David Marsh

I think it's just a continued sign that no one outside of the West coast footprint has paid any attention to West coast football in the last decade. It's fine... I'll take Oregon as the B1G Champion and let them all have buyers remorse. They are thinking they got a bunch of money for some easy wins but I think most will be unhappy with the results.

Not surprising. Teams don't formally leave the PAC and join their new conferences until August. This makes sense even if it's not desirable.

I don't see the Pac as a name going away. But I could see a Pacific Coast Conference emerge some day if the West Coast powers want to play on the West Coast again. I don't see them wanting to rejoin the Pac-12 if it is full of mountain west teams so they'll just remake their own conference if it comes down to it. And I'm pretty sure the Beavers and Cougs wouldn't be invited.

And to add to the context on this one... Oregon a better prep class in 2024 than everyone on rivals except Ohio State. But on 247 Oregon is ahead of Ohio State. This is super impressive and Oregon is the highest ranked team on 247 in BOTH of these rankings. Lanning is investing in the future with high schoolers but filling areas of need now with the portal. No one is doing BOTH better.

That feels like the Oregon basketball team this year and the fact they are putting something together down the stretch is impressive.

There are some coach pairings that just make magic together. Here's hoping we get a duo that gave Oregon a lot of incredible teams is reunited.

It's cover... They'll counter with something more "reasonable" and then the B1G and SEC will say they can't find a working format and make their own. And they have already been chosen by ESPN and Fox as the big winners in their media contracts. They don't need the other conferences and their overlords would agree with them.

I'd like those conferences... But it'd never happen. Not unless there is a mindful restoration of regionallity to the sport which there won't be. That would require a massive change in how revenue is generated.

Thankfully we didn't go with lumberjacks, pioneers or spearsmen. But we'd fit in with the B1G with their array of terrifying human mascots. Human mascots are the worst!

It's going to be reruns of every game that Oregon State and Washington State beat Oregon. It will be an absolutely awful network for Duck fans.

Absolutely! It has history and meaning to the Oregon football program. Nike has been essential to Oregon's rise as well but in truth it feels tacky in college football to have things named after companies. After all... we don't want to be like the Huskies with Husky stadium's field being Alaska Airlines field. I also agree that Knight has his name on plenty at UO and before he passes his name will probably be on a few more buildings as well. As a Duck fan and UO alum, I am forever thankful for his contributions.

What's interesting with both Oregon basketball coaches if that both Graves and Altman lost one of their prime assistant coaches a few years ago. For Graves it was losing Mark Campbell and for Altman it was losing Tony Stubblefield, who is no longer a head coach so possible reunion maybe? There are some coaching combos out there that just make each other better and that's the chemistry. It seems like Campbell may be the better half of the duo with Graves as his program is doing well while Graves' is floundering. But what's certain at this point is that the basketball magic is gone in Eugene right now. I think Altman stands a better chance of figuring out how to regain that lost shine for his team but I don't have any confidence that Graves does at this point.

I think Graves has had enough time to get this team rolling again and it has continued to be a disappointment. When players consistently transfer to other programs and do better that is a good sign that the program is flopping. He brought in too much high quality talent for the results to be this bad. \ Personally, I believe it is time for a change.

I saw that too... But it would be another signing day so there would be three. I don't hate the idea but with the coaching carousel what it is these days it feels like a mess waiting to happen.

Forward, back, eliminated... It doesn't really matter because it doesn't work where it is currently. December is broken right now in college football and early signing day is part of the problem. December Is Too Busy and Bowl Season Suffers | FishDuck FISHDUCK.COM College Football has changed so much in the past decade. In the early 2010s, the value of bowl games was...

The thing is to me the automatic bids really only work with a smaller field. If the playoff field was like... six or eight then winning the conference would be a HUGE deal. It is significant under the 12 team format because of the potential of getting a bye but that's about it. With a small field getting a conference championship is signficant because its a mini-bracket of its own or it should act like one. We didn't need both Michigan and Iowa in the playoff because they already played each other and we saw the outcome of that game. By extention we had Georgia v Bama and we know the outcome of that game and don't need to re-see it. Granted, we still got some SEC only National Championship games in this 4 team playoff so it turns out that a Conference Championship game was just a hoop to jump through. Additionally... even getting the bye in the current 12 team playoff format is less significant because teams had to play that conference championship game. They aren't being spared a game in the grand scheme of things because the teams at the lower end of the bracket didn't play in a conference championship game or they did and lost and are being punished for it by still having to play another game. With a larger playoff field Conference Championship games become more and more pointless. It's time for them to go away because they don't mean anything. Or if the playoff becomes B1G v SEC then just built the bracket with a B1G and SEC bracket like the NFL does and get a champion that way. Right now though they are pointless and many conference champions have been left out along the way for non-conference champions in the playoff. So dump the game already.

What always gets me is how the best teams tend to rank as having easier schedules tend to be the better teams... sometimes because their schedules are actually pretty easy, see Michigan last year but also by being a better team there are more "easy wins" because of teams that you're supposed to beat. Oregon should be Maryland so that becomes a hard game for Maryland but it doesn't count as a difficult game for us, it isn't the easiest game either. But in terms of scheduling Oregon was dealt a pretty difficult hand... none of the other west coast schools have Michigan and Ohio State in the same year cycle. Penn State gets 3/4 of the west coast schools next year which will be fun for them and next year Oregon plays Penn State as their lone west coast school. Our odd year cycle (2025) is certainly more challenging than our even year cycle (2026). Hopefully moving Mullens can start to build an OOC schedule to create a solid balance between the two years.

Alex Mirabal is probably the only one in his inner circle. Can't think of anyone else who has been that consistent around him.

And as to the question about what are the peaks and vallys for Mario Cristobal. I brought this up a few years ago. Cristobal Has Spoiled Fans By Winning the Off-Season | FishDuck 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. He creates so much hope in the off season by recruiting well and changing up his coaching staff that he just gives out Hope-ium. It's super addictive and I know I was suckered in multiple times over the Cristobal era. The offense was bad under Arroyo but he just brought in an offensive guru in Moorehead so it has to be better the next season... it was better but not up to the standard of the talent. Well... maybe Cristobal needed his guys... he recruited well and so many of them just under-preformed under Cristobal. Tyler Shough wasn't going to be the next Mariota or Herbert but he could have been so much more for Oregon. Glad we have Lanning now.

I love the statement / question. Paraphrasing... "Is this management stuff going to impact in a negative way Cristobal's development as an in-game coach?" The short answer is... No. Because Cristobal isn't going to change! Most of his in-game problems aren't anything new and if he actually focused on his in-game management he would have fixed these problems years ago.

The playoff, transfer portal and opt outs are killing the bowl season, outside of playoff games. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a drastic reduction in bowl games because they aren't drawing as much attention with all the rest of the off season shenanigans.

Marketshare! that's about it... Only reason why Rutgers and Maryland were brought into the B1G as well.

They still want out! I saw a quote just a day or two ago that Oregon State's President is still trying to find a "Power Conference" to join and if that doesn't work they'll rebuild the Pac-12. Which also implies that even he doesn't consider the Pac-12 (2) to be a Power Conference any longer. I think they only way they get out of G5 hell is if they get themselves to the playoff in a legitimate fashion and not through farce that the Pac-12 should have an auto-bid. Reach the playoff enough times and a Power Conference will take notice and might be interested.

We've learned a lot about the current nature of the off season this year. Coaching changes need to happen early ... Which works fine for bad programs that can be proactive in their hiring process. Less good for programs that have coaches leave by choice. Alabama, Washington, Arizona, and now UCLA have all had to make hires when the coaching carousel has basically ended. They made their own mini carousel but the the ride was over when Chip opted to leave. No one was going to leave their established head coaching job for UCLA at this late in the process. UCLA was forced to hire a first time head coach... Or pull someone out of retirement but they're too big of a rebuild right now to be interesting to most, especially after the recruiting season for the 2024 class was over. Either this hire will work out well enough for them... Or he's a space filler for a year or two. But the funny thing is that UCLA is probably missing Jim Mora right now.

Not going to lie... I had high hopes he was going to save the conference. But that didn't come to pass and we are where we are now.