Jon Joseph

A #3 class? Your post to the football gods' ears. If it takes 3 years to be in the final 4 then he will not be close to Nick Saban. I love your enthusiasm but bringing in the #3 class at Oregon would be astounding. I sure hope your optimism is realized.

Bobby Orr?

"Years off my life?" Give me a break. This would have been laughed at 20 or fewer seasons ago. In the 60s in high school we practiced intentionally without water breaks. Smart? No. But worth $100M? Amazing, I'm 75 and still alive. Still alive when the seat belt was your Mom's right hand. Still alive without having to wear armor to ride a bicycle. Still alive while eating stuff off the shelf that wasn't labeled. Still alive when we used to hitch-hike everywhere. LOL. Let's just get to 7 on 7. Probably coed 7 on 7, sooner rather than later. Would have loved to have seen this guy hitting the beach at Normandy or hitting the beach in the south Pacific. Where is one of Charles great 'kitty-cat' GIFS when we need it. Because of my respect for the site I'm not going to use the P-word. Should anyone be practiced 'sick?' No. But this stuff is so over the top it is beyond belief. Seriously, with all of the 'junk' going on today how long will CFB or the NFL for that matter, continue to be played? 'First thing we do, we kill all the lawyers.'

He is in a long line of those, including Dabo Swinney, who believe that CFB as currently structured is not sustainable. You simply cannot ignore the impact that NIL and unrestricted free agency is having on the money ball sports, basketball and football. Add W VA basketball coach Bob Huggins to the list. He wants consolidation and a 32 team basketball tournament that will not spread the money asunder. Our Pac-12 commissioner has asked the member schools in the Pac-12 to step up and spend more money on CBB and CFB. But how many will or can do so?

I think Arkansas is a decent opponent?

Fascinating game in 2022, besides BYU at Oregon; Arkansas at BYU. In 2023 BYU officially joins the B12. No program will benefit more from stepping up to the P5 than will BYU. Last season the 13th ranked Cougars had to play in a crummy bowl vs UAB.

NONE of these pundits understand how difficult it is to go on the road in the Pac-12 for 5 conference games. Why, because they somewhat understandably discount the Pac-12. Since CU and Utah joined the conference, no Pac-12 team has run the conference schedule. Not one. And every conference opponent is fired up when they play the Ducks. After the rivalry game, every team wants to defeat SC and the Ducks more than any other opponent. And btw, no team that played 9 conference games has ever won a playoff title. Open on the road vs a team that will be preseason ranked in the top 3. Play a team, BYU, that will be preseason ranked in the top 25 and last season finished ranked #13 by the playoff committee. And play an FCS team that is far from a cupcake. These rankings are one of the reasons the SEC teams get a mulligan. Other than Bama and UGA, of course, last season, the SEC was not all that in its bowl games.

Sorry, the young man's name is Stetson 'The Mailman' Bennett.

I checked, Stetson is healthy and will start at QB for UGA in 2022.

Oh, that's bad for your health and scoring points.

None of these draft gurus are the least bit self-accountable. Where is McShade and Kiper's post-draft grade on how close (far off) they were in their draft projections. If these guys picked at the track like they do with the draft they'd be homeless.

Negative Events With Spin. Some guy claimed Conerly was NIL paid $1.2M to commit to Oregon. This un-social media is off the rails.

As far as I could tell the young man was homesick?

JT Daniels has transferred to W VA. But Natty-winning Stetson is back at QB, unless he has been injured and is out for the season. Stetson, unless injured, is THE GUY.

I don't see anything 'wacky' at all. So far, everything we have seen out of Dan Lanning, his staff and the players has been nothing but positive. The potential is enormous; however, 'potential' is a scary word. Keep on keepin' on with the enthusiasm; it's all good.

Love the take, but Saban, especially since becoming a Grand Dad, has been far less grumpy in recent years. He could not have been a more gracious loser in 2021 to former assistant coaches Jimbo Fisher and Kirby Smart. At 71, I'm fairly certain that Nick Saban has no desire to leave Bama for any other job college or professional. I don't see a drop off in Saban's energy, like we saw with Bobby Bowden at FSU. I don't see the out-of-control grumpiness we saw from Woody Hayes. I think Dan Lanning has a terrific upside but he has yet to coach his 1st game as a head coach. I too hope he and his family love Eugene. But Dan gets on a Saban-like run and it will cost a boat-load of money to keep Dan at Oregon. The mediocre coach at Purdue and the hasn't done anything yet Mel Tucker at Michigan State are both being paid a lot more money than is Dan Lanning.

Interesting and fun article. Saban, was a HC at Toledo, at Michigan State, at LSU where he won a Natty, and with the Miami Dolphins before coming to Alabama. In his 1st season at Bama, Saban posted a losing record including a loss to LA Monroe. Nick Saban is the CFB coaching GOAT. One reason he is the GOAT is because every year he brings in a recruiting class ranked in the top 3 and these days, plugs in positions of need from the transfer portal. He went 1-1 against UGA last season, losing to UGA only when WR Williamson went down in the champ game after WR Metchie had been injured and could not play in the champ game. It took coach Kirby Smart with a roster stronger than Dan will ever have at Oregon, six seasons at UGA to win a big game against Saban. Will Smart be able to sustain the 2021 success and come anywhere close to winning the number of national titles Saban has won? Will he, or Dan at Oregon, win 100 games in a row against unranked opponents? Saban accomplished this incredible run at Bama. Conerly was a terrific get. But I don't see Lanning or any other Ducks HC reeling in top 3 recruiting classes season after season. Or, sending double digit number of guys on to the NFL season after season. I'd be more than happy if Dan, like Brian Kelly at ND and Riley at OK, could consistently get Oregon into the Final 4. (This means going at least 12-1.) And then wins a semi-final game(s) and wins a single national championship. Will Dan be at Oregon long enough to accomplish these lofty goals? Make no mistake, I love the enthusiasm. However, I am concerned that many Ducks fans are placing unrealistic expectations on a guy who has never been a HC. And in 2022 Oregon has one of the more difficult schedules in CFB. The schedule lightens up in 2023. Dan will have had a year's head coaching experience. Hopefully the starting QB in 2022 will return in 2023? I'm looking at 2023 as the season when the Ducks, notwithstanding having to play what will be an improved USC team, will make a legit run at the Final 4. Again, fun article Charles. Thanks.

I don't like losing Pac-12 footprint highly ranked recruits to Notre Dame or to any other school outside of the Pac-12 conference. If he goes to South Bend and balls out he could help take down Stanford and USC. Help ND with its BS 12 game no champ game schedule sneak into and get blown up in the final 4. The conference has to keep these guys on the Left Coast. BTW: JT Daniels is transferring to W VA. 2 years of eligibility left. This seems like a very strange landing place for Daniels?

I'm OK. My spouse helped up from the laughing fit that brought me to the floor! Priceless!

Nix vs. UGA - 0-3. 639 total passing yards. 1 TD. 2 INTs. But as you so noted, he started against and defeated a number of talented top 25 teams that had better guys on D than he is going to see in the Pac-12.

There was a reason why Nix was the SEC Frosh player of the year under Dillingham. If his ankle is OK I think Nix has a chance to light up a whole bunch of Pac-12 Ds? He is not going against the Ds he saw in the SEC. And on the road he is not going to be playing in front of the hostile crowds he played in front of in the SEC.

Love it! But, are the kitty cats jealous? On a more serious note, the Georgia Tech RB that the Beavs signed out of the portal looks to have a legit shot at replacing Baylor at RB?

Very good points. However, businesses that do not continually finish 'in the black' end up with new management or go BK.

OT - A+M Transfer QB Calzada was playing with a dinged shoulder but the standout player in the Auburn spring game was Robby Ashford. Looks like Robby has a legit shot at starting at QB for the Tigers, a team undergoing a big time 'culture shift' under Brain Harsin. A number of Auburn guys portaled out because they said Harsin, unlike Gus Malzahn, practiced them 'too hard." Guys like this? If I was a teammate I'd be glad they went away.

David, thanks for another terrific article, including noting the influence of NIL and the Portal on CFB in general and on Oregon specifically. As you implied, 'culture' in sports is nebulous. In CFB, like in all sporting endeavors, your 'culture' is going to be measured by W's and L's. I think Wake Forest has a terrific culture, a small school that wins a lot of games. But Wake will never win a national championship. Lots of OBD folks believed that Mario introduced a great culture at Oregon. I didn't see it. If you play down to the level of the competition, as the Ducks so often did under Cristobal, IMO you don't have much of a 'culture.' The best sustainable cultures we have observed lately in CFB exist at Bama, Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma. UGA won a natty last season against a dinged up Tide team but did not win the conference title. We have yet to know whether last season's success at UGA under Smart is the beginning of a championship run or a Chizik-like title for Auburn? Of the 5 teams mentioned above, all 5 including UGA last season, had a significant roster talent advantage over the vast majority of conference foes. In CFB, wins follow the best Jimmies and Joes playing in the best schemes. I have a good deal of hope that Dan Lanning and the staff he has assembled will bring a lot of success to Oregon. But the 1st thing I want to see is in-game EFFORT. I want Oregon to play up to the quality of its roster and not down to the level of teams the Ducks should destroy. Then, wins will follow instead of embarrassing defeats against CAL, OR ST, ASU, Iowa State and Utah. The talk out of Lanning et al and the enthusiasm out of the players has been great. Now, walk the walk. Conference titles and Final 4 invites will define Oregon's 'culture' under Dan Lanning. If a team does not win far more games than it loses, the program's 'culture' is irrelevant. A team's APR, graduation rate and good citizenry, will not keep a losing coach employed.