Jon Joseph

Hmmm. Quarter finals in 2024-25. Semifinals in 2025-26. Dan Lanning is heading into his 5th season with many players who could have gone pro returning, and some good pick-ups from the portal. I doubt Dan is done with this season's portal picking. It took Kirby Smart and Ryan Day six seasons to win a title. Getting pantsed in the last act in 2024 and 2025 is hard on the CFB soul. This season, OBD lost to an Indiana team playing a home game in Atlanta, with more fans on hand than the Hoosiers would have had in Bloomington. Neither loss is as devastating as Ryan Day's loss to Michigan in 2024. But Ohio State gets PO gifts from the football gods. A season earlier, TOSU would not have been in the PO field, and Day's job would have been in jeopardy. OBD did not have good fortune against Auburn, Urban Meyer's Ohio State team, Ryan Day's Ohio State team, and this season's No. 1-ranked team. Next case. In 2024-25, No. 1-seeded OBD 'earned' a 1st PO game against the eventual champion. The bracket this season had the top remaining top seeds playing in the semi-finals. FWIW, very little, I think OBD would have defeated Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl, Indiana would have defeated Miami in the Peach Bowl, and the two teams would be playing Monday night in Miami with many Oregon fans in attendance. OBD does not get PO gifts. That's the way Fortuna fumbles. I look around CFB, and I do not see a supposed top drawer coach, Day, Sark, DeBoer, Kiffin, Mario, or even Kirby Smart, that I'd prefer to have coaching the team in Eugene. From this fan's POV, I find the two bowl losses to be easier to swallow than when Lewis wiffed on a FG in Seattle that would have tied the game, and worse, the second loss to UW after taking the lead that resulted in a game against Liberty instead of a 1st round game in the PO. I'm certainly not happy about how this season ended. But I'm certain I am happier than Texas Tech fans. So it goes. There is no teacher like experience. OBD will be in the 2026-27 PO field with an excellent chance to reach the champ game in Las Vegas. Give me five? Monday night's championship game will be competitive, but Oregon is odds-on to lose its second 12-team PO game to another winner of the national championship.

GET THIS GUY! These 5 schools are instant top contenders for Colorado transfer Jordan Seaton

Amen! Far fewer Hoosier fans would have been in attendance. Using the NFL format, Indiana would have hosted Miami, and OBD would have hosted an SEC ream for the first time since Tennessee came West, Ole Miss. Sigh. Even with the game in Miami, I think Indiana has the chance to win Monday night's champ game attendance battle. With apologies to Charles Dickens (not Fischer 😁), this is likely CFB's worst of times and also the best of times. It's not Ohio State vs. Notre Dame. Instead, a somnambulant championship program with the chance to be the lowest seed to win a title, and a program that only woke up for the last two seasons since 1887, are playing for The Prize. A team with the composite 72nd-ranked roster is in the running for a championship. Huh? 1980 Miracle on Ice redux? Nah. The team without a Blue Chip Roster is the favorite? This will be a battle between the hometown Heisman winner versus the homegrown head coach, who happened to play high school football with the Heisman winner's Dad. This unrealistic script would be rejected by every studio in Hollywood. After all, the Hickory High Hoosiers, coached by Norman Dale, not Gene Hackman, and led by Jimmy Chitwood, did win a championship. Will Curt Cignetti measure the field before kickoff? Forget the Buckeyes and the Irish; ticket prices for this game are at an all-time high. And there will be millions more viewers tuning in on Monday night than watched last season's Blue Blood championship battle. Go Hoosiers! Make it a B1G Three in a Row!

I'm going to 'Wait a Minute' before grading Raiola's signing. I'm going to wait until I understand the plan. Will Dylan be an understudy for a season? If so, or if he starts in 2026, I'm going to wait until I see him playing in the Oregon system surrounded by better players and with better coaching. Dan Lanning and friends identified Raiola early on as the guy they wanted. The deal to bring Dylan to Eugene was probably (wink, wink) agreed to before or shortly after Dylan entered the portal. Otherwise, I think Dylan would have taken a few visits, no? No fault directed at either party; this is how portal picking works. Three of the Final 4 QBs are one year (subject to Chambliss' suit against the NCAA) starters. Dante is a transfer who basically went to school last season and learned on the job this season. Until there is a collective bargaining agreement between 'management', as however defined, and a players' union, it makes sense to go with an experienced QB, even if he has only one year of remaining eligibility. This is simply the name of today's game at every position. Talented young players not assured of starting at any position will be poached, as is the case with OBD's youngsters on the D-side of the ball. Dante's maturity in spending a year in training, and possibly the same decision by Raiola, is the exception and not the rule. However, Dante in 2024 and Raiola this season, should he sit and wait, are not doing so for free. Oregon hit on every transfer it brought in for the 2025 season. Looking at programs, Florida State and Penn State, for example, OBD once again received an excellent return on its portal investment. Clemson and Penn State started QBs developed within the system and played one another in the Pinstripe Bowl. Danno 'gets it.' And I trust his judgement.

The ACC hasn't fallen apart yet, but the Clemson and FSU settlements set the stage for it to happen. The ACC exit fee declines every season through 2029 to a far more reasonable number. Miami is the team initially benefiting from the ACC agreeing to teams keeping the lion's share of postseason revenue and media money will be distributed based on the number of fans watching a team's games. With the B1G's on-field results in football, and also this season in basketball to date, Miami, with its deep-pocket boosters, is now a more viable candidate for SEC membership than before 'It Just Means More' started morphing into 'It Just Meant More.' And the SEC could bring in UNC without upsetting an existing in-state program. UNC has deep pockets. Unfortunately, the football money was thrown at a guy who only performed at the highest level when he had TB. (Cough, cough!) Unless CAL, UCLA, and UW leadership go completely bottom-line brain-dead, there's no way they are leaving the P4 for a little league program. Also, even if these three joined the Pac-8 + Gonzo, what would the incentive be for the P4 to promote the Pac-11 + Gonzo to Power conference status? Canzano is not a bottom-line, brain-dead individual, so he feeds his customers this propaganda. Like Conference USA, the reconstituted Mountain West, now known as the Pac-12, is a media and nationwide afterthought. I like the idea of OBD kicking off next season with a blowout of pac-12 Boise State.

I'm hoping The Trophy doesn't stay in Vegas. 😉 I want to see it headed northwest to Eugene.

He is a weapon returning kicks and punts. An all-around outstanding athlete. Great addition who was predicted to go to Texas Tech or Texas A&M. Koi will be swimming in a B1Gger, better pond. 😁 Here's some more from ESPN - ESPN.comSources: Ducks land ex-Gophers star safety PerichFormer Minnesota safety Koi Perich has committed to Oregon, sources told ESPN on Monday, confirming a report by CBS Sports.

Darn! You beat my nine-hole record. 🤬

After wasting her time in Jersey, she finally has a chance to get a good education. Welcome Aboard! Fairways & Greens!

As Coach Cig has said, this is all kind of surreal. Indiana grad, Saturday Down South's Connor O'Gara, wholeheartedly agrees. Do not be surprised if more Indiana fans are rocking hard in Hard Rock than the Canes' fans. Saturday Down SouthI'm an Indiana graduate who still can't find the words to...IU's run to the College Football Playoff National Championship is hard to fathom for plenty of folks, most notably IU grads.

More on Michael Bennett's transfer from the Yale Bulldogs to the Ducks. https://duckswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/ducks/football/2026/01/12/oregon-football-michael-bennett-transfer/88142691007/

A Blast From the Past - Will Indiana Tie Yale's Record? AP NewsInside the Numbers: How Indiana and Miami stack up going...Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza originally planned to attend Yale, where he was recruited five years ago.

Does Big Red football matter in Nebraska? Here's a take on the transfer from Nebraska Public Media - Nebraska Public MediaBig Ten foe picks up Dylan Raiola in the transfer portalNebraska’s starting quarterback throughout much of 2025 will stay within the Big Ten.

Spot on, Charles. If anyone knows, will Raiola be healthy enough to go full bore in Spring practice? Of course, we all hope Raiola is the real deal, but Bo transferred to Oregon with significantly more in-game experience and many more reps, and trained under a coach who is now the head coach at ASU. This will be OC Drew Mehringer's first job as the OC. As you so noted, Charles, Dan deserves every benefit of the doubt when it comes to player and coaches' evaluations. Oregon Ducks On SIFive Things to Know About Oregon's New Offensive Coordina...The Oregon Ducks didn’t have to look far when searching for their next offensive and defensive coordinators. CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz reported Chris Hampton will At Nebraska, Raiola seemed, for what it's worth, to be a bad fit for the offense Mike Leach protege Dana Holgerson was trying to run. He will be surrounded by better players and coaches in Eugene. This season, Raiola benefited from having the Big Ten RB of the Year, Emmett Johnson, in the backfield. None of us is happy about the way the last two seasons ended. But at Nebraska, Raiola was playing for a head coach with a record against top competition similar to James Franklin. In today's CFB, you'd better have an experienced QB on your roster, regardless of where he first learned his trade. Hats off to Dante for giving his all, but against top defenses, the growing pains showed. Exhibit A for Experienced QBs: The two QBs starting in the champ game. Welcome, Dylan Raiola.

In Dan, I trust. In Dan, I trust. In Dan, I trust. In Dan, I ... hope I can trust? 🙃

$$$$$ Without the benefit of Uncle Phil's private aircraft, perhaps Oregon fans were hoping to spend their money on a trip to Miami to watch the champ game instead of the Orange Bowl. 850,000 living Indiana alums have not seen good football played consistently from 1887 until the last two seasons. They are feasting on the chance to follow their No. 1-ranked team. OBD has 253,000 living alumni. 393 miles - distance from Bloomington, IN to Atlanta. Piece of cake drive for students with a couple of cases of lager on board. A short flight that isn't a budget buster. 2179 miles - distance from Eugene to Atlanta. If the CFB PO were reseeded like the NFL PO, Oregon's game against Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix would have been well attended by Oregon fans. Ole Miss had far more fans on hand than Miami. Indiana fans would have dwarfed Miami fans in attendance at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The two remaining top seeds would have had the opportunity to play each other for the title, not just to win a semifinal game. For so long as this Bowl Extravaganza is produced and directed by Disney/ESPN, West Coast teams will be at a travel disadvantage. Next season, in a rare Western setting, Las Vegas hosts the title game. If OBD gets there, Allegiant Stadium will be a sea of green.

Last man out, don't forget to turn off the lights. 😁 https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-transfer-portal-west-virginia-florida-state-most-departures-2026/

ESPN's First Look at the Champ Game - ESPN.comCFP National Championship first look: Previewing Miami-In...How either Miami or Indiana can win the title, plus X factors for both teams.

As well as his paycheck if he comes back.

I know defenses have caught up with HUNH schemes but I would like to see a dual threat QB coming in. Without time to throw, Dante does not make many plays on his own. Raiola is also a dropback QB. With the OC and the DC promoted from within, will we see any changes to OBD's schemes on offense and defense? Except for Leavitt and Raiola, the top rated QBs are off the board. Oregon has been quiet on the transfer front. Many of the highest rated LB, OL, and DL guys in the portal have been signed. What's the strategy for next season? Are there guys on the roster who can step into starting roles and play well without starting experience? Poncho is back, thank goodness, but Pickard is gone as are Pregnon, World, and Hardy. I have faith in Dan and his process and I hope promoting from within, and standing pat in the portal, except for bringing in a punter and long snapper to date, works out.

Love for Cig and the Hoosiers - Scarlet and GameCBS Sports sends Ohio State, Michigan, and UGA clear mess...CBS Sports' John Talty and Shehan Jeyarajah believe the 2025 Indiana Hoosiers are the most dominant CFB team in years.

Cheer Up! Chin Up! OBD will likely be favored in every game next season, but for the visit to Columbus - https://duckswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/ducks/football/2026/01/11/oregon-football-early-look-2026-opponents-schedule/88119677007/?utm_source=smg-duckswire-strada&utm_medium=email&utm

How about a Three-Peat!

He's far too intelligent to play the stupid game. 😁

Wait Till Next Year! Win IT All in Las Vegas! SIWhat’s Next for Oregon? Early Look at Ducks’ Roster, Outl...Oregon’s season came to a close with a rough 56–22 loss to Indiana in the College Football Playoff semifinal.