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For OBD, the road to Miami goes through Miami. But not U! There's something about Indiana and easy schedules, no? OBD has, according to this article, the easiest PO path of any team playing a 1st round game. FanSidedCollege Football Playoff rankings by easiest path to the...They say conference championship weekend is dead in a 12-team Playoff world, but don't tell that to Indiana and Ohio State.

Ducks supposedly monitor every athletes wear to keep them below certain thresholds, so it wouldn't be too big of a leap to dial down those thresholds in the future. We do see a lot of practice injuries contact and non contact. Also there certainly are different seasons to be breaking down and to be peaking. The fact bye weeks are so needed during the season tells me in season you could get by with a lot more walkthrough practices and be fine. Out of season you need to be maximizing your breakdown and recovery consistently.

The most bizarre numbers for him are a 22 ft long jump and 45' triple jump. I'm sure he didn't exactly practice then much, but dang I hit those numbers with 12 second 100 meter speed in college. Running 10.15 you could get 22ft with a small hop. What matter is his football speed and high pointing balls which he is excellent at. 6'3 is a fantastic height. And if you look at his running form on you tube for his 100 meter dash his form is horrible. Lots of indication his elite speed and athletic ability is still very raw. He's got a lot of upside with proper training that Oregon can give him. Despite the physical development setback of being on a mission for 2 years he still comes in as a freshman and he's still in that 15 year window age 15-30 where his natural strength should continue to improve with or without training, meaning his ceiling in college is actually higher than if he hadn't gone on the mission, it's just shortening his presumed profession career. This kid is going to be a dual sport monster. I'd love to see teams have to guard sub 10.4 speed at every WR position with rocket arm QBs for the next few years.

I wonder how that compares to Duck's in-season practices. I read that Ducks Tuesday practices are very physical.

Mistakes have been made! I am profoundly sorry. 😉 Oregon Ducks On SIPenn State AD Speaks Out After Leaked Rant Dissing Oregon...The Oregon Ducks' budding Big Ten rivalry with the Penn State Nittany Lions has taken a interesting turn. In a recent leaked audio clip that went viral on socia

Back in 2024 when he committed, it was a MAJOR get for the Ducks! Folks kinda forgot about him, but he is an absolute monster of an addition to the team. He should have immediate impact with DKM next year.

I can't remember too many former Ducks associated with missions (the two names I recall being Hamani Stevens and Brandon Bair who both worked out well). The discussions always involved around lineman or QBs. QBs because one worries about everything with QBs and lineman because big guys often tend to... continue to get big at that age. It has been said missions traditionally intentionally have been planned to not allow youngsters much if any time to pursue any serious outside endeavors (like training) for the very reason they didn't really want youngsters pursuing any serious outside endeavors (outside the mission). No real idea how accurate though.

It's like the NCAA tournament in basketball. You have 68 teams, or whatever the number is now. Yet on selection Sunday, you have people moaning and complaining. The playoff could go to 24, 36, or 64 in football, and you'd still get complaining. There would be complaints about who got home games, who got the hardest path, or why you had too many rematches. It's true that you could give a person a hundred million dollars, and they'd complain about it being taxed.

Great Take! At first, I thought you were referring to this season's Pin Strip Bowl in the Bronx. I'm sure Dabo's guys can't wait to take a trip up north in December. 😶‍🌫️ And what a great season for the Nits! Going 6-6 and qualifying for a bowl game. 🤪 Clemson vs Penn State is the AP Voters' Delusion Bowl, no doubt. And Voters, how about Archie getting Horny and Cheesy vs. Michigan? Serious Note - I was happy to see that Matt Campbell is keeping interim PSU head coach, Terry Smith, on the staff.

Whether it's Monday with Marsh or Tuesday with the Teacher, it's All Good! Please, football gods, it would be nice to have all hands on deck on 12/20; it may be imperative on 1/1. TT coach Joey McGuire has not forgotten Bo Nix leading OBD to a comeback victory in Lubbock. The comeback loss was one of the first things mentioned by McGuire during his Selection Sunday interview. Let Ohio State possibly deal with A&M in Dallas. Defeat JMU, and it's a longer trip to Miami (DUH 🤪) from Lubbock than Dallas, and gives OBD the chance to close the attendance disparity. If Mari-oh-oh takes down the Aggies, it's also nice not to have to play the U in Miami. Make Chesney's 1st Visit to Autzen a Bad Memory!

And it's not even really about 8 or 9 conference games but more about the scheduling format the conferences use. The BIG set up a format that ensures all 18 teams play each other home and away every 5 years. Some schedules may be more daunting than others any given year but the overall effect is equality. The SEC doesn't come close to this concept and instead goes to great length to avoid top tier match ups. I believe one of our SEC friends recently posted some outrageous facts about how few match ups certain teams have had in the last several years, You shouldn't be able to both avoid the top teams in your conference AND get credit for playing in a tough conference. Iowa had several close losses to several top twenty teams and are an after thought but many top SEC teams avoided most of each other. How do we know Iowa wouldn't be a playoff team with an SEC schedule? I think a component of conference tie breakers should be the conference winning percentage of the teams you beat followed by teams you lost to.

I mean the SEC probably got one more team into the playoff because they only play 8 conference games. Just think... if USC did NOT play Oregon they would be right in the thick of the discussion whether they are in or out but that loss to Oregon was the kiss of death to them. You could say the same thing about Michigan if they didn't play USC this year. They lost an OOC game to Oklahoma and then they will play Ohio State every year no matter what... but what if USC wasn't on their schedule? That's two losses and right in the thick of the discussion. The B1G having 9 conference games this year has eliminated one of our teams from the playoff potentially... well probably not because Michigan and USC haven't looked THAT good.

Sant Rosa, thanks for this and the other WSJ posts. Short practices have been part of Curt Cignetti's process throughout his coaching career. Curt learned this process not from his time at Bama working for Saint Nick, but from his Dad, Frank Cignetti, Sr., who finished his career coaching the West Virginia Mountaineers. On his way to his first head coaching job at Toledo in 1990, Saban was Frank Cignetti's DB coach at WVU in 1978-79. Before Toledo, Saban also coached for Don James at Nick's alma mater, Kent State, Syracuse, Ohio State, the year after working for Frank Cignetti, Navy, Michigan State, and the Houston Oilers. Frank Cignetti's first coaching head job in college, like Curt's, was at a small school, Division II Indiana University Pennsylvania Crimson Hawks, never to be confused with the Crimson Tide. Frank Sr., a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, taught his sons, Curt and Frank Jr., who coached for Pitt, the New York Giants, and the Green Bay Packers, to take care of their players. When you are coaching at IUP and WVU and not at a school with a deep roster like Ohio State, keeping players healthy is paramount. Curt was Nick Saban's recruiting coordinator at Bama and helped Saban build one of CFB's deepest rosters. Curt was close to 50 years old when he took a $125,000.00 pay cut and left Bama for IUP. He got a 'decent' return on this bet on himself. With only 136 teams (at least in theory) competing for a title, college football coaches are members of a small fraternity. Destroy the Dukes! Chastise Chesney!

There is a portion of their fanbase who firmly believe they will hold Oregon to under 100 yards rushing, Texas Tech only gives up around 65 yards rushing per game. But TTU hasn't played an offensive line anything like what Oregon has and the old narrative that Oregon has small linemen is not true anymore. For Washington to slow our run game down they had to stack the box and challenge Dante Moore to beat them with his arm... and he did that without Dakorian Moore and Gary Bryant... what happens when they come back?

From what I have read, and heard, that most "Mormon players" that are serious about both their "mission obligations" and their football careers take seriously the need to at least maintain some level of training, knowing that they intend on returning to football once their faith obligation has been fulfilled. Serious players take their routines, seriously. Let's hope Bair be one of em. We shall see in a lil over eight months. 😁

Man I am hyped for the playoffs. At this time last year even though the Ducks were the number one team, they seemed to be limping in to the playoffs with ebbing momentum. We were hoping the poor defensive performance against PSU was a one off and chalking up the poor offensive performance at Wisky to late season fatigue. This year OBD appear to be rising to whatever challenge they face that week and getting better because of it. The run game is a legitimate problem and with the emergence of J Mac and Benson, the passing game is as well. The super frosh all over the roster have become focal points not mere spot fillers. Now we get to see what a full strength roster looks like with the super frosh hardened into seasoned vets. Have I mentioned how hyped I am? Can't wait until the 20th. Great article David. Go Ducks!

LOL. Sounds a whole lot like how the NFL-Heavy works regarding practices. Strength, flexibility, precision, and stanima being a whole lot more important than "grinding it out" during practice to prepare for "grinding it out" in a game. After all, these players are already at peak physical conditioning, more important to fashion those skills towards an actual opponent, rather than each other. I'm sure there is a balance somewhere between the two extremes. QUACK!

While I've always been doubtful about the Navy Seal, or no-water-when-it's-hot type of practices, this barely-practice approach a surprise to me. It's certainly worked for Indiana so far this year, though.

What I think a large number of pundits and fans alike seem to forget or have not actually realized, is that this Oregon team is suppose to be a rebuilding/reloading team compared to the other top teams in the nation. The significant number of freshman starting on both sides of the ball plus new faces on both O and D lines, and a "new" starting QB that has performed better than expected, based on previous starting performances, had most thinking a minor stepback would occur (guess going from #1 seed to a #5 is a "stepback?). But, here we are with probably a better chance to "run the table" than we did last season. If Dante actually does return next season then OBD will be an even stronger unit and actually in a better position to compete in 2026 than they were this season. Which, I'm sure, is a scary, scary thought for not only the B1G, but the rest of NFL-lite football. 🦆🏈🪨's!

This is an unlocked article from the Wall Street Journal. They make it look like you have to sign up but you do not. This approach sounds revolutionary to me. https://www.wsj.com/sports/football/indiana-curt-cignetti-fernando-mendoza-510bc45a?st=mWeLJR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I do believe all the "outrage" is to strongarm the NFL-lite participants into accepting "terms" they might not necessarily want or agree with. IE: eight to nine conference games for SEC/ACC. Push for automatic qualifiers for top two mega-conferences. The continued dilution of the importance of the conference championship games. The bottom falling out of the mass amounts of "bowl games" that play to mostly empty stadiums with "depleted" rosters from opt outs. The narrative to include other (Western state) "bowls" via Vegas/SOFI stadium to even out playoff travel during an ever expanding playoff qualifiers size. And the one, thorny, money-centric, issue of a supposedly annual championship contender, NOT playing in a conference with a somewhat equal number of home/away games, instead of the "pick and choose" scheduling allowing up to 9 home games to be played as an independent. Yeah, the Entire NFL-lite be looking, Hard, at you Notre Dame! Basically it is easier to piss off and inconvenience people into accepting your... intentions...if you let the unfairness run it's course till the peoples, organizations, fans, and money brokers (Oh Wait! The money brokers are actually the ones "breaking it to fix it" according to the business plans they want in place, sorry) are screaming for the change that was wanted initially in the first place by the powers that be. In the end it will become what is wanted and needed to continue to pimp and grow the NFL-lite model envisioned. As long as OBD is competing annually in whatever iteration of NFL-lite playoffs, I be a Happy Man! Go Ducks! 🦆

Thanks for the update David. I do wonder with how well Malik Benson and Jeremiah McClellan have played, how do you take them off the field? I guess this is a good problem to have, Our depth at WR is so good, are we now in a position to challenge THE Ohio State University for the title Wide Receiver U?