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6-2 Ducks after eight innings. Sophomore Tanner Bradley came in for relief, and last year as a freshman he did not pitch much, (five innings) but he did not allow a run in those and showed promise. The fact that he was brought in so soon made me want to watch him closely. He a righty with a lot of action on his pitches. He threw one that was clearly headed outside the plate, but then it curved inside, and caught the corner of the plate. Very nasty. He kept 'em scoreless and looks strong!

6-2 Ducks after seven innings. Gosztola looked like he was going to get out of a jam, but then gave up a double. Ducks didn't do much on offense...

6-0 Ducks after six innings. Will Sanford finished with a great day, giving up no runs. Our first reliever is Gonzaga transfer, Miles Gosztola, who is a lefty with a big sweeping pitch that whips inward towards the batter. He gave up a double, but then forced two grounders and a fly ball. Good start!

6-0 Ducks after five innings. Sanford forces three ground-outs, and the infield looks sharp! Will has 71 pitches after six innings... Angel Laya got his third hit today, a sweet drive in the gap near center field for a double. What have I said about "Greatness and Weakness Emerge Early?" He has a nice natural swing, and quite a good looking player already. Jack Brooks bunts and doesn't make it, but a bad throw pulled the first baseman to have the ball bounce off his mitt. That scores Laya from second base! I guess he has speed too?

5-0 Ducks after 4 innings. Sanford is giving them much to work with as he retired the side, and is at 62 pitches after four innings. It will be interesting to see how long Waz will let him continue, as they like to gradually build the arm up over the season. Gabe Miranda has been hit twice by pitch..already. Drew Smith walked but we got nothing else.

5-0 Ducks after three innings. Angel Laya got another hit in his second at-bat...maybe that is why he is starting? Other Ducks flied/grounded out. Will Sanford put them down in order again, but boy...he has got a nasty curve that drops a foot to pair with his 95 mph fastball. A deadly combination, and maybe that's why he is the starter too? Charles...you gotta trust Coach Waz!

5-0 Ducks after two innings. Will Sanford gave up a hit, but forced two fly-outs, and got a pick-off at first base with Gabe Miranda! Freshman Angel Laya got things going with a hit in his first at-bat! A good-looking newbie there... Jack Brooks did a perfect bunt that died between home plate and the pitchers mound, and he jetted with his superb speed to beat the throw. Then Ryan Cooney puts a perfect bunt down the third base line and with his wings flew to first with time to spare. Jax Gimenez grounds out, but scores Laya. Then Dominic Hellman comes in and unloads a DOM-BOMB that was a line drive that cleared the fence in left field, but also the back fence of the visiting bullpen! Whew!

Wow! What a way to start the season. Keep it going, guys.

1-0 Ducks after one inning. We got bases loaded by hits from Jax Gimenez and Dominic Hellman, and a hit-by-pitch on Miranda but could not get much from the opportunity. Drew Smith walked, thus we got a run. Big surprise...lefty hitter Gabe Miranda was in the clean-up spot on the batting order!

Wow, did I get surprised with the starting lineup. Four fielders...I did not anticipate. We have Jax Gimenez at LF, Jack Brooks at CF, and new freshman Angel Laya at RF. And we have Gabe Miranda at first base as I reported yesterday. Will Sanford put them out 1-2-3 in the first half of the first inning, and all three are .300+ hitters. He threw a 95 mph pitch on his first one, so this is a very good start. Great for his and our confidence!

Thanks for sharing Charles....

Good gosh, the Big-10 is powerful in winter sports! Thank you for that Jon, as I had no idea how incredible conference teams stack up in those sports.

Thanks Charles for a beautiful and heartfelt tribute to 30Duck. I never knew why '30Duck' was his moniker until today. Knowing that great Ronnie Lee was the impetus behind it, for me, only makes his name all the better. Charles -- You mentioned that you thought his passing may likely be due to a heart issue. As someone who out of nowhere found himself having triple-bypass open-heart surgery about 15 months ago, I've kind of become a major league evangelist in encouraging those of us over 50 (men & women), to get a simple, non-invasive, cardiac stress test -- especially if cardiac issues run in your family. Prior to my cardiac stress test, I had absolutely no idea that I had any sort of a heart issue. Then I found out I had 90% blockage in two of the three main arteries to the heart, and 70% in the other one. At that time, I was truly a dead man walking. And while it is still, of course, major surgery, the medical industry really has this stuff down. I got a new lease on life and I'm probably good to go for another 30 years (well... that would put me at 94, so something else will probably get me before then 😅). Sorry to go off on this, but there's so much that can be done today, if we find out we have a problem. Thanks again, Charles, for sharing. My condolences to you, to his family, and other friends.

Tonight on Big Ten Network - 7E/4P - No. 2 in the nation, Ohio State Men's Wrestling visits No. 1 Penn State. 16,000 fans will be on hand to watch this B1G battle. Penn State has won a record 77 dual meets in a row. The last dual meet the Nittany Lions lost was on January 31, 2020, 17-19 to Iowa in Iowa City. The effervescent, high-on-life Shane Sparks will be on the call for BTN. This is a real wrestling match, not a WWE fixed wrassling match. All 10 of the PSU wrestlers are All-Americans. Ohio State brings four All-Americans to Penn State. In other winter sports, Michigan State is No. 1 in Men's Ice Hockey, and Michigan is ranked 2nd. Women's Ice Hockey Rankings - No. 1 Wisconsin, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Minnesota, and No. 4 Penn State. Men's basketball - 2nd-ranked Michigan is odds-on to win a CBB title for the first time since Michigan State won in 2020. Women's CBB - 2nd-ranked UCLA, No. 7 Michigan, and No. 8 Ohio State are ranked in the top 10. Enjoy!

So freakin' dumb to have 24 teams, that's an embarrassment, a 8-4 team has no business being in the playoff. Might as well allow a field of 64 at that point, just have the season go on forever. Basketball, baseball, volleyball, all very different sports where having that many games makes sense. You can play multiple back to backs, you can't do that in football. Just cap it at 16 or 12. I will add that I at least appreciate not having conference championship games. I would hope that under this proposal that we would have games at home sites until the semi-finals. You have to be very wealthy to be able to go to all these playoff games, they can at least make it a bit easier by reducing the amount of games that you have to travel to.

I like the expanded look, but I do NOT like any byes. Expand it to 32 and be done with it, or make it 16 with no byes, no conference championship games, and no conference "play-in" games. They are in danger of making the season too long, and with depth being depleted with most of the elite teams from the portal...more games=more injuries.

Redshirt Review: Oregon offensive lineman Douglas UtuMany 2025 signees found a role last fall. Many top true freshmen didn't, including offensive lineman Douglas Utu. Here's where we think things stand with him after one year at Oregon. https://247sports.com/college/oregon/article/redshirt-review-oregon-offensive-lineman-douglas-utu-274231748/

College Football News: Why the B1G PO plan makes sense - https://collegefootballnews.com/college-football/big-ten-24-team-playoff-why-it-makes-sense

Pitching Depth Takes Center Stage as Oregon Baseball Opens Season Against George MasonOregon opens the season with a four-game series vs. George Mason, led by opening day starter Will Sanford and a pitching staff built on depth and competition. https://247sports.com/college/oregon/article/pitching-depth-takes-center-stage-as-oregon-baseball-opens-season-against-george-mason-274232346/

Oregon's Elijah Rushing could have a BREAKOUT 2026 season

Elite Linebacker Recruit Brayden Bonik Details Receiving an Offer From OregonFour-star linebacker recruit Brayden Bonik from the class of 2028 breaks down his Oregon Ducks offer with reporter Caleb Sisk from Oregon Ducks on SI. Oregon Ducks On SIElite Linebacker Recruit Brayden Bonik Details Receiving...Four-star linebacker recruit Brayden Bonik from the class of 2028 is generating more buzz as a linebacker prospect on a national scale following what was a very

Defense! Washington and Perich are on the 1st team, early AA D. The love for Texas and the SEC? Manning and not Dante or Sayin at QB? As I recall, we watched this movie last season, no? Texas is -2.5 against Ohio State, a reverse of last season's odds for the game in Columbus. Texas finished a fortunate 9-3, with the Longhorns escaping defeat at Kentucky and South Carolina. I trust the data used by Pro Football Focus to identify the best players; I do not trust rumors and hearsay. And, when in doubt, go with the SEC guys, especially when you work for the SEC's 'partner.' Coming into 2026, I have the same question for Texas I had for Penn State in 2025: Sark is still the Texas coach, is he not? And I also have the same question I had for Clemson last year: the same guys returning for Clemson are the same guys who lost 4 games in 2024, right? Maybe the portal players coming into Texas will be all that? I'll believe it when I see it, including Cam Coleman being as good as Jeremiah Smith at wide receiver. As Indiana proved last season, it's not the parts, it's the sum of the parts. ESPN.com2026 college football Way-Too-Early All-America teamFrom Arch Manning to Jeremiah Smith, these are the best of the best at every position.

Do not overlook our opponent, as they won 40 games last year, the most in 16 years, and they return a ton of players and welcome a bunch of portal transfers. They ended up in the runner-up in the Atlantic-10 conference, and they have a senior pitcher who is pretty good, and I expect to see today. Speaking of pitchers....the Friday starter was named by Coach Waz as Will Sanford, and you could knock me over with a Duck-feather. I was skeptical if Sanford would even be a starter, let alone the Friday night guy. He was heralded as a major prospect coming out of high school, but had some rough outings last year. But players get better! Head Coach Mark Wasikowski said, "He's pitched really well. His stuff is improved, just everything that he's been able to roll out there... the kid earned it, and so my expectation is for him to just go out there and pitch the way he's pitched, how we've seen him, you know, in Fall scrimmages and Spring scrimmages. He's just been really elite." Will Sanford Sanford said his focus is on setting the tone every weekend, the same way those pitchers before him did — and that his mindset is shaped by what he learned from last season. "Take it week by week, but I just really want to set the tone each weekend for us," Sanford said. "And, you know, just have a great season." "Last year, I felt like I failed a lot. So learning from them and seeing how they hold themselves, how they go pitch to pitch, and how they respond to adversity — it kind of takes what they did and lets me apply it toward this year." The Saturday double-header will have starters Collin Clarke, and transfer Cal Scolari as I expected, and the Sunday starter is unknown at this point.

Bad defense certainly didn't help, but I would imagine it had more to do with new/young QBs learning the Duck offense, then the season ending collapse. Given the pace Kelly/Helfrich liked to play, there always were plenty of snaps, so the offense always had the ball some. TOP of course wasn't good, but it never really was back then. 2011: 25:20 2012: 28.39 2013: 25:58 2014: 27:14 2015: 27:18 2016: 26:00 Snaps by offense/snaps defended: 2011: 72.5/76.9 (-4.4) 2012: 81.4/75.8 (+5.6) 2013: 74.8/80.2 (-5.4) 2014: 74.5/78.0 (-3.5) 2015: 76.0/80.5 (-4.5) 2016: 74.3/80.8 (-6.5) My wild guess is that teams really didn't get a lot better defending it until it got widely adopted down to the high school level. Kids grew up facing it before college. Oregon's best run with the offense was arguably 2012, 2013, 2014; or, after 5 years of Oregon putting it on tape. In the back 5 years of the offense (2012-2016), the offense averaged about 2 points and 53 yards more than the first 5 years. Perhaps one could speculate: Fine tuning offensive players to system > Teams figuring it out I've kind of always attributed Helfrich's ultimate downfall not quite so much to just bad recruiting, rather having an unusually large percentage of busts and bad actors at the top 1/3 of his classes. He actually got a fair amount of guys a lot of top programs were after who also should have been a good fit for his offense, there just were a bunch of busts (among the skill guys): Jalen Brown (143), Mahalak (177), Carrington (130), Griffin (60), Jonsen (73), Lovette (121), Merritt (123), Ofodile (120), Wallace (164), Wilson (four star, top 2 dual threat on ESPN, On3), and so on (Wilson and Jonsen were top ranked dual threat QBs - never played, Taj Griffin another LMJ, Lovette and Merritt were the #3 and #4 WRs in the nation, Carrington of course gets bounced from the NC game, and so on). If we wanna go all positions, throw in names like Prevot, Austin Maloata, Kaumatule, Okun, Osay Dunmore, Leiato, Tyrell Robinson... ( I definitely have a complicated relationship with the Kelly/Helfrich era 🙂 )

Not really much else to say that hasn't already been said...30Duck was a great Oregon supporter and wonderful part of the FishDuck community, he will be very much missed. Thanks Charles to posting this.