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Everything posted by Jon Joseph
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Wondering What our Pro Ducks are Doing? (2)
Gabe may be blowing his horn early on with the Browns. Sweet. ESPN predicts when Dillon Gabriel could start for Cleveland Browns DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM ESPN predicted that Dillon Gabriel could play during the 2025 season if the starting quarterback struggles.
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Wondering What our Pro Ducks are Doing? (2)
Two Ducks, Dante Moore and Evan Stewart, Could Fly Up the Draftboards. Pair of Oregon Football players listed as potential 2026 NFL draft risers DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM A pair of Oregon Ducks have been listed as major potential risers in the 2026 NFL draft as we head into the offseason. If Dante comes through with the help of Moore and others, he could have one year starting and then head off to the NFL. I sure hope he has the option to go or stay! 2025-26 will have a stronger quarterback class than last season. This, and NIL, will factor into the decision. If he plays up to an early draft choice level, he'll be duly rewarded with a direct payment in the amount paid to top QBs, with NIL the cherry on top. NIL is not roundly loved in CFB, but the pros are happy that it retains good CFB players who need an extra season of development with no cost to the NFL.
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The Oregon-Penn State Conundrum: Are Both Locks for the Playoffs in 2025?
The game at PSU is one of the two games OBD plays against the preseason top 25. The other being in Autzen two weeks later against Indiana. However, the games at Iowa and home against USC could be top 25 matchups. And UW in Seattle could be a top 25 matchup. Jedd Fisch has not lost a home game in Husky Stadium.
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2025 BIG Info, Predictions, Etc. (6)
Bleacher Report is Buying OBD's PO Chances in 2025-26. Buying or Selling Top Contenders for College Football Playoff in 2025 BLEACHERREPORT.COM In the ever-expanding College Football Playoff, more teams have a legitimate path to winning a national championship.
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2026 Recruitment, Announcements, Interviews, Etc. (5)
A B1G Recruiting Update - Big Ten Spotlight: Five developing recruiting storylines SPORTS.YAHOO.COM It's a classic Ohio State-Penn State battle for four-star linebacker Cincere Johnson.
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Only (?) 100 Days Before We See Ball Played!
'YES." Week Zip is now 99 days away. I hope Week 0 will become Week 1 for everyone. It would be great to be a Dawgs season ticket holder with Bama, Texas, and Ole Miss, ''Tween the Hedges. (I doubt that any of these games will KO at Noon. 😁) Another tough schedule with the Cocktail Party matchup with Florida, and at Tennessee, Auburn, and Georgia Tech. Whew! FWIW, I think Kirby's Dawgs wins the SEC again in 2025 and advance in the playoff. He may not have the skills of the guy who went MIA, but Gunner Stockton looks like a leader in the Stetson Bennett mold. WOOF!
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Only (?) 100 Days Before We See Ball Played!
100 Points to Ponder Before Farmaggedon. 100 Days Out: College football names, games, storylines to follow as we count down to the 2025 season - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM 100 stories, predictions, names and games to get you excited for the 2025 college football season And then, Bob's Cats visit Autzen. 😁 Let's Get It On!
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2025 BIG Info, Predictions, Etc. (6)
Only 100 Days Before the Season Starts! (100 days? 😧) 100 days to college football: Top storylines, Heisman contenders, games - ESPN WWW.ESPN.COM With just 100 days until Week 0, we take a look at 100 things to know ahead of the college football season. Waiting on Farmageddon, then a visit from Bob's Cats.😍
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2025 BIG Info, Predictions, Etc. (6)
Indiana Crosses the Mendoza Line on 10/11/25 when Cig's Hoosiers Visit Autzen. Expectations are on the rise for Indiana, Curt Cignetti - ESPN WWW.ESPN.COM After an impressive first year under coach Curt Cignetti, what do the Hoosiers have in store for Year 2? The 2nd of OBD's two preseason-ranked teams on the schedule. Both teams are off the week prior.
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CFB Playoff Seeding as Ranked in 2026?
Not certain what the trade-off is for securing a unanimous vote, but playoff seeding matching rankings in 2026 would be sweet. College Football Playoff nearing consensus to alter seeding process with changes to first-round byes - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM The power conferences are in agreement to move to a format that will eliminate automatic first-round byes for conference champions. I'll believe it when I see it.
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2026 Recruitment, Announcements, Interviews, Etc. (5)
It's confirmed. Traveler has a Duck on his back. USC leads Oregon in 2026 football recruiting, but by how much? TROJANSWIRE.USATODAY.COM Oregon is not even in the top 10 of ESPN's current 2026 football recruiting rankings Today's rankings have nothing to do with SC removing Riley from his duties as the recruiting point man, AD Jen Cohen, and not Riley getting SC's NIL together, and SC paying $1M a year to a 'GM' to organize recruiting. This plus SC having 26 'commitments.' See ya on 11/22 in Autzen. And let's compare notes after signing day in December. BTW, today, OBD is ranked 4th in the quality of players who have 'committed.'
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24 Team CFP Makes Sense
This might work if the regular season had ten games. With 24 teams and 12 regular-season games, how do you conclude the season before February? Even without Conference Champ Game weekend, and with every team playing in Week 0, you're running deeper into NFL playoff games. What entity will fund the first round of games featuring the 9 seed vs. the 24th seed, etc.? Visiting playoff teams last season received $3 million in travel expenses for travel to each away game and bowl games. The 4-4-2-2-1-3 format provides the same money for first-round games, with the 9 seed through 16 seed playing at the 1 through 8 seeds. There aren't 12 teams that can win a playoff, let alone 16, but 24? I don't believe the media would pay more for this format than for a 16-team format with no byes. Petitti and Sankey's format has the top eight teams playing a home game in the 1st round. Using this format in 2024-25 would have excluded only CU from the most-watched teams playing in the opening round. Using last season's final committee rankings, I'd rather watch No.1 seed Oregon play No. 16 Clemson in Autzen and No. 9 Boise State play No. 8 Indiana on the road, than watch No. 9 seed Boise host No. 24 seed UNLV, the third time these teams would have played last season. I believe ESPN would agree? And like it or not, money matters. No metric supports giving the 'little guy' a chance in a CFB playoff. A 24-team playoff would give 'the little guy' more money, but at what cost to the more successful, the more viewed programs? I want to see as few B1G varsity sports reduced to club sports as possible. The marketplace has separated the Power 2, and the playoffs should do likewise. A 24-team playoff has a populist appeal, but it is not grounded in today's college sports economics. There is zero financial reason for the Power 2 to keep the Lesser 2 and G6 football programs afloat at the expense of their athletic departments.
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2025 BIG Info, Predictions, Etc. (6)
Some SI Love for PSU. (Written by Charles' grandson? 😁) Big Ten Football Primer: Penn State Primed for Jump, League in Position of Strength WWW.SI.COM Quarterback play around the conference will be key as teams look to make it three national championships in a row for the B1G.
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2025 BIG Info, Predictions, Etc. (6)
Saturday Down South Projects Illinois to Make the 2025-26 Playoff. Predicting the Playoff: No. 9 Illinois - Saturday Down South WWW.SATURDAYDOWNSOUTH.COM Illinois finished 2024 with a bang to get to 10 wins, and with a team loaded with experience, it could earn its first Playoff berth in 2025.
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2025 BIG Info, Predictions, Etc. (6)
FWIW - Saturday Tradition Post Spring B1G QB Rankings. Drew Allar, Elite? Big Ten QB Power Rankings: Post-spring tiers for every B1G QB room SATURDAYTRADITION.COM It's time to power rank the Big Ten quarterback rooms into tiers as we hit the summer and move toward the 2025 preseason.
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2025 Oregon Predict a Score Primer!
Fun to discuss, but as Waggy as a WAG can get. I hope the O can come close to the predicted output. Montana State - I Remember the Idaho! OK State - Is there a QB on the ranch? Northwestern - Please, no mistake by the lake. Oregon State - A win over the Beavs with ease, but 49 points? PSU - Still OBD at -3.5. Drew Allar will turn the ball over at least once, and then, consider Little Game James? Hoosiers - Both teams have a week off to prepare. But would a month off prepare Indiana for the Autzen experience? Rutgers - Unlike the trip to Chicago to play NW, this is a B1G trip. Rutgers will be flying back home from Seattle the week before. Wisconsin - Win? Yes. 48-13? Iowa - Danno with a week to prepare. Iowa comes off home games against Penn State and Minnesota. USC - Will a one-loss or three-or-more-loss SC fly into Eugene? Troy was 1-5 in one-score regular season games in 2024. UW - Jedd Fisch comes into 2025 undefeated in Husky Stadium. My guessing-gut sees a floor of 10-2 and a return to what will likely be the last 12-team playoff. Subscription Cancellation Prompt -The author of this WAG, Zach Neel's Mothership, USA Today, has OBD finishing 9-3 and out of the 2025-26 PO. 🤬
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Opinion: Why the Big-10 is Falling Behind in Baseball...
I think the article would be better titled: 'Why Did Big Ten Baseball Fall Behind?' In the 1960s, the 'traditional' B1G teams were championship regulars: Ohio State 1966; Minnesota 1960 and 1964; Michigan 1962. UCLA was the last 'current' B1G team to win the title in 1998. USC has 12 championships and ruled the baseball roost for decades, including five consecutive titles from 1970 through 1974. As Charles so noted, 'bad-weather teams' can win baseball titles, but Oregon State is the exception and not the rule. Would more baseball on BTN matter? (I do not know whether more baseball is shown on the ACC and SEC networks than on BTN?) But a young man with MLB potential, if offered by a warm-weather team down south, is probably going to leave the north to play ball. And money matters. I don't know the money situation, but Mason Neville, who played high school baseball in Las Vegas, signed with Arkansas before transferring to OBD. I note that BTN has covered Neville in depth, as well as catcher Burke Lee Mabeus, who also played high school baseball in Las Vegas. Buke signed with OBD out of Bishop Gorman High School. Neville is one of 14 baseball players on Oregon's 2025 roster who transferred in. So, I think some NIL money has to be involved. According to Google's AI, SEC baseball teams annually average $820K to $920K in NIL deals. It is estimated that the top SEC teams have rosters with $1 to $4 million in NIL deals; see, Texas. AI does not have an NIL average for Big Ten baseball programs. The pending House settlement does not curtail NIL (in theory, it does so, with every NIL deal $600 and over being reviewed, but this will not withstand a court challenge). It is estimated that direct payments allowed by the settlement to college athletes will see 75% to football, 15% to men's basketball, 5% to women's basketball, and 5% to all other sports. Do B1G programs across the board, and their NIL collectives, have the desire to pay for championships in baseball when the conference hasn't won a men's basketball title since 2000? And no B1G program in the Midwest and the Northeast can pay its way out of bad weather. From the cratered Pac-12 prospective, what happened to USC and UCLA. It's not like the Conference of Champions beyond the Beavers was winning baseball championships. The B1G as a whole will likely negatively effect NCAA tournament seeding, but it will not hold back an excellent group of OBD baseball players making a run at the title. And, what BTN lacks in coverage is made up for at least in part by Charles,' aided by 30 Duck's, excellent coverage of the sport.
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2025 BIG Info, Predictions, Etc. (6)
Let's see, I believe it is May 14, 2025. Thus, the following projections are as Waggy as a WAG can get. Do Not Take These Predictions and Your $ to a Betting Parlor. For Entertainment Purposes Only! 🤑 Game-by-game score predictions for Oregon Football in 2025 season DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM Game-by-game score predictions for the Oregon Ducks football team in the 2025 college football season.
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Realistic Expectations for Moore in 2025
I hope Dante doesn't have a Dickens of a time and ends up in the 7th circle! 😁 Seriously, if he's not ready now than stick a fork in him, he's done.
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2026 Duck Football Commits
Friend 30, Spot Meets On. So much for the old home-state ties. No. 1 OT Jackson Cantwell commits to Miami as Hurricanes win heated recruiting battle over Georgia, Oregon - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM Miami rode a late surge to secure the No. 1 OT in the 2026 class Miami rode a late $urge, right? 🤑 Have fun in the Lesser (Loser) 2.
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It Just Costs More!
I don't know? Perhaps $30 a month all in is 'fair and reasonable?' If I can't record, I don't want to cut the cord. ESPN direct-to-consumer bundle price revealed - On3 WWW.ON3.COM .
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College Baseball Rankings: Oregon is Ranked No. 3, No. 5, No. 7, No. 9, and No. 19?
YES! A Prediction for an Eugene PO Regional.👍👌😍 Field of 64 Projections: Two new hosts spark changes through NCAA Tournament entering final week - On3 WWW.ON3.COM One week remains in college baseball's regular season, and two new hosts have sparked a ton of changes in this week's Field of 64. 1st, keep your Eyes on that Hawk!
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2026 Duck Football Commits
We have met the enemy! And they are us?
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Swifties (Jonathan Swifties that is) Rejoice! A Yahoo is the Voice of 16-Team Playoff Sanity.
I understand the umbrage over PO play-in games. However, as it so happened last season, both the champ game winner, Oregon, and the loser, PSU, made the PO field. The 4th-place B1G finisher, Ohio State, made the field. With a 16-team field, the loser of the play-in game, B1G representative No. 2, is going to be highly seeded in a 16-team postseason tournament, a tournament with no 1st round byes. Rarely, if ever, will the team that finishes 2nd in the B1G be seeded lower than No. 8, and with a 1st round home game. Come 2026, seeding will equate with the PO committee's final ranking. Oregon got a double dose of format blues last season. With a four-team PO still in effect, in the semifinals, OBD rematches with PSU, and Georgia rematches with Texas. Ohio State is still debating whether to fire Ryan Day. In any and likely every postseason tournament ever played anywhere, No. 1 Oregon plays the winner of No. 9 Boise State at No. 8 Indiana in the Rose Bowl. Likely wins the game and moves on. With mega-conference in-conference strength of schedule being all over the place, I think the B1G team in second place after the 11th game of the regular season, could well be better than a first-place team that played a far easier conference schedule. Consider OBD's schedule in 2027. OBD plays at Michigan and hosts Ohio State and Penn State. OBD also draws Iowa at home, and plays at Nebraska, UCLA, and UW. 6 home games with an OOC game in Waco, Texas against Baylor. I have not parsed all of the 2027 B1G schedules, but if Oregon is second in the conference standings with this schedule after game 11, I believe OBD will be more than worthy of a shot at the conference championship. If every team had the same in-conference strength of schedule, then I'd also be against the play-in format. I also do not know how much more revenue the B1G will receive with a play-in format compared to a one-off championship game that is likely to feature the B1G's biggest brands. But it is odds-on to be more money, or Petitti and Sankey would not be pushing a 16-team field and play-in games. Respectfully submitted, JJ.
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Swifties (Jonathan Swifties that is) Rejoice! A Yahoo is the Voice of 16-Team Playoff Sanity.
One of the Big Network's college football go-to folks, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, is a voice of 16-team playoff reason amidst the 'This Will Kill the Sport!' insanity. A 16-team College Football Playoff wouldn't be catastrophic; it would fix things WWW.YARDBARKER.COM The worst part of the 12-team playoff is the automatic byes for the top four conference champions. This article notes that as part of the 16-team playoff, the flex-week playoff play-in games are coming. These games will eliminate the stand-alone conference champ games, although one versus two may still be played at a neutral site, and end the season one week earlier. The play-in format is expected to bring in more money than one stand-alone conference champ game. Last season, OBD would have played Penn State for the title, possibly in Autzen, with Iowa visiting Indiana, and Illinois visiting Ohio State. NO rematch regular season games would have been played in 2024. The B1G's first and second-place teams would play one another, with both guaranteed one of the conference's four playoff bids. Three plays six and four plays five for the other two spots. Mega-conference 'hit and miss' top opponents scheduling, and every CFB metric supports a 4-4-2-2-1-3 format.