Charles Fischer

Frankly--with as young as the team is still and with so many questions to answer--they give us a ton of respect, and they ask some good questions of other teams. A bit over-hyped or accurate? Pac-12 spring football preview: Oregon aims for the College Football Playoff by USA TODAY

As I wrote before....have recruiting trips in all sports end with a quick visit to the new Hayward Field, as the "big-time" impression will make you feel differently about Oregon. The majority of that video was below, or in the other training buildings, and I've got to think it would help T&F recruiting!

Yep....that is all in the press release I posted yesterday.....

Both coaches have been given bigger titles to add to their resume'. While I understand the recruiting and awards for the offensive linemen....our rushing attack is not what it was before Cristobal. But let's not beat a dead horse here... Oregon Announces Promotions for LB coach Ken Wilson and OL coach Alex Mirabal by 247Sports

Many were worried about Shortstop, but Alyssa has answered that!

OREGON ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2021 FOOTBALL EUGENE, Ore. – Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal officially announced Marcel Yates as the program’s secondary coach and pass game coordinator on Tuesday. Yates has worked with defensive backs for 18 of his 20 seasons as a college coach and has served as a defensive coordinator eight of the last nine seasons. “Marcel is a tremendous addition to our Oregon football family, as he is a high-character individual who brings a high level of experience and expertise to our program,” Cristobal said. “Marcel has a well-earned reputation as a teacher who accelerates the development of the players he coaches, and he also has a track record as a top recruiter. We appreciate the opportunity to add Marcel to our staff and know he will have a strong impact both on our secondary and our program as a whole.” Yates has spent the last five seasons working in the Pac-12 Conference, first as the defensive coordinator at Arizona and last season as the defensive backs coach at California. Before that, Yates spent 11 seasons working at Boise State and two seasons as the co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Texas A&M. During his time in Boise, he worked with the secondary during all 13 seasons while holding the title of defensive coordinator from 2014-15 and pass game coordinator in 2011. “I am excited to make the move to Eugene and join a great coaching staff,” Yates said. “Coach Cristobal and I talked during the process about his vision for the program and it fits what I want to do. Winning the national championship is the goal that we both want to reach. My relationship with Coach (Tim) DeRuyter also played a big part in making the decision to become a Duck an easy one.” Yates started his career at Montana State where he worked as the assistant defensive backs coach for a Bobcats’ team that advanced to the NCAA 1-AA Playoffs in 2002. That postseason appearance was the first of many for Yates with bowl appearances coming in 14 of his 18 seasons coaching at the FBS level, including a pair of Fiesta Bowls. Additionally, the associate head coach/offense title has been added to offensive line coach Alex Mirabal, and the title of co-defensive coordinator has been added to inside linebackers coach Ken Wilson. California (2020) After four seasons at Arizona, Yates served as the defensive backs coach at California last season. While at Cal, he coached a pair of all-conference cornerbacks despite the team being limited to just four games because of COVID-19. The league’s coaches named Camryn Bynum first-team all-league before the Golden Bear cornerback went on to play in the Senior Bowl where he had five tackles. Josh Drayden joined Bynum on the all-conference team claiming honorable mention honors. Arizona (2016-19) Yates spent four seasons as the defensive coordinator with the Wildcats while working with corners, safeties and linebackers during his time in Tucson. At Arizona, Yates coached three players who earned freshman All-America honors in 2017, including Colin Schooler, who was also named the Pac-12 Conference Defensive Freshman of the Year. Schooler earned freshman All-America accolades from five different organizations (FWAA, USA Today, ESPN.com, 247Sports, College Football News), while Tony Fields (ESPN.com, 247Sports) and Kylan Wilborn (FWAA, USA Today) both claimed freshman honors from two outlets. In addition to the freshman All-America honors, six of Yates’ players on defense earned All-Pac-12 honors during his four years with the Wildcats. In 2017, Yates coached one of the youngest defenses in the Pac-12 Conference. His unit regularly started five freshmen, including linebackers Fields and Schooler, along with rush end Wilborn. Each was a true freshman, with Fields finishing as the team’s leading tackler with 104, which was the most by any UA freshman in over 20 years. Schooler racked up 13.5 tackles for loss (all in conference play), which was the most by a freshman at Arizona since at least 1997. Wilborn registered 7.5 sacks, a tally that led all Power 5 freshmen. Arizona intercepted 19 passes in 2017 to rank tied for seventh nationally and the most for the program since 1985, while forcing 24 turnovers to tie for 23rd in the country. Redshirt freshman cornerback Lorenzo Burns picked off five passes, which was the second most by a freshman in the FBS, and junior corner Jace Whittaker added three picks for Yates’ starting cornerback duo. Boise State (2003-2011; 2014-15) Yates spent a combined 11 seasons coaching at his alma mater with a nine-year stint coaching defensive backs and then a two-year stretch as the defensive coordinator after returning from Texas A&M. During Yates’ time with the Broncos, BSU won 87.6 percent of its games compiling a record of 127-18. In his nine-year stop in Boise, the Broncos won nearly 90 percent of their games finishing with a 106-12 record. In Yates’ 11 years at Boise State, the Broncos won double-digit games nine times while never finishing with fewer than nine wins. BSU went undefeated twice winning the Fiesta Bowl both times. In 2009, the Broncos completed a 14-0 season with a 17-10 win over No. 4 TCU (Jan. 4, 2010) and in 2006 the Broncos wrapped up a 13-0 record with a victory over No. 10 Oklahoma (Jan. 1, 2007). In addition to the two unbeaten seasons, Yates and the Broncos won 13 games one other time (13-1 in 2003), 12 games four times, 11 games once and 10 games one time. Boise State qualified for bowl games in all 11 of Yates’ seasons on staff, while winning eight championships (7 WAC, 1 Mountain West). In addition to wins, Yates excelled in developing overlooked prospects into successful college football players and eventually NFL players. From 2007 to 2016, seven of Yates’ defensive backs were picked in the NFL Draft and two more signed free agent deals and went on to long NFL careers. Of Yates’ seven draft picks, four were selected in the first three rounds with cornerback Kyle Wilson leading the group as a first-round pick by the New York Jets in 2010. Gerald Alexander (Detroit Lions, 2007) and Jamar Taylor (Miami Dolphins, 2003) were second-round selections, while Darian Thompson (New York Giants, 2016) went in the third round. Orlando Scandrick (Dallas Cowboys, 2008) was Yates’ second player picked in the NFL Draft, following Alexander. Brandyn Thompson (Washington Football Team, 2011) and George Iloka (Cincinnati Bengals, 2012) were also selected in the draft. Jeron Johnson (Seattle Seahawks, Washington Football Team) and Chris Carr (Oakland Raiders, Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens, San Diego Chargers, New Orleans Saints) were signed as free agents and went on to successful professional careers. Yates coached three All-Americans at Boise State, as well as one freshman All-American and 22 all-conference players. Thompson won back-to-back All-American honors in 2014 and 2015, while Wilson earned his honor following the 2009 season. Iloka, who went on to a successful NFL career, claimed freshman All-American honors in 2008. Texas A&M (2012-13) Yates spent two seasons as the co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Texas A&M between his stints at Boise State. The Aggies concluded the 2012 season, their first in the Southeastern Conference, ranked fifth nationally in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls, and won 11 games for the first time since 1998. The Aggies went 9-4 in 2013, finishing the season ranked No. 18 in each poll. Montana State (2001-02) Yates began his coaching career as an assistant secondary coach at Montana State. In his second season, the Bobcats won their first Big Sky Conference championship and earned their first trip to the NCAA Division 1-AA Playoffs in 18 years. Playing Career & Personal Yates was a four-year letter-winner (1996-99) as a defensive back at Boise State. His playing career at Boise State coincided with the school’s first four as a FBS program and culminated in the Broncos first-ever bowl appearance and bowl win over Louisville in the 1999 Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl. Yates earned a degree in social science from Boise State in 2000. He has a son, Eric, and a daughter, Kaybrie. COACHING CAREER 2020 Defensive Backs California 2019 Defensive Coordinator/Safeties Arizona 2018 Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Arizona 2017 Defensive Coordinator/Cornerbacks Arizona 2016 Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Arizona 2014-15 Defensive Coordinator/Safeties Boise State 2012-13 Co-Defensive Coordinator/Defensive Backs Texas A&M 2011 Defensive Backs/Passing Game Coordinator Boise State 2006-10 Defensive Backs Boise State 2003-05 Cornerbacks Boise State 2001-02 Assistant Defensive Backs Montana State NFL DRAFT PICKS COACHED (15) 2019 (RD 7) DT P.J. Johnson – Arizona – Detroit Lions 2018 (RD 5) DB Dan Cruikshank – Arizona – Tennessee Titans 2018 (RD 6) DB Will Parks – Arizona – Denver Broncos 2017 (RD 3) DE Daeshon Hall – Texas A&M – Carolina Panthers 2016 (RD 2) LB Kamalei Correa – Boise State – Baltimore Ravens 2016 (RD 3) DB Darian Thompson – Boise State – New York Giants 2013 (RD 2) DB Jamar Taylor – Boise State – Miami Dolphins 2013 (RD 3) DE Damontre Moore – Texas A&M – New York Giants 2013 (RD 4) LB Sean Porter – Texas A&M – Cincinnati Bengals 2012 (RD 5) DB George Iloka – Boise State – Cincinnati Bengals 2011 (RD 7) DB Brandyn Thompson – Boise State – Washington Football Team 2010 (RD 1) DB Kyle Wilson – Boise State – New York Jets 2008 (RD 5) DB Orlando Scandrick – Boise State – Dallas Cowboys 2007 (RD 2) DB Gerald Alexander – Boise State – Detroit Lions UNDRAFTED NFL PLAYERS COACHED & RECRUITED (2) 2005 DB Chris Carr – Boise State – Oakland Raiders/Tennessee Titans/Baltimore Ravens/San Diego Chargers/New Orleans Saints 2011 DB Jeron Johnson – Boise State – Seattle Seahawks/Washington Football

Very cool, and let's see them shake up the conference a bit this season! Oregon Softball is BACK!

OREGON ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2020 MEN’S BASKETBALL EUGENE, Ore. – Senior guard Chris Duarte was named one of five finalists for the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award on Tuesday by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He is the first Jerry West Award finalist in program history. The other 2021 Jerry West Award finalists are Joel Ayayi of Gonzaga, Quentin Grimes of Houston, MaCio Teague of Baylor and Joe Wieskamp of Iowa. Duarte, from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, is one of only two players in the nation averaging 16 points and two steals per game while shooting 50 percent from the field. He leads the Pac-12 in steals (2.1 per game) and three-pointers made (2.6 per game). In addition to leading the league in steals and three-pointers, Duarte is ranked among the Pac-12’s top 10 in six different statistical categories. He is seventh in scoring (16.8 points per game), fifth in three-point field goal percentage (.420) and ninth in field goal percentage (.530). Earlier this season, Duarte was named Pac-12 Player of the Week for the third time in his career on Jan. 4. He averaged 21.0 points per game on 50 percent shooting (15-of-30), including 47 percent from three-point range (9-of-19) in the Ducks’ weekend sweep of California and Stanford. He also averaged 4.5 rebounds and 2.5 steals per game. Duarte was at his best in the closing minutes of each game. He scored 14 of his 19 points in the final 5:18 to help the Ducks turn a three-point lead into a 13-point victory over the Golden Bears on Dec. 31. Jan. 2 versus Stanford, Duarte tallied 11 of team-high 23 points in the final 5:43 to turn a four-point cushion into a 17-point win. The Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award is named after Class of 1980 Hall of Famer and 1959 NCAA Final Four Most Valuable Player Jerry West. Previous winners of the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Award include Myles Powell, Seton Hall (2020), RJ Barrett, Duke (2019), Carsen Edwards, Purdue (2018), Malik Monk, Kentucky (2017), Buddy Hield, Oklahoma (2016) and D’Angelo Russell, Ohio State (2015). The winner of the 2021 Jerry West Award will be presented April 9, 2021, along with the other four members of the Men’s Starting Five. One of those awards is the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award, which was won by Oregon’s Payton Pritchard in 2020.

Hmmm. Repository was supposed to resemble the feeling of like a number of deposits at a bank, a central place...but I see where you are coming from on this. Mr. FishDuck likes "Ducks Den" as alliteration always wins him over... We already have an Analysis Library, and I am open to other suggestions too. Anyone?

This national article by Bleacher Report lists the teams they believe that are just one player away...and the Ducks are among them. Is their position listed the only one? The only variable for 2021? 10 College Football Teams That Are 1 Piece Away from Making the CFB Playoff by Bleacher Report

Right now there are a few "data-aggregators" of Oregon Sports, but none of them cover very many sites/locations due to the labor-intensive nature of searching, reading/accessing for relevant content and then posting said content into one place. My objective/dream is to have a Pinned Topic at the top of all the topics every day, and it would called, as an example, FishDuck Feed: Oregon Sports Articles for February 22, 2021 and tomorrow it would be un-pinned to float downward with a new one replacing it at the top for February 23rd. In these Pinned Topics would be all the article links out there as our content-hunting team would be checking over 30 sites a couple of times a day. We would have a few aggregation tools that would help in the process, but some will be have to be done the old fashioned ways via search and going to some sites each time. The end result would be from 15 to 50 article links being provided each day in the FishDuck Feed, and would be an incredible convenience for Oregon fans, ....especially if it was free. In the old days, OneClickSports was a nice page with all the links, but they, like others went away with the paltry revenue gained from web ads these days. But we will be gathering from far more sites than they did or any are right now by a mile. There will be nothing like it--either before or now. What is in it for US? Most people are NOT forum-type people, but everybody who reads Oregon articles would love to have one place to find all the articles each day. (or 95% of them) No wasted time searching...just reading about Our Beloved Ducks! These non-forum type of people will come for the FishDuck Feed, but a percentage will drift down and read the other topics and a percentage of them will sign up and become those who post their thoughts. Hence our wonderful community will grow, and we are providing a wonderful service to thousands of Duck fans. No having to search or scroll for miles down a Twitter or Facebook; all the articles in one place and being added through the day as they are being published. Duck Reading Nirvana! Before I can offer this feature--I have a ton of work first to complete and part of that is assembling a group of volunteers who are willing to give four hours out of 168 hours in a week to serve their fellow Oregon fans. My target for offering this is by May 1st, due to all the background stuff that has to be organized with the software, and the policies/processes to arrive at with the content-hunting team. We will be the first site anywhere to offer this in the depth I am visualizing, and it will be fun to see it happen. My thanks, Charles

OREGON ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2020 MEN’S BASKETBALL EUGENE, Ore. – Home games against Arizona and UCLA have been added to Oregon’s schedule while the regular-season finale at Oregon State has been moved back a day. The Pac-12 announced the final round of schedule adjustments for games postponed due to COVID-19-related issues on Monday. The Ducks will host Arizona on Monday, March 1, and UCLA on Wednesday, March 3. As a result, the Oregon-OSU game that was scheduled for Saturday, March 6, in Corvallis has been moved to Sunday, March 7. Times of all three games have yet to be determined. The Arizona and UCLA games will be on the ESPN family of networks, while the broadcast coverage for the OSU game will be announced at a later date. The Arizona game was originally scheduled for Jan. 15 at Matthew Knight Arena. This is the fourth time Oregon and UCLA will attempt to play a game that was initially slated to be contested on Dec. 23 in Eugene. Two other make-up dates for that game were also postponed, Jan. 19 in Eugene and Feb. 1 in Los Angeles. The Ducks will now play four times in seven days with games at Stanford on Thursday and California on Saturday ahead of the two rescheduled games.

Good call OD!

It is the Big-12 equivalent of Starkville for the SEC, or Pullman for the Pac-12.... "if this is not the end of the world....you can see it from here!" Lovely Lubbock...

Yes, as he said so in newspaper interviews. My speculation is that he went to Joe Salave'a and said he wanted to lose weight "to get more sacks" and if not allowed to cut pounds...he would opt out. I would assume that the coaches went along with this with fingers crossed and hoping for the best. But he is not a pass-rusher and at the lower weight was not a space-eater and did not demand double-teams, thus an open lineman to go get our newbie linebackers. But again....this is guesses and speculation on my part.

I am just happy that he is in Texas, and not at USC again with his new skills and sobriety.

If I am a 5-Star QB out of California....I would see more opportunity at Texas than at Oregon right now. If there is a talent drain of both players and coaches out of the Pac-12, then what Mario has assembled in both areas keeps us way above the Pac....

Sewell over-ran that play badly...

Amen. Mario....do what you are exceptional at; recruiting players and coaches, setting the culture and your amazing representation of Oregon Football to the public via your PR work. Be the CEO....

Powerful stuff, because I too maintain that with great D-Line play...it would have taken pressure off the newbie linebackers and secondary and everything is different on defense.

I call it the way I see it, and to me--Jordon Scott will not stick on an NFL team....and if he does, it will tick-me-off that much more as he did not perform at Oregon this last year as needed. He has had some great moments, and I am grateful for him coming to Oregon, but 2020 was not a good year for him, IMHO. Thoughts?

Erin Boley said it best in a post-game interview after the USC game, "we can play a lot better." Will they in time for the tournaments? Comments?

Ducks are now ranked!

However you feel about it--here it is. I will admit to finally getting weary of colors that are not of white, green or yellow as uniforms. Thoughts? I still love the above better--what a rich green color!