David Marsh

I thought they were convinced we'd be forced to ditch him because he can't win games?

USC hired the coach they deserve. Riley is a perfect fit for USC. They hired the flashy coach who won games in the Big 12 where defense is merely a suggestion.

Dabo is on his way out and probably by his own choice at some point soon. As I mentioned in the forum post from my article today there are really three models of recruiting right now. Prep focus - this is what Georgia is doing with lots of success because they pull in top 2 classes yearly. They give some to the portal but that's mostly to make room for new additions. Georgia does use the portal but very sparingly. Transfer Portal focus - this is Colorado as an extreme and Ole Miss as a bit less extreme. Get talent from the portal as the main source. So far it has been a complete mess for Colorado and we'll see how it pays off for Ole Miss this year. The middle way - almost every team is doing a bit of both. Oregon is doing it perhaps the best. Dabo and Clemson hate the portal and have opted to ignore it. Their problem is that they don't recruit top 3 classes. And it takes top 3 classes stacked to be able to ignore the portal. I don't see Dabo being around much longer with his contempt of what college football is today. Gotta play the game that's in front of you and the portal is part of the game like it or not.

Jonathan Smith is too low. What he did with Beavis was impressive and if the Pac-12 had survived I would have bet the Beavers make the playoff before USC with him in charge.

I didn't know their schedule. And I forgot how lame the SEC is about their scheduling and actually enabling all their teams to play each other. I do appreciate that in two years in the B1G everyone plays everyone. In four years every team gets at least one home game against the rest of the conference.

Kiffin needs to make the playoff this year. If he manages to do that then I think he'll find himself quite secure. In order for Ole Miss to rise he is going to need Bama to fall flat on its face under DeBoer. I think Kiffin v Sark will be amusing.

Colorado certainly.... They are signing over 30 players in the portal and they have lost slightly more to the portal. Ole Miss has done fantastic in the portal but their prep recruiting tends not to break into the top 10. I think part of that has to do with being overshadowed by Bama and Georgia in the SEC foot print and if a recruit doesn't want to be in the SEC then they're going somewhere else entirely.

Bama and TAMU will never admit it but Dan was their top choice or certainly top 3. From what I have read from a few sources is that Lanning as a clause in his contract that in order to just talk to him the program wanting to talk to Lanning would need to pay UO a hefty sum. I heard it's around 20 million which would be insane. So Bama will say that they weren't interested or he wasn't offered the job. Which would be true because I don't think Lanning was ever an option because just getting Lanning would cost upwards of 40 mil potentially and then paying him more to get him away from Oregon. Lanning was never an option for either which is delightful as Duck fans.

The Alabama rankings this year are difficult to actually put together. The prep class is Saban's so it's fantastic and the tender portal is mostly DeBoer and it's good in terms of its ranking but it's almost all Washington players! That's not recruiting as much as roster retention in this case. Also Bama got credit for landing Proctor from the portal but he left Bama in the winter and came back in the spring. He didn't really leave. I wanted to throw in stuff about Georgia and Colorado because the two are polar opposites in how they function. Colorado is a revolving door with transfers and is looking to win games exclusively through the portal. Georgia loses some talent to the portal and usually gets a little bit but they are pretty exclusively prep recruits I think if you asked Lanning he'd like to me more like Georgia and use the portal less but I'm not sure Oregon is ever going to be that because of our geography. Oregon is isolated from all the biggest hot beds of recruitment, the closest being southern California which is close but not Oregon's backyard. Certainly not within reasonable driving distance. So I do believe Oregon will need to use the portal to substitute for this geographic disadvantage.

This is some big time recruiting. And I have a doozy of an article coming out tomorrow just about Lanning's recruiting ability so far. So take a look on the main site for that to drop tomorrow morning. Yes... I am shamelessly self promoting here.

Jordan Burch I'd argue made a major leap towards the end of the year. He was absolutely dominant against teams down the stretch and havoc plays don't always get stats. Burch went down in the first quarter of the Pac-12 championship game and never returned. He was playing so well at this point in the season I feel he was worth at least 3 points if he stayed in the field of not 6. I like the article Alex. Though I'd say the great position of need is depth and having back ups. Where Oregon was really lacking last year was the secondary. He got a bunch of banged up corners and safeties and we didn't have enough experienced players back there for the two games we needed it, against Washington. In the first game against Washington we lost both Jahlil Florence and Khyree Jackson and were forced to play back ups. That's probably the difference down the stretch of that game. And in the Pac-12 championship game Florence was already out for the season and the Ducks clearly needed some help there. When it comes to edges... I think there are some great prospects the Ducks have in the roster and now we need them to step up in a big way.

And just because a HC hires coordinators well doesn't mean the on field product changes. Cristobal hired some great coaches on paper but they never seemed to live up to their pedigrees. Moorehead's offense should have been high flying and high scoring and it was neither. DeRuyter has a track record to fielding solid defenses and with the Ducks his defense was average. So we'll have to wait and see on if Riley actually follows through. Hopefully he doesn't.... It's more fun that way.

I saw you reposted.

And I'll just drop this article here. Lincoln Riley is a Perfect Fit for USC and That’s Their Problem |... FISHDUCK.COM It has been absolutely delightful as Duck fans to watch USC’s problems, not only this year but over more than a decade at this point. For the record… I'm starting to realize just how many articles I've written evaluating USC's short comings. I think I may be enjoying their failure too much.

I'm not sure many are doing the math on the tax rates. But the three keys of recruitment right now are relationships, NFL development and NIL. Lanning and company are amazing at relationship building. You hear every single recruit who visits Oregon say it feels like family and they feel they belong, whether or not they choose the Ducks. This also encompasses things like the culture and play time. NFL preparation is is growing with every year and got a big boost with this last draft. Getting more into the draft and earlier rounds will only make this better. Then there is the NIL component of throwing money at players. These NIL prices vary depending on the previous two. A great example is looking at Saban at Alabama where Bama's NIL payouts were considered to be lower because the development to the NFL was so high that just getting to Bama increased a players chances of reaching the next level. Division Street is giving competitive NIL rates frim everything I've heard but they aren't just throwing money at players that USC fans think is happening. It is funny to watch them implode though.

Additionally they opened the gates for Oregon to get stronger by their decision to leave the PAC and kill it at that point. In the end Oregon was too valuable to not grab before the West Coast conference fell apart. Oregon is benefitting more from being in the B1G than SC. Oregon's recruiting foot print and influence has expanded but USC's has not.

I could see the battle between the Power 2 being about how many conference games are required and I can see the SEC giving ground and pushing their conference schedules to nine. But it will come at the cost of them being more able to schedule lesser opponents. The reality is that outside of the Power 2 any OOC games will be with effectively G5 teams. The Big 12 and ACC are G5+ at this point. And lets be honest with ourselves as Duck fans, I know many are upset about scheduling Oregon State and maintaining a home and home with them as if it were a conference game but the reality is that they will soon be G5 status in terms of their roster. They may have already fallen there now. Maintaining the Civil War right now gives the illusion of Oregon scheduling a non-conference game with a Power 5 program but the reality is that the Beavs won't have that power for much longer.

Jon, you're just giving me so many places to link my past articles. It’s Time to Take a Deep Breath - Oregon is Going to Be Fine |... FISHDUCK.COM We are back in the midst of conference realignment with Colorado bolting for a home in the Big-12 and... This was when there was still hope the PAC might survive and Oregon was considering staying for the rebuild. Oregon has some big time donors that are never going to let Oregon fall behind and you're right it's not just Knight. It wasn't Knight who gave Lanning his big contract raise but the Ballmers. They were also the ones who bought the new Portland campus for UO as well.

This quote has me confused and I read it like 15 times. "It’s clear that Harmon thought long and hard about his decision. Some might speculate that Oregon increased the value of the bag at the last moment, and that USC wasn’t willing to pay as much. Maybe that’s true, but we don’t know that. We can say that Harmon weighed his choice and didn’t make it quickly or easily. This obviously means Eric Henderson and USC offered something compelling, something worth considering. NFL-level development mattered in all of this. It might simply not have been the first — or only — factor." In particular the last sentence.... Are they saying that USC was going to provide better NFL development than Oregon? Because of that's what they're saying than that is some major arrogance. Especially when you look at the record of Riley and his defenses. And Riley still has his past defenses hanging around his coaching reputation even though he vowed to make defense come first. He hasn't shown he has done that yet. Meanwhile, Lanning is has shown he is a great defensive mind and has the track record.

And they are late to this game of realization that USC is not Oregon's equal. This article I wrote was ages ago back when Cristobal was still Oregon's head coach and I think Lanning has only pressed the advantage that was created by those who came before him. USC Football Is NOT Oregon’s Equal | FishDuck FISHDUCK.COM Oregon and USC seem primed to be the top two schools in the Pac-12. Both have top ten recruiting classes... Sure NIL helps but the reality is that USC should have way more cash for this if they had alumni who cared. And I think the reality there is that the USC alumni believe they are entitled to the recruiting wins and having an eternally natty ready roster. And that's not the reality. USC fans are just as entitled as ever and that could be an advantage for us.

Just to share that article with others who might be interested. It’s Time for a Real Spring Game | FishDuck FISHDUCK.COM The Spring Game is just a glorified scrimmage. It’s something all fans know, but we still get excited about the prospect of seeing new Oregon players show off…

Those are 3rd party contracts and cannot be influenced by anyone in the NCAA or any university. Though this could be addressed in two ways. 1. Short term and fastest way is that the bowl games payout NIL money to all those who participate as the bowl game gets use the players NIL to promote the bowl game. You could even make this more interesting by the bowl game paying out each team a base and then giving the winner more. Some prize money might incetivize some to play instead of sitting out. This is the carrot. 2. The stick of trying to restrict money for players who opt not to play cannot happen yet. It feels imminent that colleges will begin to pay their players directly and at that point colleges would probably have something set up regulating pay in their contracts. Something like players receiver X for being active participants. You shouldn't punish the kid who doesn't see the field because they aren't good enough but they do everything asked of them. And a player opting out of a bowl game would exclude them from receiving pay for that period.

These better be some pretty cool uniforms... They've been hyping the roll out more than I can remember for previous uniforms. It feels we have been overdue for some cool new uniforms for awhile now. The last two were meh.

Absolutely massive and mind blowing and big this is. He probably takes the starting spot or worst case slides in as 1B. The Ducks have loads of talent at nose tackle it feels like now. This has the makings of an amazing year.

And or the abolishment of conference championship games. Championships should go one of two ways. 1. Regular season champ based on record but this has the problem that conferences are so big now that this won't always give a satisfying result and may result in two conference champions if two teams don't play but have the same record. 2. Build the conference championship games into the actual playoff format. It would make for some unique bracket formats but could be interesting.