Porter

When title IX was decided, it was all about scholarships. Nobody got paid anything except tuition, room and board and books. It made sense that there should be equal numbers of them in institutions where the populations were kind of Co-ed in somewhat equal proportions. In response, I'm a little surprised schools didn't go back to the old Ivy League pattern or even their new one. Programs were dropped and I can't recall lawsuits fighting back against that. The only things necessary were balance and the conference requirement for a minimum number of sports. Where those requirements will end up now will be an interesting (or not) story and it could be a bedtime story for the NCAA. Things have changed just a little bit since then so it's probably not out of line to revisit the whole issue, and I'm sure it will be ad nauseum. Fairness the previous driving force is going to found in a morgue, far from the bus that hit it. Once again programs may die but this time the result will be a lot of billable hours. Fans are not going to have any input nor are we going to enjoy the result. Can it become "I'm going to take my ball and play somewhere else!"? The tumult and the directions it could go are worthy of a series of Vegas lines.

also .. were the players wearing gloves back in those days?

Let me guess. One of the Michigan teams was captained by Gerald Ford

So yeah, we would love to have 4 viable QB's which is never going to happen at the level the Ducks are playing now. Uncle Phil will make sure we always have two, as I am guessing is the biggest reason Novo is still in the room, as long as there is NIL and a hint at a post-football-career could be in the mix as well. There may be a third RS or Soph with high hopes and just barely possibly a fourth but the latter two won't have seen the field very much. In that sense we are indeed in deep doo doo for the rest of whatever season that happens. It could turn out to be opportunity to test whomever is left and see who fits in best. My guess is that the same scenario exists for any other top 10ish team. Our room will probably always have four signal callers, just not four we would want to trot out into most B1G games before we put on a blind fold and maybe took a couple of puffs on a cigarette. Thanks for improving my fuzzy 77 year old memory on the fiasco those 4QB games were. My thoughts must have been improved by the low expectations we had back then and the blow-ups were closer to expectation than they would be today.

It's hard to underrate USC and UW. The bottom line is that neither will crack the top three in the B1G this season and will have some hard work ahead of them to finish 4th. UW won't come close. Fans in both cities will after their hides in January, especially LA. I hope Belichick is using protection, particularly through the contract his agent negotiates for him. The ACC is not the place to go hunting for a natty. MC may be a great offensive line coach somewhere. The SEC is still going to be waiting for its next natty after the season is over. Stanford and Northwestern may have a tough time making the top five outside D1 and the top ten in colleges where sports are not a factor, but they still will have very valuable sheepskins. "Play" is the right word for those 4th best SEC non-conference games. Can some of those teams please change their initials to BYE? I kind of want to know how you tested those towels.

Absolutely. He did recruit Moore who semi-flopped at UCLA due to a lot reasons other than not being up to the job. He's back in the fold in Eugene where he has been developed in Duckville, mentored by a very good college QB. We'll see how well that works out and what kind of job has been done with Novasad, who has been brought along by two of them, one an NFL starter. as well. I make no judgement on Dan or the staff, yet. We just haven't seen the high level evidence of an Oregon recruited and elevated signal caller so far. I, of course, haven't seen Moore do enough yet to have an opinion on who should start. I'm pretty sure Novo would succeed but I don't know if he is better than Moore or not. The noise being made by players is positive for Moore and you have to give them some credence. Naturally you need at least two guys in the room you wouldn't quake over if their number came up. I can recall a season Oregon was down to #4 and didn't do any worse than they had earlier. Of course, now, if Numbers two and three are not top shelf it will be more likely to spoil the season. Remember the serious dip when Ty Thompson had to step in for Nix who played better injured. The talent level on hand and that needed are at least a step up from then. A lot of guys are and will be hitting the portal that we slobbered over when they arrived. Some of those quality guys have already had to depart and at least one got drafted into the NFL. (Shough) There will be others at other positions who couldn't crack the two deep in Eugene who will be happy, welcome and successful elsewhere. I think in this recruiting cycle the Ducks have lost recruits who would have come if they weren't pretty well certain they'd not see the top spot until year three, at best. As fans we need to get use to that new standard at most positions as the team grows. I doubt Ohio State fans have shed any real tears over players we lured away from them.

I don't really care what they play. Quarters is more to provide advertising than anything else so we will probably see it. We'll probably also see more foul shots with the 5 foul mark starting them. I don't think it really means anything other than a time out for the coaches and players.

I'm pretty sure Lanning didn't bring Thompson in and I'm not sure yet how good of a judge he is in recruiting QB's. We know he can pull what he needs from the portal but that is probably not the best plan in the long run. Of course, Ty is now a receiver for his new team. I never saw him belonging as a starter behind the center after his sophomore year. I hope he does well at his new position. I'm not sure we will ever see Smith on the turf but if the coaches develop him, I could be wrong. No matter what the Ducks will likely have a strong room for years to come.

You are spot on. A look at the QB room for Oregon shows a tough climb to get to the field. Oregon is in a new atmosphere we fans are not used to. The type of recruits we want to bring in, and will bring in, are looking at at least a year or or two before they will be on magazine covers. There are plenty of other place where they can display their talent much more quickly and as solid talent they will. Of course they may not become part of a national championship group any time soon though many are more interested in exposure to get that NFL invite and I don't blame them. That said, don't give up on seeing a commitment from somebody who has the talent to fit into the room, now or in another year after a Mormon mission maybe more than one recruit and even they may never see the turf as a starter.

The SEC is considered a hot bed of sports partially due to our old friend East Coast Bias. People in the east do not travel as much as we do in the west to begin with and I'm guessing money is tight for traveling right now. There is also inertia as these team have done well in all three sports recently. Football has that advantage of one less conference opponent than other conferences. To be fair I believe Oregon State is the only school north of the Mason-Dixon line to have won the CWS and they did it more than once. Correct me if I am mistaken. The only B1G teams actually on the east coast are not powerhouses so .. The bias will continue for a while though the SEC continues to drift farther away from their last national championship in football. Alabama is no longer the challenge that Georgia and Texas are becoming but they have not been to the promised land, either. We lived with it in the PAC12 and will to a lesser extent now that we are in the B1G.