Charles Fischer

This is from Steve Wiltfong at National 247, who is a pretty good recruiting analyst and reporter of football recruiting. On Saturday, Lanning and company hosted several other top targets for a scavenger hunt in Eugene which showed off all the bells and whistles of the school and football program along the way. “It’s the energy that Coach Lanning brings!” 247Sports’s 5-Star No. 1 offensive tackle recruit Brandon Baker said. “He has an energy about him, a strong passion and belief of greats things to come. He believes they’ll be a big-time program soon. I can see it building.” Baker was joined on campus by his Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei teammates in fellow 5-Star in defensive lineman Aydin Breland and touted receiver Jack Ressler. Oregon is near the top of the list for Baker and Breland alongside a few others and may just be the one to beat for Ressler. “I had a great time,” Breland said. “The experience was great. I felt at home in Eugene this weekend and I really appreciate Dan Lanning and his coaching staff for taking the time and explaining their plan for me as far as development. Like I’ve said before the genuine family feel I get from Dan Lanning, Tosh Lupoi and Tony Tuioti is real.” Oregon had a few commits back on campus including offensive linemen Trent Ferguson and Fox Crader along with tight end AJ Pugliano, and other prized recruits included 247Sports’ No 3 running back Jason Brown. Oregon also hosted a handful of offered prospects in the 2025 and 2026 class. “It was very great,” Spanaway (Wash.) Bethel Top247 linebacker Zaydrius Rainey-Sale said. “I liked the atmosphere of the coaches and how the hospitality was towards me and my mother, and I liked the energy and how fired up they were to be around me and my FSP brothers and it was just a good time to learn about some of things they did as a college and also off the field and how they love to help others in the community and it just made me smile and will forever be a special moment visiting there.” “My latest experience was amazing,” Auburn (Wash.) Riverside Top247 athlete Jonathan Epperson said. “I had a lot of fun. What continues to fire me up about the Ducks program is that fact our relationship is doing nothing but growing and we’re doing nothing but getting closer. I love the family feel and the effort they put in to making sure I feel at home and that I am taken care of.” “It was a great visit,” Concord (Calif.) De La Salle safety Robert Santiago said. “Every time I get up it’s something new I learn about Eugene and the Ducks. I love the coaches and I love the facilities. They make it special every time I get a chance to come up and visit.” Santiago added he liked the coaching staff and they can develop him on and off the field. “Oregon is pretty high on my list and will always be high, but I’m just trying see how far I can go with my recruitment,” Santiago said.

Uncommitted 5-Star OL Brandan Baker tell Sims on Twitter that...

Uncommitted 5-Star DL David Stone says...

We enjoyed the banter, and you are always quite welcome to chime into the conversation. You are the only "Dawgs" we like to converse with! Because Huskies are not very smart...

Husky recruiting over the long-term will put them in the top 30 for talent, but frankly--with that coach he will help them over-achieve to perennial top-15 over time. Dan Lanning's recruiting will put Oregon in the Top-10 for talent, (although this year it could be Top-5?) and with his coaching--a perennial Top-5 Elite status over time?

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — On the road from Bogle Park to Super Regionals, the Oregon softball team is in the driver's seat. The Ducks are one win away from the Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament after beating regional host Arkansas on Saturday, 10-4. Oregon can make its 10th Super Regional appearance all-time and the first of the Melyssa Lombardi era with a win Sunday, and the Ducks will have two chances to get it if necessary after winning Saturday to claim the "driver's seat" at the Fayetteville Regional. "We've been talking about postseason mentality all year," Lombardi said. "To really see them come out today and for every single person on our team to have a hand in what we did, I'm just proud of them." A year after being eliminated from the NCAA Tournament with two losses to Arkansas at Bogle Park in the regional round, the Ducks turned the tables Saturday thanks in large part to an eight-run fifth inning that included a grand slam by Tehya Bird. "Life doesn't give you a lot of second chances, and we were given one," said UO senior Ariel Carlson, who was 3-for-4 with two runs and three RBIs Saturday. "And so we wanted to take advantage of that. We've been in this ballpark before, we've faced this team before in front of this crowd, so it wasn't anything new to us. So we were just ready." Up Next: The Ducks will look to clinch the regional Sunday at 11 a.m. PT, and would have a second chance to clinch later Sunday in the event of a loss. Ducks In Regional Driver's Seat - University of Oregon Athletics GODUCKS.COM Oregon can win the Fayetteville Regional on Sunday after beating host Arkansas on Saturday, 10-4.

Washington's recruiting is not terrible, but it is more like what Mark Helfrich did at Oregon. Meanwhile Dan Lanning and his staff are "killing-it" on the recruiting trail, and it was reported that one Big-12 coach stated that "nobody wants to go up against that Oregon staff right now." Ducks are scoring in California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon, in the Midwest with Missouri, Texas and now Oklahoma? In the east in Maryland and Pennsylvania? Whew! The Husky fans are not thrilled, as their current Rivals recruiting ranking is No. 59 in the country with zero 4/5-Star players, while Oregon is No. 6 with nine 4/5-Star players, and it is only May? "I never said I was noble...."

Wowsa....

Great pitching by another freshman, Matt Grabmann, as Utah suffered the same pitching issues Oregon has been wrestling with. On to the Pac-12 Tournament! Offense powers Ducks to series win - University of Oregon Athletics GODUCKS.COM Matthew Grabmann earned his first career win as five Ducks finish with multiple RBIs in the series-clinching win.

Highlights!

Unbelievable day!

I do not agree with nearly all of his “predictions.” I do not believe Jonathan Smith will ever leave Corvallis, as he is a fit, is happy there, and if/when the program slides…they will be patient with him unlike anywhere else. What he has done there is truly a coaching miracle.

Nice to see a freshman pitcher come through in a big way for the Ducks! Spoljaric steps up, Ducks even series - University of Oregon Athletics GODUCKS.COM The Ducks freshman allowed just one run in seven innings

I would not say it is unpopular, because most of us are resigned to it happening eventually. But you have asserted many times that it should happen now, and you want it to happen now, and as I stated before--that is a minority opinion at this juncture. We would first like to see the total Pac-12 media package before we make our declarations. BTW...being in the minority is fine. When I stated that Cristobal's offense would not work in his first month of the 2018 season....I was hammered and insulted by hundreds of people on other sites. Yet eventually over four years, my stance went from a "fringe" opinion, to a minority opinion as others began to share my view--to eventually being a majority view. So I know what it is like to be a lone voice--thus why we allow all opinions as long as they stay within our rules. Keep discussing as I learn from you and everyone!

When college football players unionize....there will be very little money left in athletic budgets for Olympic sports, thus they will be cut by the vast majority of institutions. Hence we will see women in the courtroom demanding that their thousands of scholarships across the nation should not be lost to football players who are primarily black athletes. Who wins that one? (Both sides have compelling points...)

Tomorrow is a big day...if the two that announce--decide for Oregon...both are Rivals 4-Stars!

Injuries in total to four starting pitchers....injuries to two of the top three relievers, and now the league has figured out Mollerus and Mercado--such a shame. We are not an NCAA team right now. There will be much better days ahead, but not this year!

Smart move, and could help Oregon fans globally if we are with them?

This was posted on a subscription forum referring to the Pac-12 meetings this week: ASU AD Ray Anderson about the members of the Pac-12 looking to leave: “In terms of the ten institutions standing firm, I’m very confident in that.” In reference to the media contract, he acknowledged that that the mid 40M per school is not going to happen, but if they can get “up toward the higher 30s,” that would be acceptable. (A big ask? What if they don't?) He expects a deal to be done this summer, and thought that expansion remains a real possibility with SDSU and SMU the most likely additions. He added that the Big 12 continues to stir things up but he “is very confident that the Pac-12 is very solid”. They have done well so far!

I agree with you, Jon. We got ahead in the portal by subtraction. Ware has an "effort" issue, and we did not need that many bigs. The others were either streaky, or poor shooters. We did well with recruiting and the portal, IMHO. The writer has doesn't have great judgement...

Perfect. Let's fly under the radar....let there be no respect to what Dan Lanning has done this off-season...love it! This fall? You will hear a TON by mid-season about how Lanning how vaulted this team into the national conversation, and how he has transformed this team with portal transfers with nary a miss on them.

A brief update from a skimpy report by John Canzano... How confident is the Pac-12 that Washington and Oregon are still on board with signing a grant of rights and media-rights deal? How about Arizona and ASU? Colorado? Utah? “Confident in the 10,” a member of the CEO Group told me on Tuesday. A few minutes later, a Pac-12 athletic director at a second school told me on the media-rights front: “Just a timing thing.” “I know at least one of the partners we were talking to said, ‘We’re ready to sign today, but the optics of us announcing that we’re laying off X number of people and we signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the Pac-12 are just not the best, so we’re going to have to wait six weeks.’ “Clearly, the optics are something those folks are really worried about.” By all accounts, the Pac-12’s board meeting went well on Monday. It was characterized by one member of the CEO Group as “a typical meeting.” There was no smoke or fire. No major decisions made. Just a bunch of academics in the room, working through some important topics while drinking coffee and eating a sandwich for lunch. Sure. They know how to do this...

This article below has a ton of good information and came to me from Jon Joseph and Notalot. My OBD friends, if you have an article--don't send it to me. Put the link in a post, or copy-and-paste it like I did below. I got enough on my plate from the two sites! Thanks--Mr. FishDuck ‘The Next Wave Is Coming’: Expansion, Realignment and What’s at Stake For Power 5 Conferences By: Ross Dellenger - Sports Illustrated Two weeks ago, inside a lavish resort in suburban Phoenix, down a long hallway and two flights of stairs, executives from two conferences inched closer to further altering the landscape of college sports. They talked about expansion. Often sparring publicly with one another, the two sets of league administrators separately met behind closed doors like a pair of boxers secretly preparing for the big fight against each other. In one corner was the Pac-12, an array of broad-based universities, betrayed by their Los Angeles defectors and now at the mercy of media networks to prevent further departures. In the other corner is the Big 12, an expanding group of universities, spanning Utah to Florida, with a brash commissioner whose aggressive nature makes him a territorial threat to the West. The juxtaposition of the scene was fascinating—a mere 20 feet of carpet separating the two meetings within a labyrinth of convention space at the Hyatt Regency Gainey Ranch. Within the meeting rooms, each league’s strategy unfolded ahead of their proverbial territorial battle. Just paces from the Pac-12’s gathering, Big 12 leaders discussed a list of expansion targets, four of them residing in the Pac-12: Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. Other targets are from a variety of leagues: San Diego State and UNLV from the Mountain West; UConn, which is independent in football and in the Big East in basketball; and Memphis, from the American. There are others too, such as Colorado State, SMU and Fresno, but they seem further down the pecking order. The Pac-12, meanwhile, discussed its own expansion possibilities: San Diego State and SMU. “It could be an active summer,” says one administrator with knowledge of the discussions. The near year-long realignment buzz surrounding these two conferences—Will Pac-12 members defect to the Big 12?—is entering what appears to be its final chapter. Over the next 30 to 60 days more clarity is expected as the Pac-12’s new television deal is finalized. But this is a small piece of a larger puzzle. The Big 12-versus-Pac 12 territorial fight is one battle in a realignment war that has waged for decades. While the most recent moves were about the consolidation of football’s most valuable brands—Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, and USC and UCLA to the Big Ten—the next wave is about survival. How do the Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC keep up competitively while generating millions less than college football’s two behemoths? Some believe all three of them cannot co-exist successfully. “The big next issue is, can we keep the perception of college athletics as involving all of us?” asks Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick. “Or, does the Big Ten and SEC become college athletics in terms of popular perception and if they do, how does that influence shape the future of college athletics?” The ACC This week in Amelia Island, administrators from the ACC gather for their own spring meetings. More frank discussions are expected about the growing revenue gap between it and the SEC/Big Ten. Handcuffed by an ESPN broadcasting contract and grant-of-rights that extends another 13 years, ACC schools could find themselves more than $30 million behind the SEC and Big Ten in annual distribution by the time 2026 arrives. They are not alone, as the data and analytics company Navigate showed in projections last year. While the Pac-12 and Big 12 fight their western expansion battle, the ACC is, in many ways, fighting internally. A subset of seven schools in the 14-member conference has coalesced over what many of them describe as an untenable situation. Officials from the seven schools, led by Florida State and Clemson, have met a handful of times over the last several months, with their lawyers examining the grant-of-rights to determine just how unbreakable it is. Per the grant-of-rights, each ACC school gives ownership of its broadcasting rights to the league in a deal with ESPN that runs through 2036. If a school breaks the deal, the ACC will continue to own the TV rights of any of that school’s home games, according to the contract. The ACC’s options are quite limited, both for the group of seven and the league as a whole: 1. Seek additional revenue from ESPN. This is a long shot given the network’s current situation. ESPN, in the midst of a wave of personnel cuts, is also negotiating for deals with UFC/WWE, the NBA and Pac-12. While commissioner Jim Phillips and a few ACC presidents met recently with the network over this issue, no significant cash infusion appears imminent. 2. Secede from the league. Some of the schools, possibly the most frustrated lot such as FSU and Clemson, could pay the $120 million exit fee and hope they can break a grant-of-rights agreement that most attorneys - though maybe not their own - say is airtight. That then leaves a very big question: Where do they go? The SEC and Big Ten seem quite comfortable with their current membership, but potential western realignment could trigger them to expand more. 3. Create another league. If the seven agree to dissolve the current grant-of-rights agreement (we don’t know yet if this is a possibility), they may add a couple of more schools and begin their own association in hopes of it being more lucrative. This comes with its own issues, of course. You’d need a broadcast partner or private equity to fund such an endeavor. And, as one official asks, “Will it really be that much more lucrative?” Basically, there are no easy answers. No one seems to really be blaming the current commissioner, Phillips. The lengthy ESPN contract was signed by his predecessor and has put the conference at a disadvantage to the Big Ten and SEC, which signed new deals somewhat recently for more heftier payouts. “It’s not a Jim Phillips thing,” says one high-ranking ACC official. “It’s a revenue thing.” A fourth option for the league will be further explored this week at meetings: changing the revenue distribution model to a more merit-based system. Instead of equally distributing revenue, this system would award more dollars to those programs excelling on the field. Administrators have spent the last couple months discussing this festering issue. It has divided a conference that is less like-minded than most leagues in the country: big football revenue-generators like Florida State, Clemson, Miami and even North Carolina grouped with the likes of Boston College, Syracuse and Wake Forest. While a vote on a revenue distribution model isn’t expected this week, proposals are likely to be explored as university presidents are now examining the issue. During a Board of Trustee meeting in February, FSU athletic director Michael Alford seemed to publicly fire a warning shot at the rest of the conference: Change the revenue distribution model or else. “At the end of the day for Florida State to compete nationally, something has to change going forward,” Alford told his Board in a wide-ranging presentation in which he suggested that FSU brings in 15% of ACC media rights value but receives only 7% in distribution. However, any change in the distribution model falls short of significantly closing the gap between the SEC and Big Ten. In the most successful year under a merit-based model, a school might receive an extra $5 million, one administrator estimates. An unequal distribution model can also impact the culture of a conference. It can sow divisiveness within a league, says one athletic director from outside the ACC. “It won’t stop there,” the AD says. “This will be the beginning of the end.” The Big 12 and Pac-12 Back to that fight out West. The Pac-12-Big 12 realignment battle will either cause small ripples across the national landscape (this happens if the Pac-12 remains intact), or trigger a tidal wave of change stretching from coast to coast (this happens if the Pac-12 has more defections). It all hinges on the viability of the Pac-12’s new broadcasting contract, both from a financial and visibility perspective (sure, the money could be better or the same as the Big 12, but what if most of the games are on streaming?). The league is in the 10th month of negotiations. And believable details from those negotiations have been scarce. The Pac-12’s potential instability has been the single-most speculated subject across the college sports landscape over the last few months. Through it all, the conference has publicly shown confidence in the face of assumptions of its impending doom. One experienced executive describes the entire situation as the most “perplexing” he’s ever witnessed in media rights negotiations. Factions have formed. Those inside the Big 12, gunning for Pac-12 defections, believe the league is cooked. Those in the Pac-12, wanting to protect its 10 schools, believe the league will arrive at a strong enough deal coinciding with a short grant-of-rights (4 to 6 years). And then there is the media, which has produced varying reports of the situation, even sometimes sparring with one another over those reports. One thing is certain: The Pac-12 plans to expand by adding San Diego State and maybe SMU coinciding with its completion of a new TV deal. But there is a deadline. To start play in 2024, San Diego State owes the Mountain West an exit fee of about $17 million. That triples in cost on July 1, a reason for a quasi-deadline to the situation. One athletic administrator offers his own prediction on the outcome: “I think the highest odds - and it may not be more than 50% - is that the Pac-12 salvages something in the short term to keep it together and it is Dead Man Walking for four years, with the Big Ten and Big 12 sitting there.” But what if it doesn’t salvage something? Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is aggressively pursuing expansion targets in an attempt to reach 14 or 16 members. Top priority are the Arizona schools, Colorado and Utah, but there are plenty of other potential replacements if the Pac-12 programs choose to stay. Though San Diego State seems bound for the Pac-12—it is their preference—Yormark has held conversations with the school’s leadership about being the Big 12’s only program in the Pacific Time zone. UConn, the reigning men’s basketball champions, is a play for a foothold in the northeast as well as adding another basketball powerhouse to what currently is the best hoops league in the country. And of Memphis, the Tigers finished as a finalist the last time the Big 12 expanded. Yormark’s interest in UNLV seems like a calculated maneuver. Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff, a former casino executive who resides in Las Vegas, is slowly shifting the conference’s hub to Sin City. In an interesting wrinkle, could Kliavkoff’s targeting of SMU be a similar play? SMU is located in the Big 12’s own hub city of Dallas. The Big 12’s expansion decisions could be solidified in a matter of weeks. Conference administrators meet at the end of the month in West Virginia, including school presidents. The Big Ten and SEC This past winter, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren made a push to expand again, this time targeting Washington and Oregon as a pair of West Coast neighbors to go along with new additions USC and UCLA. To expand again, more broadcasting dollars (at least $200 million a year) were needed to assure that school distribution remained whole. The most likely broadcasting dollars would come from ESPN or streamers Amazon and Apple. Neither happened. “It was ‘Show me the money!’ and there wasn’t any money,” says one Big Ten administrator. Money aside, many of the league’s athletic directors and presidents did not have the appetite for further expansion—and still do not. As one recently told SI, “We are done.” But will that change if the Pac-12 begins to crumble? Will there be any new money, potentially from Big Ten partner FOX or even ESPN? If there are defectors in the Pac-12 South to the Big 12, the Big Ten could add Pac-12 north schools like Washington and Oregon, at that point desperate for a home, at likely a discount (they’d almost certainly accept a partial distribution rate). And if the Big Ten again expands, what then does that mean for the SEC, which has long fielded interest from ACC schools? There’s been a long history of interest from the SEC in certain ACC powers as well. In fact, in 1990, when the league voted to expand, officials explored a variety of targets, seriously vetting Florida State before settling on South Carolina and Arkansas. Years later, then-coach Bobby Bowden and several athletic administrators involved in the process revealed that they turned down an invitation. Three decades later, the Seminoles are eyeing an exit path, but a route to the SEC isn’t easy. There is little appetite from risk-averse league presidents to tangle themselves in a potential sticky legal situation over a grant-of-rights. In another note, the league already has a foothold in Florida with the Gators (and as for Clemson, the SEC is already in South Carolina with the Gamecocks). For the SEC, the more attractive options may be schools in new states like North Carolina and Virginia. For now, the SEC door feels closed, and the Big Ten door seems only slightly ajar. But as is the case with conference realignment, the tide changes quickly. Everyone is watching the West. The Pac-12 and Big 12 enter the biggest realignment battle in years, a fight that could expedite what many believe is an inevitability: the football powers consolidating for what seems to be a semi-professional future model. “The next wave is coming,” says one Power 5 university president. “It’s not going to stay still. It’s just a matter of when.”

A heads-up my friends...when you see the author of an article as "OregonReigns," then that is code for that it is a pay-article where a company pays me to publish it on FishDuck. Usually, what they submit is generic, dumb and poorly written and I reject 95% of them. Once in a while, like the one above, it is decent enough to publish and an Oregon fan can scan it and enjoy it. They are submitting the article because it has a link in it to a gambling site that they are trying to raise the SEO Google profile with, and while it is a shame I have to do this--you gotta do what you gotta do to pay the bills of both FishDuck and the OBD forum. This article isn't bad, as it was created by a US writer and the SEO company is in Hong Kong. (The Shameless Beggar is World-Wide!) Patrick Chung