David Marsh

Article coming out tomorrow that looks at our depth. We have some INSANE depth this year. Though I don't not want to see any injuries we have the depth to take a few hits.

Their Clemson win is looking less good as Clemson barely edged pass Troy. I have a feeling that BOTH teams were overrated in that game. We'll have to wait and find out.

That's kinda what I thought at first. I just thought they were putting Moga in first and Novosad would get some reps later. I was surprised to not see Novosad at all. Thomas getting some reps with the 3s and 4 made sense. I wouldn't want my backup to take a hit like Thomas did. No offense to Thomas. But Thomas as a walk on has also earned some reps with his hard work and the last couple series of a blow out is absolutely the time to do it. Northwestern and Oregon State are up next. The backups will certainly get playing time in both of those so we'll have to wait and see who gets those reps.

For football Boise State is intriguing but there are two problems that has kept them out of a power conference all these years. Market share - we have all learned too much about media markets with realignment that's for sure. And Boise State is just a really small market. Probably OSU and WSU have better market shares than BSU but BSU is a much better football school. Academics - this one seems silly but some of the Power conferences do still care about the academic side of things. The academics are BSU is what really kept them out of the Pac-12. Boise State will be putting a whole lot of these new pac-12 trophies in their cabinet which will probably anger the only two real pac-12 members..

Things going from bad to worse.... Oregon State falls to Fresno and WSU is struggling against San Diego! They are bottom feeders in their new conference! A conference they opted to build while destroying another.

Novosad doesn't have a redshirt at this point. Novosad was also the second QB out there in week 1. I'll trust the coaching staff on this but I'm puzzles as well.

Yes! But absolutely thrilled to be wrong! He decolped big time. But also a quick observation when Oregon went 2 back sets one was pretty much always Limar (at least while the ones were playing). He didn't get the handoff but he was a blocker and made some significant blocks for others.

And they would have had a sack with the proper coverage. Great example of it takes 11 to make a sack.

That.... And... Not taking that huge win and leveraging it into a bigger brand and program. They took the win and were happy with it. Never thought of the next step. Oregon in 1994 reached the Rose Bowl and continued to work on building their brand into something bigger and better. 1994 was the beginning. And the difference between those two... Oregon lost that Rose Bowl but made something of it..just think of what the Ducks would have done with a win?

This has gotten me thinking about both OSU's that wear orange and black and how alike they actually are. They are in different positions but both have opted for the "things are fine" approach. Oregon State has never really invested in their football program. They have always rejected the Oregon approach of invest in the program and strive to improve and good things will happen. Instead they opted for the goal of just reaching a bowl game is good enough. The embodiment of this is their hiring of Mike Riley and the maintaining of his contract. Riley was a good coach, he had more winning seasons than losing ones at Oregon State and he kept the Beavers generally towards the middle of the Pac. But he never got them to a Rose Bowl by winning the conference. OSU never invested in the program and they were fine with the status quo. Oklahoma State had money invested and they hired Gundy back in 2005 making Gundy one of the longest (if not the longest) tenured coach in college football. Gundy has been better than Riley and Oklahoma State has invested more into their program than Oregon State. But Oklahoma State didn't seem to leverage their funds into building a next level program. They are firmly in the BIg 12 which is much much much better than Oregon State's situation but the SEC isn't calling on Oklahoma State to join them. It feels like Oklahoma State is just fine with where they're at right now. Maybe in a few years they'll get more active about trying to build a better NIL collective and leverage their resources into building up their program but in a lot of ways Gundy feels like Riley. Just fine.

It's possible ... but here are my reasons why that probably won't be the case. Phil Knight helped elevate Oregon's brand but the university also bought into it. The hiring of Rich Brooks and the indoor practice facility followed. After Brooks there was Bellotti and then Kelly. All built on their predecessor in terms of on field production. The uniforms and facilities absolutely helped but it was the coaching that produced those results and it was the AD and President who hired those coaches not Knight. NIL is a big deal right now but regulations are slowly coming. With revenue sharing coming in this year I can see more regulations on NIL coming soon as well because players are getting paid. So hopefully the future impact of NIL is reduced. Though Knight is the biggest donor for Oregon they are not the only one. In my article linked below I talked about another big Oregon donor, Connie and Steve Ballmer. They purchased the Concordia University campus in Portland that is now the site for UO Portland. They were also the ones who increased Dan Lanning's contract. So there are other investors at Oregon though none are as big as Knight. Multiple sources have said that Knight has money set aside for Oregon in a trust. This money is supposedly invested and will become available over time. This wouldn't make up for the loss of Knight but it is stability in the transition. The Nike connection will continue after Knight though it will change over time. Nothing is forever and Oregon will continue to be all about innovation on and off the field. This leverages the brand and will keep Oregon relevant. Oregon is in the B1G, one of the Power 2. We will have money coming in that makes us relevant moving forward. Oklahoma State did not leverage their brand into a bigger and better conference. The SEC is not calling for Oklahoma State to join them. http://fishduck.com/2023/08/its-time-to-take-a-deep-breath-oregon-is-going-to-be-fine/

I'd say we often smile at Trojan comments. Oh wait... laughing. We often laugh at Trojan comments. My bad there.

From my understanding the media gets these numbers at times through connections and people inside these collectives. As of right now there is no formal reporting out there for amount paid. Last season the number that seemed to be fairly accurate for Ohio State was about 20 million for their entire team. A ton of money for sure. But when Gundy is throwing out Oregon is paying 40 mil for our team this year that is completely outlandish and he is throwing a number out there. Some commentators who I feel have a good idea for these things just said that number was wildly off by millions. The reality is that we don't know and those who do know are the people who run the NIL collectives. They don't need to release their numbers and as a result they don't. I'd imagine Oregon is probably around 4th or 5th in terms of overall spending. We spend for sure, but we aren't throwing money around like some programs. It was reported that we actually had an NIL offer slightly lower than Texas for Dakorian Moore. I don't remember the number anymore and are any of these numbers accurate? I don't know but it's all we have to work off of for now.

Sometimes people pick things up at different speeds. Also... I am sure the freshman have a limited playbook of their own. I think Dan wanted to give them some real reps in the game. Montana State was going to be a great opportunity for them to get their feet wet and figure out some of their niche roles. Davidson is going to be seeing the field as a power back in short yardage situations so getting him some early season reps will be key to making that more successful. Whittington as the lead back for Oregon still only had 10 carries on the day. Yes, Hughes had only one but it's not like we had a back out there taking 20+ reps. We'll have to wait and see how Hughes emerges for this team. One thing is for sure at this point... if you're a runningback don't come to Oregon if you want to be a feature back. 2024 was really the exception of the Lanning era where James was that feature back. In all the other seasons there were at least 2-3 backs that played a major role. Looks like they are going back to that. 2022 - Irving, Whittington and James 2023 - Irving and James (Whittington injured) 2024 - James (some Whittington but no where near close in terms of carries) 2025 - Whittington and who else?

That and a ton of 5 and 6th year guys that Chris Petersen recruited. There is a trend post COVID season. Teams while the oldest rosters were the ones that seemed to win the national title or get closest to it. Those rosters that maintained the old guys for that extra year had the best chance of winning it all. Michigan and Washington make the case... Both rosters were LOADED with 5th and 6th year guys. The Georgia teams that won back to back national titles were loaded with senior talent. This is the last year of the covid shirt... And things might just break wide open because the amount of players who are still from the COVID era is super small now.

I'd say no to both. Cristobal does have a sense of loyalty. He refused to interview for the Miami job when it came open the first time while at Oregon. Yeah, he ran for the job the second time but it's his dream job. He has the program going the way he wants and I would be shocked if he ditched it for Bama. And as for Sark... At this time I think Texas might be more talented than Bama. He has the donors and all the NIL he could ever want. He's built his program so why start over? What makes the Bama job so good is that it has the resources but does does every other major program. What's the difference between Bama and Texas right now? Only the expectation to be as good as Nick Saban at Bama. I'm not sure Nick Saban could meet their standards anymore. The field has flattened out at the top.

Other thoughts... I think LSU is too high they get a lot of credit for beating Clemson but I think Clemson was overrated as it was as well. Miami and Notre Dame both have lots of talent and are certainly top 15 teams but not so sure on top 10. Granted... I don't think there are many true top 10 teams right now. We are still quite early in the whole process.

Personally, I don't think there is a clear No.1 just yet. There might not be a clear NO.1 for the entire season. Though I suppose Ohio State has the best win at the moment. We don't know how good or bad Ohio State and Texas are at this point but we do know they have talent. Oregon looked great and they played what looks like a good team in Montana State, however, they are not an FBS school though I am sure they could beat any of the FBS bottom feeders. We saw a MSU team that was pretty disciplined and well coached on the field but was greatly out classed in terms of talent. Oregon feels like a top 5 team but frankly it doesn't matter. Give all this enough time and it will work itself out.

I loved the effort out of Dakorian Moore but I think Malik Benson probably takes it. He was quiet and doesn't have the hype around him but he was darn effective. Defensively it's difficult to pick anyone as the whole unit was so effective that they just got the job done. Thanks Alex for also not taking the easy pick of Dante Moore (or any QB) because that is the easiest place to say player of the week.

Here's hoping we break our record 10 sacks last year by getting at least 11!

I'm sure it will be. It makes the defense have to prepare for that look and at the very least it would be a nice short yardage formation. Even though I know they ran it for the first play of the game. Of the team can handle it the more formations the better. I'm kinda expecting the offense to look more like 2023 than 2024 because Moore has been in the system for a full year at this point.

Based on last year and this year so far it is a short yardage formation. It's only designed to pick up 3ish yards at the most. It's less about clogging the running lanes and more about creating windows via timing. My article I wrote about it last year looked at it's use against UCLA. But when they used it in that game they put Cornelius and Connerly side by side on the right side of the formation. Both were NFL draft picks. The blocking scheme between those two was rather complex and then the additional blockers coming off the delay from the snap as they were the ones standing next to the QB and the RB being lined up directly behind. It has lots of potential but the timing and precision of the blocks has to be just right or it gets disrupted.

Watching the Huskies play Colorado State a bit last night felt like the commentary was over the top. Sounded like I was watching a top 10 match up. But then you realize that Colorado State (soon to be Pac-12 member) is playing and the fact that the Husky offensive line was getting wrecked makes the whole thing kinda laughable.

They can... Only if they WANT it more. Right?

Jackson had some injuries during camp I remember seeing somewhere. Probably held out for the game to ensure he heals up properly and is ready to go when conference play arrives.