David Marsh

Doesn't that make it 3 years in a row where Oregon produces a top 10 NFL draft pick? Herbert, Sewell and Thibodeux. I suppose that in itself is an achievement of Cristobal's. It will help his recruiting at Maimi and all these top draft picks will continue to elevate the Oregon program that he left. I suppose I can live with that.

First off... Have you seen how many times I link to my own articles? I'm a complete egomaniac! All these position group rankings this time of year are really only based off rather little evidence but most importantly it does give us something to talk about or at least think about. Especially with the mixed groups at the spring game I find it very difficult to gauge too much about the team on the whole besides some rather obvious stuff. As for KT... I think oddly enough the best gauge of his potential is looking at his freshman year, as strange as that sounds. That year he had the best overall defense around him and it allowed him the time and space to execute at a higher level than following years. If he stayed an extra year I think he would be an absolute terror in Lanning's system.

I love that last one with Thomas returning a punt for a TD that he really had no business returning. It just showed off his entire skill set and what made him so unique. Also... the play where he beat the WSU defender who was running in front of him is priceless... Seven McGee's first play of the Spring Game had him trying his best De'Anthony moves but couldn't quite pull it off.

From the sound of it this is a case where the coach, in this case Altman, might be pushing a player out the door into the portal.

Yep! Unless a player violates the scholarship contract/agreement they sign then they are guaranteed the scholarship for the duration. Cristobal showed a lot of players the door unofficially. I am sure that is happening still in the Lanning era as well but at this point I am sure Lanning and co are assessing what they have more than anything else. Now that spring is over they might be nudging some towards the door.

And the sacks were touch sacks which seem to create a greater loss of yards than real sacks because the player is dead where the QB is standing. Often a quarterback would take a small hit and run or throw the ball away or something other than just being down. What I liked the most is that some of those run plays went for good yards and it didn't feel like raw luck there a defender missed a tackle but the run was designed to spring the runningback free.

College Football’s Plan to Fix Signing Class Problems WWW.SI.COM The transfer portal is creating roster issues across the sport. This is not shocking to anyone at this point but because of the transfer portal some teams are losing more players than they can replace because of the 25 player per year signing limit. I talked about some of these problems months ago. It is hitting some teams harder than others, unsurprisingly teams that are not terribly good but recruit well are suffering the most. Transfer Portal Will Be a Disaster For Student-Athletes FISHDUCK.COM College football is more complicated than ever, especially when it comes to recruiting and the transfer portal... Right now the current policy is a lose-lose for everyone. Players are finding themselves without scholarships and institutions to play at when they enter the transfer portal as over 10% of all scholarship college football players enter it per year and most never find a new home. Then there are programs finding themselves with holes they can't fill because they have lost players and don't have enough yearly scholarships to fill them. This does need to be fixed. It's sad it has taken this long for the powers at be to recognize there is a problem, though no surprising.

I know it was never KTs plan to play more than 3 years at college but just think of what he could do in Lanning's defense? A year in Lanning's defense makes him basically a guaranteed No. 1 pick, unless there is a big time quarterback, at the very least an easy No. 2 no questions asked.

I worked pretty hard trying to find the article from years and years ago but failed. But I do remember Marcus Mariota throwing loads of picks at times during practice at Oregon. He was always pushing his limits, how small of a window can he throw through, how deep can he throw it? All those things that made him a better player come game day because he also proved he makes good decisions with the football. And practice should absolutely be fun... Anyone who has been on any sports team at any level knows you spend way more time practicing than you do playing in an actual game. Better make practice fun or why play at all?

In my original draft I had a whole lot more Mario Cristobal comparisons... And decided to cut them because we are in the Dan Lanning era now and it is wonderful, and I say that with only a spring game available. In the off-season I usually get football hungry and I go through YouTube looking for some old games to watch, or at least watch some good highlights. This is an observation of my own behavior from the past several years of doing this... I will watch games from the Kelly and Helfrich eras and maybe some from the Bellotti era as well but usually the quality of those games is really bad in terms of the recording available. What I have found is that I usually don't watch any games from the Cristobal era not because there aren't some good wins, looking at the Ohio State game, but they are usually just boring games. I mean I love that Oregon won the 2019-20 Rose Bowl but that is NOT a fun game to rewatch, winning by 1 point in a slugfest is not as much fun as watching Oregon destroy Jamis Winston's Florida State team in the 2014-15 Rose Bowl. The Cristobal era had a fun off season but a pretty boring and aweful regular season in terms of fan enjoyment. Cristobal Has Spoiled Fans By Winning the Off-Season FISHDUCK.COM Mario Cristobal will be Oregon's head coach in 2022. The only way this doesn't happen is if he opts to leave... But the product in the field on Saturday's Spring Game was lots of fun to see. It was also a little telling listening to the Rich Brooks interview just how unwelcome alumni and old coaches have been around the program under the previous regime of coaches. It felt like a major home coming both for the offense and for fan favorite faces.

Based on our small glimpse into the program, Nix would be the starter if the season started tomorrow. I think Thompson and Butterfield have loads of potential but aren't quite there yet. Right now I think Butterfield has the edge on Thompson. It is really hard to make much of a judgement though with the dubious offensive line play due to mixing the players and teams as they did. The good thing for all the quarterbacks is that the season is still months away so loads of time to learn the system and improve.

My thoughts exactly... KT I think did a lot for Oregon's recruiting ability and he was a bit target for teams to have to account for ... But I feel the coaching staffs really didn't do enough to get him in more favorable positions to make big plays. Johnson is such a selfless player and plays so hard and couple that with a coaching staff that knows exactly how to use him... He is going to have a big season and make a big name for himself this next year. Now think... Johnson, Sewell and a healthy Flowe on the field at the same time. With all the rest of the potential game wreckers getting coached up. I don't want to be an offense that has to deal with that. Jackson LaDuke was looking pretty darn good during the spring game as well. Sewell was quiet but many of the solidified starters tend to be quieter in spring games.

Couple notes... I think the total rushing yards was bu design going to be a bit low for a couple reasons. 1) no need to beat up the runningbacks too badly by having them get tackled too much. Cardwell was apparently out due to some precautions. They probably could have run some walk ons more but that didn't seem like a priority. 2) the quarterbacks needed reps in front of a crowd and they threw a lot of passes. Some good and some bad ... But they threw a lot. 3) the offensive lines in play weren't full units whether they are first, second, or third string. By the sound of all the practice information, there isn't really a depth chart anywhere but perhaps the offensive line as that is really the only grouping (I suppose besides the entire defensive unit) that needs to play as one. So not too surprising that when mixed together they didn't perform too great. 4) On the flip side the defensive line just played aggressive and got behind that lose conglomeratation of an o-line and recorded a ton of "sacks". In an actual tackling situation how many of those would have been real sacks, probably less than what was called but not all of them certainly. With that in mind being as quarterbacks are considered down by touch and not by being tackled they really didn't make many rushing attempts themselves. In short... I'm not really worried about the rushing attack or lack there of at this time. What I was THRILLED to see though is a rushing attack that attacked the edges frequently and forced defenders to make tackles in space. Moorhead did a great job making a solid rushing attack last year WITH Cristobal's offensive restraints but Dillingham's rushing attack will be fun.

But how much of that could be due to a completely absent Texas and the rest of the big-12 powers being up and down over that same time frame? Texas is the key one here though... Oklahoma has been able to put recruit the big-12 because Texas has been mediocre at best. If you're going to staying the conference footprint why go to Texas if you're a top recruit when you can go to a program with life in it at Oklahoma? Again... Not saying that Riley is a bad coach. He is a GOOD coach but every pundit these days wants to ignore context and crown him as the next USC GREAT coach... He may be that but we are going to have a wait to find out.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong in that second half. I would like to remind everyone that Oregon's defense pitched a shut out in the first half and then helped lose it all in the second half. I know some fans put the loss on Lockie and Brenner's shoulders but that game was a team effort of bad. Additionally, Brenner was the back up center but not the second best center on the team as that honor belonged to Jake Hanson who was a true freshman at the time and Helfrich wasn't about to burn a redshirt for a second half of a bowl game, and that was was the RIGHT choice.

I love my ducks as much as anyone, well probably more to be honest, but that doesn't mean they don't mess up as an institution. There are times when your team messes up and it is completely 100% ok to say that they did. It doesn't mean you don't love them but it can be quite the opposite. It is out of love that we need to speak truth to power and make the institutions and the things we care about better. And sometimes that means calling them out then they are wrong. Mullens and Oregon are accountable here because they hired Taggart and in truth when anyone within the program heard about these sort of work outs they should have put a stop to them right away. Then even after the fact of it all Oregon only suspended the strength and conditioning coach and then put some oversight on him from Coach Radcliffe... He should have been fired and coach Rad should have had direct control of the strength and conditioning program until a suitable replacement found. Oregon as an institution bears some responsibility. Regardless of whether Brenner would have actually had a shot at the NFL or not doesn't entirely matter because he has health problems now that he didn't have when he joined the program. Again... I love my Ducks and here they need to do right by Brenner and the players who were put into their care as apart of Oregon Athletics.

Special teams was an after thought in the Cristobal era. I'm not trying to defend Bobby Williams but at the same time if special teams is not a priority how good can any coach make them? So many times special teams in the past few years has under performed but the practice reports and all information about the program at the time really made it sound like special teams were often on their own. I know the kickers and long snappers really just spent practice back then on their own unless they were being called forward for a particular scinario in practice. This staff is embracing special teams in a completely different way by incorporating it into practice in a meaningful way rather than just doing a few drills to check a box.

So far like his predecessor Lanning is winning the off season. Bringing in big recruits and getting the fan base hyped for next season. That is the glory of sports, especially college sports, a bad season is washed away by hope for the next season. Let's just hope that Lanning is better than Cristobal in delivering is a better season. Cristobal Has Spoiled Fans By Winning the Off-Season FISHDUCK.COM Mario Cristobal will be Oregon's head coach in 2022. The only way this doesn't happen is if he opts to leave for another program, which is highly unlikely.

The rotating depth chart isn't much of a depth chart. Pretty much the only group that is settled on offense right now may be the offensive line because of the amount of expirence of those players playing together and how Klemm wants a consistent unit. Brown was coronated as the starting QB last spring. This coaching staff wants there to be an actual competition and if that is to happen then they need to see how each quarterback works with each grouping of players. I'm using grouping here and not string because it really looks like everything is still in motion. It's spring... Let the players play and show off what they have learned and how much they have grown.

Yes.... But what usually happens is what is called as tampering which is also technically illegal but no one is enforcing it and it is super difficult to track. They comunicate using old high school coaches and friends of friends sort of thing. So basically what happens is their old high school coach, or 7 on 7 coach or whatever other coach... Is contacted by a perspective team and that old coach reaches out to the player and communicates there is interest and that there is a starting spot waiting for them. It is all in a legal grey area at best but the NCAA isn't going to even bother with these kind of investigations because they are just way too much work and not always that easy to prove. From the sound of it sometimes those communicating with the player are just super vague with something like "if you enter the transfer portal you will find a better team". Then throw NIL on top of it. It all needs regulation but that isn't going to happen soon enough.

Sounds like a culture problem at the time. Yes, I am harking back to my article published last Tuesday. Maybe Rattler was part of the toxic problem at OU, I don't know enough about the situation to know for sure, but if that is the case then Riley recruited some toxic players into an environment and didn't have a culture in place to change their behavior. This is an interesting piece of information and I am sure we will all be keeping an eye on USC to see if there is any smoke.

Game pacing is something that must be improved upon as much as anything else. So many games last year were super slow because of the constant replays and discussions. I get not every call is going to be right and I can live with that but as long as the game's pacing is not unduely impacted and calls are consistent then the reffing will improve.

And some of the preferred walk ons are some pretty good players with some solid scholarship D1 offers in their own right. Those players are big deals as they really are the project players who can be developed into some dominant players. Now, the next step after that would be ensuring they develop and the team holds onto them for a few years as the portal can become a tempting place for a pwo who is a rising star.

We can pretend it's two by the same Riley logic... Really NASTY!

Loyalty and buy in have really changed on the college football landscape. If a player doesn't buy into the program anymore they leave... Or a coach may try and push them out the door.