much more difficult to develop knowledge/consistency for an offense...particularly to the level it takes to win a CFP championship.

Today's OBD can win in a multitude of ways, certainly keeps predictions a very interesting challenge.

To stretch that even further, even though a lot of people denigrate the choice to allow access for G6 teams to get into the playoff I actually don't mind it. Every now and then there will be a very high performing mid-conference team like BSU last season or UCF (when Scott Frost ran it the first time) where those teams realistically could upset a P4 team in the first round and maybe even in a quarterfinal. That kind of stuff keeps the playoff interesting for me.

UCLA to Oregon. Georgia to Miami. Cal to Indiana. Ferris State to Ole Miss. The only surprising 'QB development program' is Georgia, with a mutually agreed-upon change at QB. The free market is going to produce incubator programs and development schools. And how long is a productive OC going to be in the same place to groom a QB? The need to develop your own QB is yesterday's CFB news.

The turmoil is exhausting. However, a wide-open CFB marketplace can lead to Indiana and Oregon in the Final 4 instead of Ohio State and Michigan, Ole Miss instead of Georgia and Alabama, and Miami instead of Notre Dame. 😁 This Final 4 is what an expanded PO was supposed to do, keep the fans of teams outside the traditional blue bloods engaged. Fewer folks watch on TV, that's ESPN's problem. PUT OUT THAT CIG!

I found the Cam Ward comparison laughable. As if Cam Ward is the epitome of a college quarterback who came out "NFL Ready". A guy named Bo Nix would have been a much better example for the writer to use, but his "homerism" wouldn't allow him to see beyond the Miami sports scene.

I’ve just gotta say that you all make ME look pretty smart and well informed among the group of guys I play poker with each week. Thank you all for that, and especially to Charles for the opportunity he gave us all.

I really really want Oregon and Lanning to win the Peach Bowl and get a shot at the Natty. I'm fighting the pessimism right now.

I think the term "blueblood" is just a warm blanket for a program like Nebraska. The B1G has two teams left in the CFP. It isn't Ohio State, Michigan, or Penn State. It's the second to worst program in winning percentage, and a former Pac Twelve school, in it's second ever season in the league. The SEC has one program remaining, and it's not Georgia, Alabama, Florida, LSU, or Tennessee. It's a program with the second smallest stadium in the league, located in a city you associate with a more prominent university in the UK. Hotty totty, it's the program you relate with the movie "The Blind Side", it's Ole Miss. This is the first year in the CFP era, that you won't have at least one of Alabama, Georgia, or Ohio State in the F4. We're eleven years into it.