David Marsh

Frost was right that it was and still is hard to recruit to Oregon. The worth ethic and recruiting chops that really made the difference. This isn't to say coaches before Cristobal and Lanning weren't hard workers but they knew their limits with the Oregon brand at the time. Kelly had something unique to prich... Cool uniforms and a cool offense. Everyone caught up on the offensive side and for a while there tried to keep pace with uniforms. Cristobal and Lanning has been able to approach recruiting a different way because of the brand laid down by their predessors and in turn both elevated recruiting. NIL has also been a massive game changer for Oregon because they wouldn't have stood a chance with some players on this roster without it. Recruiting to Oregon was hard and is still hard. Recruiting in general is super hard work. I know most of us wouldn't want to work the hours Lanning does. So don't take Frost's old quote as a slight on Oregon. It was true that getting top end talent to Eugene was difficult and exceedingly rare. It was the reality of where Oregon sat back then. Instead see Frost's quote for what it was... A moment in time where the Oregon brand was in its ascent but couldn't compete for to top recruits with the big boys. Things have changed in some massive ways. He wasn't wrong then ... But that doesn't mean that a statement of a past era applies to the Oregon of today.

There is absolutely an insurance policy in place. Those aren't terribly new. I know in 2014 Ifo had an insurance policy if he was injured and as a result fell out of the first three rounds. He did and got a few mil for it. Not ideal because it doesn't always make up for the money lost on not getting long term NFL contracts but that's still enough money to set themselves up. So yes... Moore has an insurance policy and has probably had one in place for a couple years.

It will always be an awful decision to move him from defense to offense. He would have been a star in an Oregon uniform if he stayed on defense.

I think I was referring to Ka'ai and Araghi both look very young. Probably upper 20s or low 30s. I have no qualms about Hampton and Mehringer in terms of experience only potential execution.

Internal hires I generally think are great from a continuity point of view. I think Ka'ai being promoted to an coach was part of the reason Moore has decided to stay another year. I think where some of the concern here for fans is that these internal hires are all super young. And there is nothing inherently wrong with promoting young coaches. It for a program like Oregon I think there is a mindset that the program should just go out and get the best of the best. Personally... I'm not so concerned with the QB situation. Moore needs to grow and progress and a lot of that comes from experience and he'll get a whole off-season to build. I'm more concerned with the edges. Matayo didn't produce that many sacks this year and Tuioti was fantastic but we need both players to be monsters. Are we going to get the most out of both of them via a young coach? We'll have to wait and find out. Also ... Though I love internal promotions I'll just bring up the internal promotions during Oregon long tenure era that everyone seems to dump on for internal hires... Helfrich to HC and Pellum to DC. I've personally been on record multiple times saying that Helfrich made sense to HC and was better than most give him credit for. Pellum made sense as an internal hire that just didn't work out. I don't know where I'm going with all this at this point. Your post got me thinking and this is just freeform thought dump.

It looks like both were promotions from within. Iny above posting the new coaching staff roster has a QB and Edge coach listed while Stein and Lupoi are not. I don't know how good they are as they are both young and I won't disqualify them because of youth. But Lanning is certainly betting on them over bringing in outside hires.

BOTH! Often both... sadly.

A few other thoughts... I don't remember seeing an annoucement of the new QB or Edge coaches but frankly I have been so busy with end of semester finals and grading that it is amazing I have kept up with anything. But... looking at the updated coaching roster shows some interesting things. https://goducks.com/sports/football/coaches Quarterbacks coach is Koa Ka'ai which was predicted to just get the promotion from within and it looks like the new edge coach is Kamran Araghi. both appear to be promotions from within. Lanning is certainly betting on himself and what he already has on staff. If it doesn't work out then I could see Lanning making some big moves in terms of coaches... but I am not feeling as confident about these two position coach promotions from within. Edges didn't produce enough last year.

I'd also argue that there is no way to truly balance schedules because you don't know the strength of any of the given teams from year to year. I'm sure many in the B1G schedule office thought that USC was going to cause more of a problem to B1G blue bloods than Oregon. Also... no one saw Indiana's rise when the teams were sorted for who plays who years ago. If you were putting the team slates together back in 2022 with the match-ups you would be absolutely shocked to find out that Oregon and Indiana both were power houses and both had a B1G Championship. And that Penn State imploded so badly that they fired Franklin, because Penn State has had a pretty manageable schedule from year to year, especially if you assume that Oregon and Indiana weren't supposed to be fighting for the top spot in the conference.

Still might take a few years... After all they play in the best conference and now they have to play an additional game they'll need to be ranked even higher! (Insert sarcasm)

Probably not. We're the is outsiders still in year three. We can get the awful schedules and I think Lanning embraces that. I don't think it's a good thing but I think Lanning is going to spin it into one. Just pumping some sunshine is all.

Yeah I noticed that. Though in truth I think Lanning doesn't do great with bye weeks. His messaging is fantastic on a week to week basis and he seems to kinda like the grind and bloodied up mentally that goes with the week to week. We lost focus real bad in the bye week before Indiana. So though not great... It is certainly something that I don't think bothers Lanning so much.

USC game 4 has the makings to be something special. USC has a new DC and a bunch of freshman that they are hoping to build around. Meanwhile Oregon should have a lean mean veteran led machine. But it's USC so their offense will be good and we'll be at their house which is always fun to send their fans walking out early. Gotta beat that traffic!

A couple will get slotted in pretty early. Most won't until a week or two before the game itself. Butt here are always a few marque games in the first half of the season that get some early scheduled time slots. I think Oregon v Penn State had a time slot pretty quickly. Michigan and Ohio State will be at noon. That sort of thing.

Portland, OR is fine... But we can tell there is a big winter storm because the gorge winds from the east are cold which means the continental weather systems are COLD. But I'm happy to not be in the massive winter onslaught.