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Tough to make it fair when you don’t play half the conference every year. Conferences/leagues of a certain size need to have divisions to at least try to make things “balanced”. This isn’t some new radical concept…there is a reason the NFL has 2 conferences and 8 divisions for only 32 teams. We have a nationwide conference with 18 teams and no divisions. Probably not a good model for fairness.

There are many things we can say about the NFL, but there are many things the college game can take from it as well. As Mike wrote in the article, giving higher performing teams tougher schedules is a great step. Of course you can't always have Purdue missing out on playing Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, or Oregon. They need to play at least one them in addition to Indiana (as their protected rivalry). But since the CCG may go the way of the dinosaur if Petiti gets his play-in weekend passed. You could do four pods, and a two team relegation where those teams have to play their way into a pod to get a shot at play-in weekend, or just add two more teams to get to a five team pod. You could have a heavyweight in each conference, and then do the rest by strength and geography. The relegation model is a bit tricky, but you could base it off a two year stint. I think the five team pod is just simpler, and no I'm not for the B1G kicking out programs, as relegation usually means doing just that. I simply think programs should be forced to at least use their resources, and not just be comfortable being a B1G member. The five heavyweights would be the best five programs over a five year period. For example, USC would've been one in the late 2000s, but Indiana would take their place as of today. Maybe my idea is too convoluted, I'm just trying think outside the box.

Predicting Oregon's offensive two-deep ahead of spring practiceHere is our best guess for what the Ducks' offensive two-deep will look like following now that spring practice is closing in. https://247sports.com/college/oregon/longformarticle/oregon-ducks-ducks-football-depth-chart-2026-season-277064403/

Oregon Football reveals updated 2026 coaching staffThe Oregon Football program formalized the updated 2026 coaching staff. DuckTerritory overviews the full list. https://247sports.com/college/oregon/article/oregon-football-coaching-staff-updated-2026-reveals-277097734/

Guys to watch to step up: Na'eem Offord, Dylan Williams, Douglas Utu & Elijah Rushing Four Under-the-Radar Returning Players to Watch for Oregon This Spring

Offense's two (or three) deep Predicting Oregon's offensive two-deep ahead of spring practice

To piggyback off your post, and see how crazy the landscape of college football is today. We thought Oregon joining the B1G was nuts, imagine being a singular school jumping up a whole division, and joining a conference with the nearest member being over 2,000 miles away. I don't imagine the MAC pays out like the B1G either. https://www.carmichaeltimes.com/2026/03/09/566187/hornet-football-to-join-mid-american-conference

More on Miami-Ohio https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/miami-ohio-football-spending-nil-transfer-portal/

THE MEET STARTS 3/13

Now, form charts turn out true about as often as our March Madness brackets do. You have false starts, injuries, sickness...or an athlete has a bad day for your team. Or the other teams have a bad day, that opens the door for your team. That happened in the B1G Womens Indoor Championships, as ChileDuck told me that "Illinois has a powerful team this year, and I don't see the Ducks passing them." Then he texts me on Friday to explain that some Illini female athletes did not come through with the points expected....and there is a crack in the door for Oregon. Well, the Women of Oregon busted through that door to win the B1G Indoor Track Championship along with the Men! You can see the form chart predictions below, thanks to ChileDuck. The top one is the Mens, and the bottom shows how strong the Womens Illinois team is. Go Big-10!

Not so Fast! It looks like the Left Coast Women's teams didn't get the memo. OBD, UCLA, perhaps the No.1 seed, USC, and UW are all headed to the NCAA tournament. Stuff happens.

OREGON ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2026 BASEBALL | @OregonBaseball Laya Claims Second B1G Freshman of the Week Honor EUGENE, Ore. – Four weeks into the season, Oregon true freshman Angel Laya has now claimed the Big Ten Conference Freshman of the Week honor twice. Laya’s latest award came after a big week in a midweek game against Oregon State and a weekend conference series win at Purdue. Laya continued his hot start slashing .400/.500/1.133 with a 1.633 OPS in Oregon’s four games while belting three home runs and scoring six runs. He was instrumental in securing a road conference series win at Purdue by slashing .364/.500/.909 with a 1.409 OPS while hitting a pair of home runs and scoring four runs. Angel Laya at Purdue In Oregon's series-clinching win on Sunday, Laya homered twice while going 4-for-5 with four RBI and four runs scored. In a Tuesday matchup with No. 18 Oregon State, the Ducks' right fielder homered and tripled while going 2-for-4 with three RBI and two runs scored. On the season, Laya did not strike out until his 39th plate appearance of the season and has just three Ks in 61 plate appearances while slashing .370/.443/.778 with a team-high six home runs. 2026 Laya Honors Co-Big Ten Freshman of the Week (3/9/26) Live Like Lou Las Vegas College Baseball Classic All-Tournament Team (3/1/26) Perfect Game National Freshman of the Week (2/17/26) Big Ten Freshman of the Week (2/16/26) Oregon All-Time Big Ten Freshman of the Week Honors Angel Laya (3/9/26) Angel Laya (2/16/26) Burke-Lee Mabeus (2/24/25)

5-Star Recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson Makes Announcement With Oregon, USC, TexasFive-star safety recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson has made an announcement about his commitment between Oregon, Texas, Miami, USC, LSU and Notre Dame. The highly-touted recruit has made his decision between his six finalist schools and will announce his commitment live on the CBS Sports College Football YouTube at 12 p.m. PT on Saturday, March 14, per his Instagram. Oregon Ducks On SI5-Star Recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson Makes Announcement...The nation's No. 1 athlete and five-star safety recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson has made an announcement about his commitment between Oregon, Texas, Miami, USC,

Mike, spot on, citing Penn State's schedule. And Notre Dame? The Domers have a Golden path to the playoffs. On3Notre Dame, Georgia and, yes, North Dakota State among 6...Entering the 2026 college football season, there are six schools currently favored in all 12 of their regular-season games.

Good luck, yuck, yuck 😁. The NCAA Been There, Done This and Paid BIG Legal Fees to No Avail - On3Donald Trump proposes return to pre-NIL era, wants to 'ra....

Beat the Twerps, er, Terps! On32026 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket: Finaliz....

The affect of this season's injuries:

With those injuries I just don't think many coaches would have success. I would challenge anyone to find a program more snake bitten than Oregon when it comes to it. You're talking about a lot of the best players on those teams, multiple starters at a time. This is the only year where I feel like we just didn't have the talent to compete. Time after time Dana would have to figure it out, and he usually did to the extant of getting the team to 20 wins, this season is the first where the team had no chance of going anywhere. Last season was derailed by some players going into the biggest slumps of their careers, if TJ Bamba just has an average shooting year for himself, that team wins about 3-5 more games in the regular season, nobody could have predicted him having the shooting slump he had after 4 very consistent years in two different programs.

When I first posted this article, I scratched the surface on the plight of the four west coast schools. Much to my surprise, Jon Wilner wrote an article on the same thing today, although he does a deep dive into the situation facing these schools. It's behind a paywall but well worth reading. I did my own 'deep dive' into the injuries that Oregon has had to deal with these past six seasons, naming the player, year and how many games were lost to injury. 2020-2021 N'Faly Dante 22 Will Richardson 12 2021-2022 Nate Bittle 13 Richardson 5 2022-2023 Jermaine Couisnard 17 Keeshawn Barthelemy 12 Bittle 8 Dante 5 2023-2024 Bittle 31 Jesse Zarzuela 31 Barthelemy 18 Dante 14 2024-2025 This is the only season the Ducks were healthy. Brandon Angel, T.J. Bamba, Barthelemy, Bittle, Kwame Evans Jr., Jackson Shelstad and Jadrian Tracey all played in 35 games. Supreme Cook played in 32 games and Ra'Heim Moss in 30. 2025-2026 Shelstad 19 Devon Pryor 15 Ege Demir 12 Bittle 7 The grand total for all the games missed. Bittle 59 Dante 41 Zarzuela 31 Barthelemy 30 Shelstad 19 Couisnard 17 Richardson 17 Pryor 15 Demir 12 With this many injuries, it doesn't matter if Coach Altman or any other coach could win games with a depleted lineup. They could squeak by with a couple of wins in the old PAC-12, but not a chance in the rugged B1G Ten.

Thanks Charles if feels good to be back Have invited Jack Loe to join us. I leqrned yesterday that he is friends with Steve Fountaine's sister Linda

You arte right, My partner had a long chat with her dad last weekend and we will post about the conversation this week

I’ve only been able to watch games telecast on Big Ten plus this season, but it seems to me that Taryn Ho has played significantly more time at shortstop than Amaral.

Thank you Charles I really enjoy your play by play analysis. You are a natural! Brings back memories of Russ Hodges partner Lon Simmons (sans a couple cocktails) describing the Giants in the early sixties.

Thanks, Mike. Your format, including flex scheduling, could work and would be an improvement on the current throw of the scheduling dice from 2024 through 2028. The difficulty would be in selling the idea to Tony P and the folks at Fox, CBS, and NBC. But as you noted before, discussing the issue is a start. As iuphound pointed out, and as Charles commented on above, the Legends and Leaders split, followed by the more aptly named East-West, did not work out, due to Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and, on one occasion, Michigan State's dominance. Two years in, OBD has won a conference championship, with the other won by Indiana. Not what the folks in B1G HQ imagined when putting the schedules together. I do believe Petitti's 24-team playoff without automatic qualifiers format will be adopted, including no conference champ games being played. I also believe that, in addition to Oregon, SC, UCLA, and UW are spending the money required to be successful in football. Wisconsin has stepped up, and one day, Nebraska may see a decent return on its football investment. So, would East-West Divisions be better balanced today? I think OBD, USC, UCLA, UW, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois could be competitive versus the East. Perhaps a flex-scheduled East-West crossover conference opening slate of games using the prior season's standings, and a final week of crossover games using the standings after the penultimate week of the regular season. Play ten conference games, eight division, and two crossover games. Have half of the B1G teams idle in Week Six, the other half in Week Seven. Could the ACC, B12, and SEC be convinced to play ten conference games and follow the same format? I do think travel matters. Your Division structure would help with travel. Asking OBD to play two games in four weeks in the Eastern time zone in November is handing Oregon the short end of the scheduling stick. Trying to balance the in-conference SOS is certainly worthy of consideration. Can the folks in Chicago be convinced? Great follow-up article, Mike, thank you.

Great to have you back Oregonjoneses, and having you cover the women who are competing for another B1G title is fantastic. I am passionate about Oregon Baseball, and having someone keep an eye on the Womens Softball will make it fun for everyone this spring.