Solar

It's actually really impressive how many found homes, and pretty far up the depth charts at that. The talent is stacked really deep here.

When your players' best years were their freshman years you have a coaching problem. As Taggart showed, the gentle nature of Helfrich led to a discipline problem that left players underdeveloped in every possible way, so much so that many regressed in college which means high school teams were better coached. Helfrich did not have that ability to tailor the mindset of the coaches and players to a growth mindset. It's like he thought a "next play" mindset was good enough, but it isn't. Helfrich had no business being a head coach. He didn't deserve to have the AD stomp on him publicly as he went out the door, but moving on was the right decision.

I think you meant to say still some meat on the bone as an analogy.

We've gone from stealing 4 and 5 star players from USC to stealing 3 and 4 star players from Cal. It is what it is. The portal is our future in 2-3 years time again or we're not going to have a enough blue chips to fill a roster. That is what it is as well. We shall have to wait and see how it plays out, relying on other other teams to develop our future players. These next 2 years are a short window where our top 5 recruiting classes give us a chance to be truly special. They can't be wasted with mediocre QB play. I really hope Stein and Lanning aren't full of wishful thinking about Moore and Novasad, that they truly are better than anyone we could have gotten in the portal. And I hope Terry can put together a dominant OL with the talent he brought in. I really wasn't happy with how our O line was last year, nor how poor their evaluations were about how players would perform in games.

They apparently really like hiring lawyers that are willing to tell them what they want to hear; lawyers that care more about a continuous stream of revenue (i.e. continuously puting themselves in a position to get sued and have to defend themselves).

FPI gave Texas a 1/4 chance to win the natty. Ridiculously high compared to anyone else. I think our chance was given less than 2%.

"I want to leave here as the winningest coach in Oregon football history" Lanning told Amaranthus. That's awesome.

So Gatlin will be back for 2026 or 2027? Also he was recruited by Adams. It's just one more reason we need our new WR coach to really work some magic. I was watching the 2013 Texas vs Oregon Bowl game last night. The commentator noted we were destroying them by running everyone on go routes through lanes in the zone defense and Mariota must have thrown 10 passes in the 20-30 yard range + yac. Why can't we do the same with Moore's arm and our WR's?

Thank you for sharing this. Reed is basically saying many of these massive NIL deals will fall through. When they do, what will the players do? They'll explore their options, the most likely options being those in their top 3 or 4 when they made a decision. I wouldn't be shocked if our final number of recruits for this class was sub 18, just knowing we'll be getting the players we missed on recruiting in the transfer portal in the next 2 years.

This. I've been watching prior year games where Nix and Gabriel were magical. Worst case doesn't have a floor if the QB is error prone and lacks the ability to consistently move the sticks or at least make critical clutch plays. 8-4 is a more likely worst case with bad QB play.

Peyton Bair wins NCAA track and field decathlon title | Idaho Statesman Saw the last name, from Idaho, and wondered... yep it's Gatlin's brother. He didn't just win, he set NCAA Decath records in the 100 and 400. I can't wait for Gatlin to get here.

I agree. Once you share outside of the team that generated the money it shouldn't matter whether they are male or female, both should benefit equally.

I like your take. QB 's are judge jury and executioner of WR talent. They think a WR isn't open, won't catch it or won't run after the catch to get the yards needed, they throw to someone else. If a WR is not getting balls thrown to them they aren't productive and get replaced. And vice versa, someone is super productive because the ball is coming their way will get more playing time. We don't have enough data to say that Evan Stewart was going to be our starting QB 's favorite target, heck we don't even have a starting QB picked yet. I think the biggest loss with Evan being out is the threat of the home run that would keep safeties from crowding down on underneath routes.

It's a loss, but Ross Douglas turned water into wine at Syracuse. He can idenitify and maximize the talent we've got available.

I'm not sold on the B1G defensive lines reason. We all saw how we played Idaho's DL that were smaller than our linebackers. Yeah injuries and cohesiveness we issues, but I don't think Terry handled it well. I'd take a couple botched snaps a game with Poncho over that mess we had with Pickard and everyone shifted suboptimally. Gabriel is a good enough player to handle botched snaps. I still remember the Alamo bowl and thinking we would have won if we put in Alie who was the better athlete who could handle imperfect snaps vs. Lockie who butterfingered the game away.

One has to wonder if he had a major stroke of luck with the talent during his short time at UCF.

I think this is the best O line talent since 2019. I'm honestly still not sold on Terry. He comes from the Cristobal tree, a tree that focuses on ensuring no negative plays and considers any yards gained past the linebackers to be a bonus. Rushing lanes past the front seven were few and far between last year. If we hadn't had Mr Yards after first contact James, we would have been screwed. I hope run blocking is significantly improved this year as the RB room's strength will not be breaking arm tackles.

Akili Smith Jr. Reminds me of a young Jaden Daniels. We're likely set for the next 3 years at QB with who we have on our roster right now, let alone transfer portal options that will exist.

I'm slightly disappointed to not get him, but man, it's such a crapshoot. Like 1 out of all the playoff teams had a QB they signed from HS. It's more disconcerting to be struggling with recruiting this year with USC stepping so much, you do wonder how much USC is really affecting talent available to us. Like the players we used to steal from USC aren't available to take anymore so we are more reliant on stealing from non-west coast locations where we have a lower hit rate. How big of an impact is that? It's non-zero, but we won't really know until signing day.

I thought the same thing when I saw this. He sounded pretty upset about the punting.

Seeing there weren't any follow up threads on the game and the news cycle is going to be on idle, I figured I ought to start a follow-up thread. My thoughts: QB is the most important position to pay attention to, and it seemed there was zero separation from all 5 that played. I mean you could make an argument Brock Thomas played the best, as he seemed the most efficient with the ball which is Lannings #1 measure of QB success and rightly so. It was fun to watch Akili out there. He reminds you that you can't teach height, and he has a very natural feeling for the 11 on 11 game. If he can tighten up his throw and learn some patience he could be special. Novasad processed the game better than most with one glaring exception that he seems blind to second level pressure screaming in from any direction. He feels the DL pressure and sees his wide receivers, but he could have been knocked out of the game on a few plays if it was a real game. Moga is more than serviceable. If Moore or Novasad hits the portal in the Fall I won't be worried about our backup. His biggest issue is simply the height. Lastly Moore has the best arm, and seems motivated to play well. But I think he is not that great at keeping the chains moving. It everything else that you need to do to make the most of every down, and I'm not sure he has it. If you make him scramble he won't get a completion. His pocket presence is still several notches down from DG and not in the same universe as Bo Nix. This is going to have to be a totally different offense. Stein's going to have to earn his money, in selecting the right starter and tailoring the offense to cover their weaknesses, and maximize the efficiency of the offense. Even though it was just a spring game I still felt like I was seeing more effective and intentional route trees, creating space for receivers to work, or overloading an area of the field to get someone uncovered. This was one of my hopes from our new WR coach is helping Stein in this area. We'll see. A follow on to that is Kenyon Sadiq. Rather than trying to get him the ball on trick plays and TE reverses, just send him down field and clear out his area. Seems to work much better. Benson looked like dud which is apparently what he was at his previous stop. Impressive sized guy with athleticism, but not really able to do much with it. Kasper is still dropping key passes, but at least he is catching it sometimes. Gresham had a good game, but not enough in general to judge him or the rest of the WR room to determine separation. If nothing else we could rotate our significant depth so these guys can go at 100% every snap like a timed 40 yard dash. OL will be better this year, could be the best since 2019 unless Alique Terry screws them up. World, Pregnon, Ilipani, Bedford and the next best guy that can play right Tackle should be a special group. Need to bring in a center from the portal though. Ilipani has no backup. I'm still not crazy about our run blocking. Both screen and player decisions seems like it's always a struggle to block beyond the DL. RBs are another level group. Hughes was just okay. Watching his tape at UNC seemed the same. Nothing super standout other than the blocking he was running with. He didn't shine any better than Harris or the other big guy freshman. Hill has some burst, which is nice to see, and I'm starting to be a believer in Limar. Riigs certainly did do anything today that would push him up the depth chart over Limar. Wittington is back but will the OL and the scheme create the creases he needs to work his magic at the second level? Our front seven will be the best group in the country in 2026, and more than formidable this year. Everyone on the DL and LB crew was impressive. Lanning is right, we don't need a LB from the portal. Flowers continues to be the spring game master. I wonder if he's one of those guys that can find that extra gear in the game, but doesn't show out much in practice limiting his playing time. It's a shame if that is happening. My advice to any coach is "whenever a player steps into the game and tells you who they are, good or bad, you need to listen and forget about how they practice. Coverage by the secondary was consistently tight and contesting catches. We should be able to rotate dudes and keep the them fresh. Lastly, too much slipping on the field for Nike U. Almost like the tread is too narrow for sharp cuts players felt they were capable of making. Nike needs to fix that. All in all, tremendous depth, my concern is us being limited to merely a great team, without the extra magic needed to make a deep playoff run.

The Browns actually put themselves in a pretty good spot at QB. They can have a legitimate QB competition with DG as the floor and Shaduer as the ceiling. I will say I'm not super high on DG in the NFL. If big play V.A. wasn't good enough for the NFL even as an UDFA then DG has no business being drafted in the 3rd round. Browns might be think Bo Nix 2.0 due to his experience that should make him day 1 ready, but DG is not Bo Nix. I think Will Howard and Shadeur will be the QB steals of the draft.

This. If you want have the best roster in football, that seems to mean you spend the bye weeks recruiting instead of reviewing scout tape on your next opponent and game planning for it. Any casual fan knew OSU was a different team after the Michigan loss yet the entire elite Ducks Coaching roster didn't get the memo. That's legendary head in the sand stuff. That is the lesson for Dan. Sometimes winning the big game is more important than selling a few more recruits. Does anybody really think the benefit of the extra recruiting effort before OSU out weight the recruiting disadvantage of getting blown out? You're young Dan. Please learn the balance.

I would love to see Dickey put it together and a huge jump, but I would treat that as a pleasant surprise, not something I'm counting on. If he was going to be 5 star good we would have seen more of him by now.

Just get his route running tightened up and have him run routes for traditional passes, some quick flip inside zone runs, and some tunnel screens. Spare me the gadget plays that take a long time to develop with blocking that has to be perfectly executed.