UtahDuck

Thanks Charles, I was on a much needed vacation with the family and we tried to limit screen times but back to the grind.

I think this is structurally the issue. Not necessarily that it is too much money just that it is to much money being spent. Not to be rude to all the coaches that just got paydays but unless you have one a chip in the last 5 years you shouldn't be making 9 million a year and frankly no one should be making more than Saban. Yet USC just hired Lincoln for a 10m/year deal at USC. A coach who has never built anything and has yet to win a playoff game. LSU fired a coach with a pay out(18 Million). Then they hired a coach that has made the playoffs once. His new contract is base 9.5m 10 year with heavy incentives. Michigan state dropped 9.5 million on a coach who has a head coaching record of 17-14. I'm not going to say any of these coaches are bad. they aren't but you can't tell me that any of them have earned their upcoming paydays. and at least one of these schools is going to get stuck with a coach that isn't worth the near 100m dollar tag they are going to get paid. This will cause a reckoning. I hope oregon can appease mario and prove that he is still at the right place as money moves forward but at this point no one can convince me he deserves more than ryan day who is making a paltry(kidding) 6.6m/year.

I think it stems to your other question first that Altitude and its effects are essentially a wash that they don't affect the pac 12. Due to that adding 2 teams that most likely will be revenue takers not adders really doesn't make sense. AS for a neutral site, I hate having the neutral site game, nothing like watching the pac 12 championship and the stadium is a 1/4 full. What the conference should do is that the division with the best record(against the other division) gets the home game advantage. so as it Sits the north currently has a 10-8 lead over the south if this maintained and the north won 13-11 the pac north would get the home field advantage.(this is just personal preference of mine as I don't like the idea of the best record because maybe one team gets a really easy inconference draw and one division is just pathetic. Example for this is what if USC when 7-2 in conference but the south went and played 22-2. At the same time the north is a bloodbath and the top three teams have an equal record of 6-3 and it moves to tie breakers. I would say the north absolutely deserves the homefield. As a completely different note, I'd argue that the state of AZ and the heat is a much bigger advantage in the early season than altitude.

I think people play way to much into the effects of altitude. The NBA which is a much faster pace game with way less players only has a .2 difference per 1,000 feet of elevation. So in those regards Denver has about a 1 point advantage playing in new orleans. It is much harder to get these types of metrics when you only play 12-15 games in a season. The reality is football is by far a much slower paced game, because of the running clock most games can be filtered down to only about 15-20 minutes of actual game time. With that only 7-10 minutes are for offense(or defense) the effects of altitude can almost be negated. I'd be willing to bet that due to these factors altitude is probably an advantage of .2 points a game if not less and that the average 5 star has pull on the game.

One thing that Straightline statistics don't tell is who they have competed against because even though they play in the same conference their is arguable change in teams from week to week. One prime example is that Utah has played a minimum of four back up QB's this season. This includes AZ, UCLA, Stanford, and WSU. They also played slovis instead of Dart(USC), someone that you could debate is either the backup or not. Which I think helps beg the question is utahs defense good or are they good because they have had the easiest schedule in conference to date?

You know what absolutely baffles me right now about the whole thing about miami, is the amount of people saying he wants to be back at Miami. Following Mario's firing from FIU Mario was hired on at Miami, he stayed a whole 6 weeks before jumping to Bama. Can anyone honestly tell me that a single thing has changed in miami since 2013? I'll wait.

Statistically Social media isn't good for anyone... suicides have been linked to social media use, something like 30% of all divorce proceedings in the us currently reference FB, major depression has grown 52% in adolescence from the release of the first Iphone, the likelihood of psychological distress grew 71% in young adults in the same timeframe Internet addiction in all americans has doubled in that timeframe too. Social Media is horrible for people and it is compounded by being on us(cellphones) all the time. With that said, I feel bad for our Wideouts. I mean they just aren't getting used and that has got to stink, Pittman came in very talented and at one point i thought he was our best receiver but from that point leave with dignity and not a silly twitch video, you will get respect from the fans and the coaches on new teams.

I was at this game. It is by far my most memorable memory as a duck fan. 10/10 I always bring this up to my utah friends along with our win in 17 when we had probably the worst qb in a decade beat utah.

1. is absolutely irrelevant, Oklahoma, Alabama and Clemson are all much bigger teams in much smaller towns. As for in state talent, sure UW has more than Oregon, but it still pales in comparison to CA, TX, FL and the rest of the south. You need to remember that this is more about competing with teams that are currently in coaching searches. 2. I mean what is their recent history, nobody cares about 2 half championships from 3 decades ago. you have to go back to 1965 for them to have a winning record against oregon. They do have a good sized alumni and fanbase I'll give them that. 3. does money matter if you don't spend it. Peterson wasn't even making a base salary of 5m in his time at UW. the department has dropped UW's salary pool every year since Peterson left. 4. I'm not exactly sure why this matters but okay Lets look at some key disadvantages that UW has. 1. Roster, UW isn't losing games purely due to inadequacies at coaching. The front 6(they run a 2-4) for UW is bad. their scheme isn't necessarily a bad scheme you just need good space eaters(vita vea) that hasn't been recruited in 2-4 years. They have ILB is bare, OLB is purely hilarious. The only defensive strength is CB and if Gordon and Mcduffie are gone I am not sure that will be a strength next year. AS for their offense, Scheme is probably the biggest issue but that doesn't change the fact that they have major gaps at WR and RB and Otten is basically being schemed out and will be gone this year as well. Their oline is pathetic and they aren't going to be improving their either. The last point of this is that who ever gets hired will inevitably be unable to fix the current recruiting class so they will start even further behind and they will always have to compete with Oregon as long as Cristobal is there. 2. Athletic Department, The UW department is the biggest joke possible, between them trying to push more allegations against Lake(no see that he pushed a player before ever being hired at UW. Then you add in that Jen cohen is the AD, she has not hired a decent coach at UW to date and has worked at UW for 23 years. She has no contacts outside of the pac 12. 3. they have no clear advantage in NIL. Heck about a week ago they had a player sign through their montlakes futures program with VOF space and the VOF space press release called them the UW hokies... I imagine for most players a mid sized community with car dealerships and local companies willing to spend money will make up the vast majority of the money made through NIL. some of the big names like Thibs will get really large deals. as a final note, Currently UW is third? in the coaching carousel behind USC, LSU, and probably TCU they will also have to compete with Florida and maybe Miami. If you are succeeding G5 coach you don't want the mess of UW and most of the good p5 coaches have no reason to move to UW either.

I do agree the coaching carousel this of season is going to be dramatic. I expect some teams(LSU) to throw some unseenly amounts of money around. Their are going to be some teams that will cry foul and will be very upset. Currently I do think Franklin moves to USC(Which is by far the worst blue blood out their). I don't know what to make of LSU at this point I think it's Tuckers but if he decides the B12 is easier and he gets a good raise it could throw a wrinkle in the carousel. I think The leach hire was always expected. He is a nut but he has performed consistently everywhere and even WSU knew it would happen they never had they money to compete. As for Mario, I think it is possible one of the powerhouses comes calling, I just hope cristobal can build his empire to the point that he can point to his machine and say why would i give this up for your mess. Unless he makes the playoffs I don't see florida trying to pull him this year.(could be wrong). AS for P12 teams, I'd say the entire conference could afford one, the question is would Fickell et al give up their current situation for the mess of COL or AZ? no, no they would not

personally not sold on Norvell. The MWC is good not great and I think they have slumped a bit recently as BSU hasn't been a powerhouse since 2016(don't get me wrong they've still been really really good). I'm just not sold on norvell. I mean outside of the SEC how often do teams hire away other P5 head coaches? The only ACC coach I can think of is Mendenhall who coached at BYU. That is a debatable if byu was a p5 caliber team. The big 12 has no head coaches that were hired away. big 10 has Tucker at MSU and Franklin at PSU SEC has Dan Mullen at Florida, Mike Leach- Miss state, and jimbo fisher T A&M. Of the coaches that have been "stolen" you have two taken from the pac12, two from the SEC and one from the ACC. These are all the head coaches that were the head coach at a power 5 school at their previous stop(and weren't fired from it). I mean I don't know the historics of every head coach in the pac 12 but the fact that good coaches were target from both WSU and COL really doesn't surprise me. overall COL has been one of the worst teams in the conference year in and out and while WSU has the worst finances of any school in the conference. I just don't think this a great narrative. Even though as an oregon fan we keep thinking about the taggart situation and him leaving for FSU, we need to recognize that that was his dream job and not the statistical likelyhood.

I'd also like to make note of some of the other coaches in the conference. Namely Whittingham and Herm. Kyle Whittingham is on his 28th year at utah. has coached 2 of his best utah teams in back to back years(excluding covid year). The man is 61 and has made it abundantly clear that he never intends to coach till he is dead. He has had 2 players in the last 12 months die from gun violence and if you have watched any of his press conferences he is exhausted. Literally the only thing I truly think is still keeping him coaching is the fact that his succession plan died the moment media caught wind of Scalley's racist remarks. I don't know how long Whitt will coach but as of today I wouldn't put him to last more than 2 seasons. Herm is gone after this season. I think he will resign and retire to save face but he is gone. I'd also argue that Cristobal is the reason why. Herm and ASU's cheating was a direct response to Cristobal. nearly every elite player that these two schools have gone after in the coaches timeline went to oregon. ASU was cheating the system to get an advantage on oregon. Also to note CAL, COL, STAN and WSU. CAL: Wilcox has personally proven to be a bland Coach, I don't think he will ever break an 8 win average and I don't think he will ever break 10 wins. with that said he deserves better than Berkley. COL: dorrell is no surprise a bad football coach, While he isn't on the chopping block today he has at best 2022 and 2023 before being relieved of his duties WSU: no head coach currently. I do think dickert has a chance of removing interim if he can beat either UW or UO. and win his bowl game. I'm a bit skeptical on what WSU will do when the two leach WR's leave though. STAN: Shaw probably has at least one full year left at his current rate of performance. What baffles me the most is how bad his coaching hires have been over the last 5 years have been. This conference is about to go through likely the worst talent drought at head coach in the next 5 years. It's possible that some of these teams will make decent hires but frankly, I'd love to see wilcox up at UW. I don't think USC will hire a good head coach. And stanford historically is more of a punching bag than the puncher. Utah is interesting the right hire, could push them up but at a school like utah the right hire is 1 in a 1000. If Cristobal is around the next 3-5 years he should be rolling come 2025.

I'm actually glad cohen opened her big mouth. How can you fire a coach "with cause" for unintentional or indeliberate acts? At this point it guarantees that lake will either get his buy out or kept through the off season. Right now UW is in a situation of all around bad... 1. if they fire lake for cause they won't be able to hire a good coach because every coach will see not only the pasquinade the UW Athletic department is but they won't be able to guarantee they will get their money if they inevitably underperform.(also UW will be in a huge lawsuit because lake will look to get his money) 2. If the fire lake for performance, the department is less of a farce but you still have Cohen making the hire. She hasn't made a single good hire between men's and women's basketball and football and the fact that she has worked at UW for over 23 years means she really doesn't have the sports connections outside of the conference. 3. fire Lake and then cohen gets fired. This may literally be the best option but who becomes the interim head coach, because you can't have an interim AD hire your next head coach. At this point Bob gregory would be the likely pick at IHC but we all know the UW fans will pretend that Peterson will come back to coach uw 4. Don't fire Lake. If lake isn't fired, that means he needs to hire an OC and at this point who wants to work at UW, the lack of recruiting along with transfers has shrunk the talent this team has significantly. They current head coach has limited qualifications and no real experience as a HC. and finally the head coach just used his last OC as a shield to keep his job an additional year.

Aliotti was a great coach but that is not going to happen and this isn't even a good argument to even try. This is just canzano spouting stuff. Heyward makes more sense but frankly I don't know if he has enough on his resume in way of play calling. If I were oregon state I would look at Grant Duff at weber state. He has been the DC their for about 5 years and during that time they have really turned around making 5 straight FCS playoffs. His contract would be small and he gives you an in to a new state when it comes to recruiting, the FCS schools really know the head coaches in states like utah and they may lead to be an edge in a good recruiting state for oregon state. it's also a bit off the wall

I actually think this is a good thing for the conference. if even the little brothers have expectations from their coaches and they fail to perform their is ramifications. Even a bad team like osu in the SEC would be a coaching wheel to find what sticks(until the coach that stick gets hired by a better SEC team(Florida, Dan Mullen). As a conference we should be weeding out the bad coaches and we want teams to be improving. As much as we like to joke about Helton the conference is better when we have good teams and USC honestly has the easiest route to being a good team. the only team I am content with being garbage is UW.

the ducks controlled that game. If you look at nearly every aspect of the game the refs intervened on behalf of UW. 1. the oregon safety sure looked like he got out of the endzone 2. on UW only TD drive they were completely aided by a missed intentional grounding call. that would have likely stalled out UW. 3. the unsportsmanlike on forsyth was a farce and oregon should have gotten that TD. 4. the overturning of Cardwell's TD was likely a farce, They never showed one view during the game cast that would have turned the call over yet they did. If you take all that inconsideration it really just comes down to Brown giving UW a gift TD followed by UW having 7 punt attempts, 1 int, 1 downs, 1 safety and one drive. the final score is not indicative of how well oregon played against UW.

Here is my quick synopsis of our remaining pac 12 games. First I don't expect to go undefeated during these three games, not because we can't but because it is our hardest string of games and we haven't played consistent enough to win these games.(it could be possible to turn around and play more consistent.) As a side note We have only played one pac 12 team with a winning record to date which was UCLA, the next three teams will all having winning records as we move forward. WAZZU: Has the second best passing offense in the conference paired with the second worst rushing offense. They started the season 2-2(skipping fcs games) and have since gone 3-1. I think what has people worried is that after firing Rolo, WSU has had a close loss to BYU and a win over at the time pac12 south leaders ASU. What i'll say is they will likely get some yards against oregon, but I don't think this offense is efficient enough to score at will. Add in that this defense is about as middle of the conference on every meaningful stat(except fumble recovery) and I think we should roll pretty handedly. I'd also keep in mind that under Cristobal oregon is 20-1 at home with the only loss going to Stanford in 2018. This team should be ready to roll. Utah: Scares me the most but only because I really respect Whittingham. what I will say about Utah that gives me some good hope is they lose to teams that run the ball. They lost to SDSU who put up over 180yds rushing, BYU over 200 and OSU who put up 220+ yds. Add in that while they have beaten both UCLA and STAN in back to back beat downs, both teams were without their starting QB. This is a team that has a clear weakness on defense; one that I think the oregon offensive line should be able to exploit. I also think that the oregon defensive front should be able to limit Utahs rushing. Don't get me wrong I Think this is our hardest game remaining of the season. OSU: First off, Smith is the most likeable head coach in the pac and I still think he is the best play caller too(better than Moorhead). BUT... 1. The ducks won't have forgotten 2020 in this rivalry. 2. they have one of the worst defenses in the conference and just fired their DC. and 3. they have yet to play a good Dline all season. All in all I think oregon has a good shot to win out but the game in SLC scares me the most. I think it has the tellings to be an exact rundown of the 2019 pac12CCG where all the predictions go to Utah and Oregon runs away with it but That doesn't mean I am not scared for it.

Thanks for sharing 30Duck! The officiating was bad this game. not in the same kind of bad as the stanford game but seriously it was bad. I am still baffled on the final TD that was called back as well. Not saying he didn't score just that none of the tv angles provided during the broadcast confirmed any justification to overturn the play. I swear the more i watch pac 12 officials the less I understand football.

1. Lake should be on the hot seat currently no matter what. 2. Despite being on the hot seat I don't think he will get fired especially if he can pull of a 6-6 record. 3. Even if UW did fire lake I would be ecstatic. There are currently eight teams that have fire a coach this season. Akron - Tom Arth Connecticut - Randy Edsall Georgia Southern - Chad Lunsford(they have hired clay helton LSU - Ed Orgeron TCU - Gary Patterson Texas Tech - Matt Wells USC - Clay Helton Washington State - Nick Rolovich AS of now I would say UW is comfortably the third best team on this list, but you have other coaches including dan mullen(florida), Manny Diaz(miami), Justin Fuentes(VT), Chip Kelly(UCLA), and Scott Frost(Nebraska) all of which may be fired. If Washington decides to jump the wagon and look as well they are not going to be a top 5 team looking for a new coach, they won't even be in the top 10. Add in that Jen Cohen who has made poor hires her entire career will be put in charge of hiring his replacement and the next coach at UW may invariably hire Kevin Sumlin or Willie Taggart.

Here is the perfect situation in my opinion. 1. UW finishes the season going 2-2 with wins over WSU and COL but loses their bowl game for a final record of 6-7. 2. Lake blames the failings of the team on jon donovan, and jon don gets let go. 3. Cohen believes this and lake is retained for next year. 4. Lake makes another poor hire at OC. 5. following his poor hire, the school lets Cohen go.(she has been a really bad AD) 6. with Cohen gone, Lakes contract kicks and automatically extends 1 year 7. all the while their 2022 class stinks ends up ranked 55th(or thereabouts) in the nation and is ranked 11th in the conference. 8. 2022 rolls around the team stinks and lake is then fired 9. the university can't get their act together quick enough and the hire another poor coach I think 1-4 are almost a guarantee as for the rest i am being very hopeful as a petty fan.

You mean the team was set up to succeed by the previous coach but the new coach who had almost no head coaching experience is sending them into a downward spiral. It's almost like UW does have a narrative.

I don't look down on the university itself, UW is a top academic public university. I won't dispute that. Their certainly is a benefit of being a large public university in a large city, in a state that has emphasized their higher education for years. With all that said their football team is not very good right now, they have a an overtly high sense of worth that is certainly undeserved and if you are the head coach of such program please don't put out a sentence so nonsensical that you just embarrass yourself.(I'll note that I often have grammatical errors in my comments/posts but I also don't represent a top university.) also of note is that all of these teams are competing at the same time, for the same people. there are about 1,000 top athletes in the nation(5,4 and high 3 stars) and certainly their may be some limitation(GPA and testing) in who is recruited to the top(academic) schools but those same kids can also go to any school they chose so pretending that oregon isn't out their and capable of poaching players from stanford, notre dame or uw is both asinine and uninformed. it isn't like recruiting has come together and said if you are 3.9 gpa with 1500 SAT you can only go the list of 15 schools. If i remember correctly Thibs had an 3.8 gpa from oaks christian which is a private school with some pretty rigorous standards just to attend.

So clearly I wasn't the only one perplexed by Lakes comments on recruiting but I wanted to see if he was even remotely accurate. I gathered all this information from 247 I am sure some of it could be off but for now i am viewing it as subjectively accurate. also as note I wish i picked the previous recruiting class as this one is currently unfinished but i was halfway through when i made that determination. so far in the 2022 class UW has made 79 total offers. of the 79 commits oregon offered 52 of them as well. that is a clip of 65%. now as far as who have these recruits have committed too. the breakdown is as follows Oregon 8 USC 2 Ohio state 1 Notre Dame 3 Stan 2 BC 1 UW 3 UCLA 2 Tex 2 Cal 1 TA&M 2 OK 1 Indiana 1 Clearly oregon is pulling the largest portion of offers from UW. On top of this I wanted to evaluate the 27 offers that oregon didn't offer. of those 27 they average ~5 pac 12 offers. UW has done significantly better at recruiting these players. with 7 commits. To date in this class I think not only are the two schools competing but that oregon is winning handedly. this isn't to say UW doesn't have a shot to jump up especially with about 25 of the players still uncommitted but I don't see that happening. On a final note if you are going to brag about something it needs to be backed up coherently. You can't brag about your academic prowess and but together a sentence that is almost gibberish.

Oh man this is a great question charles. personally I love to watch a stifling defense. a stifling defense paired with an efficient offense is a fun game to watch. I love seeing QB hurries, hits and sacks by the defensive front 7 and PBU's and INT's by the DB's. the problem is that this is not a full proof way to win games. When things go bad on the offense in these games you lose(most of the time). an offense that fails to perform puts added stress on the defense, increasing the likelihood of lapses in play and mistakes to occur. the issue with winning back 7-10 points is that it doesn't take much to lose by 3 points. So I think while I prefer to watch stifling defense, I would prefer to have an elite(explosive) offense. Elite offenses make up for underperforming defenses. elite defense will win most games but they will often fall short in a game or two. I think this is even more present as the game has consistently moved towards favoring the offense.

That's my thought too about utah, and I would argue that eccles stadium is the second best fan base so no matter what it is a hard stadium to play in. Probably, but I do think Smith is more likely to stay at OSU than go to a big name school. Yes OSU will have to pay him more but also I think he has a great opportunity at OSU. 1. it is his alma mater which i think matters to him. 2. osu will clearly give him more leeway than pretty much any school.(go 4-8 at osu, your fine, in the SEC, you are fired.) this doesn't mean they can just lowball him they will still have to put out a comparable salary. Eh, i'm still not sold on this. in my situation, i expect oregon goes 10-2(7-2), osu is 9-3(7-2), and you likely have two 9-3 teams in the pac 12 south(utah and ASU) both of which would mean utah has an 8-1 record in conference and asu has an 7-2 record. with Utah having the best record and wins of asu and oregon while a lose to oregon state. it is hard to have division-less football when you don't play every team. and honestly outside the mess of 2020 has it really been that many times the top teams didn't play in the ccg. 2018 you had 2 9-3 teams with technically the best team being wsu. but it is hard to argue they deserved a spot when they lost to UW the week before. 2017 washington had the best overall record but they lost to stan and had a 7-2 conference record. USC was 8-1 in conference. 2015 oregon got shafted by the system(no arguments here) 2012 oregon got shafted again 2011 stanford was better. to me this is probably the worst example. only because the best team in the south was ineligible for post season so a 6-6 ucla got to play. honestly in the past 5 season's it has happened once and that was in covid season. prior to that it happened to oregon and stan a number of times. I would also argue if the conference added a rule state "if a team is ineligible then the next best conference record regardless of division gets in" this would fix the 2020 season and 2011 season. finally I agree the conference needs to move to an 8 game system. if oregon go to play the little sisters of the poor prior to heading into a game against OSU i would be way more confident in saying oregon wins out. not to mention that we shouldn't be putting other conferences up with the advantage of a late season cake walk.( personally like the 9 game schedule but unless you can convince other conferences to adopt it we should be using it).