Bruce3404

Several things. The old Hayward tear down led to several mediocre recruiting years and the still-unexplained firing of Robert Johnson sealed the deal.

With our not-too-distant indoor championship squads, I took a look at this year's teams in relation to the rebirth of Track and Field at Oregon when Vin Lananna took over. This involves 18 Indoor Championships from 2005 onward. This year's squads scored a grand total of 24 points combined. Worst ever? No, that would be the 2008 teams which combined for 11.33 points. Next worst was 2007 and 20 points. After that, 29 points in 2005. These might be considered Vin's building years. And last year's 39 was the 5th worst post-Vin/Robert Johnsn. The only good thing I can take away from this would be that within a year of the miserable '08 showing, we scored 75 points. Hopefully the freshman will develop, a few solid protocol transfers/eligible grad students come in and the Ducks can once again dream of podium slots. Concerning is the lack of championship effort and/or coaches preparation. Under coach Johnson, the Ducks had a wonderful ability to peak for the big meets. With the exception of a great job by Freshman Jaydn Mays in the 60 and 200, everyone else either performed to expectations or, for the most part, underperformed. While I don't at all question Jerry Shumacher's credentials as a coach (don't get me started on the women's DMR, though, where he burned two athletes who had qualified for the mile final and pretty much destroyed any chances for their individual success while scoring a goose egg in the DMR), I don't believe there are enough hours in the day to coach collegians, pros AND recruit. Have you ever heard a collegiate football coach who went pro complain about missing the recruiting part of the job? I do hope the associates can handle the recruiting end, since Schumacher's workload doesn't allow for much free time. Another option would be to let Schumacher go back to solely being a pro coach and bring in someone whose sole responsibility would be college track. We've got the best stadium in the world, far and away the best athlete facilities for track and field and a not so distant reputation for winning big meets. For whatever reason, athletes aren't lining up to come to Eugene and I might argue that our best track recruiter has been Dan Lanning.

As a track fan and writer, to the best of my knowledge ZERO football players have competed for the Ducks since Mark Helfrich left; if any have, they've been of no consequence. Mark Helfrich gave a great speech at Track Town Tuesday at the VR Inn just after being named head coach, when he told a roomful of track fans that he was going to encourage his players to compete in track and field. During his tenure, we had two time Olympian Devon Allen and De'Anthony Thomas on the team; in fact, at one point THREE of the guys on the 4x100 team were football players (Thomas, Allen and Dior Mathis). Chip Kelley was big on letting his players run track and the 2011 4x100 team included LaMichael James, Kenjon Barner and Dior Mathis. That's SEVENTY FIVE per cent of our relay team. While the former team only got 4th in conference and the latter 5th, they were juggling Spring practice along with individual sprint events, football meetings and academics. The crowd at Hayward always got involved when the footballers were out there. That stopped with Mario Cristobal and I guess the verdict is still out with Dan Lanning, though any recruitment of a football/track star would be severely hindered by telling an athlete they could only compete in one sport. '

Possibly. When I tested it, it did work. Originally fond it on Apple News, then went to ESPN site and copied their link

OK, this is a more than a bit cruel, but according to today's ESPN bottom 10, the Ducks have joined such stalwarts as UMASS, New Mexico State and Akron in this week's bottom 10. The Ducks are described as such: #5. Oregon.....Duck! As in "Duck! Dive! Dodge! There's another Georgia defender coming! And he's chewing on another page of Dan Lanning's playbook!". You'd probably have to go back to the '80s to find the Ducks in Steve Harvey's real bottom 10. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/34534866/college-football-bottom-10-even-winners-escape-our-list

I think otherwise. The game started at 12:40 PDT. How different is that from a 1pm start in Autzen? And if time was truly an issue, why didn’t they head to GA three days early?

More like caca

Another nail in the coffin of collegiate sports where we have NILS, athletes jumping schools without penalty and now schools jumping conferences (ok, that's not BRAND NEW, but certainly a recent phenomenon). At some point, and for many of the same reasons, I stopped caring about pro sports, at least during the regular seasons and I'm wondering if this isn't going to carry over re my (and others') thoughts about college sports.

I hate this NIL situation. We're lucky to have one huge donor who can compete with the big city teams; but PK isn't going to live forever and when that flow stops we're back to the 1980s. Enjoy the ride while we can.

I have zero confidence in the athletic department. Long ago (Runge) they trashed women’s hoops, then later women’s softball, now track. Took women’s hoops a decade plus to recover their misgivings (and I realize there are different leaders from Runge, but apparently the new aren’t looking at historical precedent).

Of course Uncle Phil had a say and given his150 million + gift of an incredible stadium, why not? Without Uncle Phil, we’re Corvallis

I'll agree that the Powell's ramped it up this outdoor season, but heavily distance-oriented teams don't win titles outdoors. An easy example would be last year's Duck team with probably the two best middle distance/distance runners in the country. While that team finished 2nd, they were 30 points behind sprint power LSU, a team which scored zero points above 400m. The Powell's have yet to finish in the top 10 indoors or out and this year they project to finish out of the NCAA top 10, despite their excellent Pac 12 showing. After poaching half a dozen Duck distance runners in 2018, only one of those ever scored an NCAA point while several never performed as well as they did at Oregon. In fact, the UW men under the Powell's have scored a total of 7 points in TWO NCAA outdoor meets, finishing 50th and 46th and the women slightly better with 17th and 19th place finishes. As I mentioned, Oregon is built to win national championships and while we all miss the glory days of distance domination, I think coach Johnson has taken the right path and his results back up the excellent job he's done.

Agreed. We need to get more footballers out there and I do think it's a great recruiting tool to allow athletes to compete in both sports. Two time Olympic finalist Devon Allen would be the prime example and I'd also note how well De'Anthony Thomas did on the track. Anyone remember his score against Kansas State in the 2013 Fiesta Bowl when he did a track lean as he crossed the goal line? The Ducks have FIVE recruits who could have scored in the conference meet and Khamari Terrell's personal best would have WON the 400m. The rigors of Spring practice do present an obstacle for outdoor track as does the bowl season for indoor track, but with the right level of co-operation between Lanning and Johnson, the Ducks probably have more scoring potential from football players than any other team in the country. And it doesn't cost the track squad one of their very limited scholarships.

You're welcome and it's always a pleasure to write about and promote Duck track and field. I believe Hayward presents a huge advantage to athletes coming down the home stretch and fighting off opponents as the Duck faithful rise and cheer. Also, the energetic hand clapping for Duck field event competitors says, "We care!" Longtime A&M coach Pat Henry has been whining for years about the unfair advantage presented by Hayward; otoh, he whines about most everything.

Thanks, Santa Rosa Duck. Good question re television. The Pac 12 will broadcast the main events all three days: Friday 5pm-7pm, Saturday 1:45-4PM and Sunday 1PM-4:30PM. Unfortunately, this cuts out a lot of the field events and the most of the multis (heptathlon and decathlon), but all in all it's as good as one might expect. Note that the times I grabbed off DISH differ from the Pac 12 network website which shows 4:30-6:30 and 7:30-8:15 for Friday, 1:45PM-4PM and 6PM-6:30PM for Saturday and 1PM-4:30PM for Sunday. For anyone who can only watch one day, try to make it (or record it) for Sunday, a day of nothing but finals.

I liked Mario in a lot of ways. Class act, good recruiter and presented himself well as a member of the community. Like others, I hated the offense he ran last year, but I think his biggest shortcoming was selling us on the idea of recruiting big, fast linemen SEC-style, then getting his ass kicked not once, but twice by a decent, but not great, Utah team. At that point I started having some serious doubts and did not mourn his departure, especially when Lanning stepped up. We've moved from a "just OK" spot to a place we can seriously dream of BCS games. The test against Utah in November should provide a great comparison between this year's squad and last year's.

He picked a terrible time to leave with all the injuries at WR, but most every recruit thinks they'll play on Sundays, ignoring that the real number according to the NCAA is 1.6%.

Altman has done a wonderful job with the program, but would question WTH is going on this year?

B. He has zero ties in the PNW or on the left coast, perhaps increasing the risk that he'll bolt sooner than later

Having just watched Georgia cough up 41 points and 536 yards to Alabama last weekend, I’m not quite ready to jump on the bandwagon, while acknowledging that one game doesn’t define an otherwise great season. Also, this is the exact kind of hire who might be inclined to bolt after a few years. At least his tiny D2 alma mater won’t be in the running, but his roots are in the Midwest. The immediate hiring of a name OC will be essential to keeping the current roster and recruiting classes largely intact.

I don’t understand the animosity of some re Chip’s departure for the Eagles. How many among us haven’t changed jobs at some point for either more money or a new challenge? When Chip left, he got both. What we’d get now is a guy who is completely off the NFL radar (2-14 seasons will do that), friendly with Uncle Phil and was a good coach and ambassador for the program. He took an absolutely moribund program at UCLA and spun it around quickly. He was and is a good recruiter and NFL experience should resonate with the typical recruit who expects to play on Sundays (however misguided most of them are). Had slick Willie been honest, the Ducks would have grabbed Chip back several years ago. UCLA knew it and jumped in while Willie was fiddling.

Been a few years, but Chip and Phil were still tight enough to sit side by side at the MBB Final Four in Glendale a few years back......and that was well after Chip went pro. Cost of living up here is close to zero compared with LA, though I heard through a realtor that Chip's house in N Gilham had about five pieces of furniture in it, so maybe that studio condo he has in Westwood is good enough (I'm joking about the condo since I have no idea where he lives, but if it's anything like when he was here, he doesn't spend much time at home as might be said for a lot of head coaches)

Trust me, as a USC grad, we do not want Lame Kitten up here.

Well, yet another Duck National Championship. Not only did the men win, but they overperformed the projections by 8 points and scored the second most points ever in a men's indoor championship with a total of 79. The stars were truly shining today. Soph Cole Hocker won both the mile and 3000 (upsetting teammate Cooper Teare who finished second). Remarkable performance considering he ran a mile semi, a mile final and the 3000 in a 25 hour span. This is Edward Cheserek kind of talent! Perhaps the biggest surprise was Emmanuel Ihemeje in the men's triple jump. Seeded a distant 5th, he won it all and got the additional gift of making the Olympic standard. As an Italian citizen, he's one Duck we will definitely see in the Olympics and his leap was 3rd best IN THE WORLD this year and would have gotten him 6th place in the last World's Championships. Did I mention that he's only a freshman? This must have been especially rewarding for coach Robert Johnson who was a triple jumper in college and despite all of Johnson's successes, this was the first time one of his TJers won a national title. Special mention to Reed Brown, who ran a mile semi yesterday, a gutty opening leg on yesterday's DMR and finished 5th in today's mile. Again, that's a lot of work in 24 hours and while he won't get headlines in the paper tomorrow, he's the sort of hard worker that all championship teams need. Meanwhile, another freshman, Micah Williams set a PB and won the 60 in 6.49, the third fastest time in the world this year and the kid is only 19! Oh yeah, he also carries a 4.0 GPA and he's an Oregon kid as Charles mentioned. Gaston Bouchereau, who wasn't projected to even make the final added another 4 points for the Ducks while finishing 5th. The Aussie Charlie Hunter was also a National Champ in the 800, running a brilliantly thought out race and winning by only .02 seconds. Huge props to Coach Johnson and distance coach Ben Thomas, who engineered the winning DMR race perfectly and juggled around his superstars to allow them to contribute the maximum points in the individual events. I do not think they could have been coached any better and there's a reason he was named the national assistant Coach of the Year last year and should repeat this year. If you're listening, Uncle Phil, we need to keep this guy around, much like Coach Johnson was kept in town during the Vin Lananna era.

The Duck men lost a bit of ground on day 2 while projected runner-up LSU gained a bit. The big loss for the Ducks was Luis Peralta who was projected to score 4 points in the 800, but failed to qualify for the final. The Ducks did add at least one potential point in the 60 since Gaston Bouchereau wasn't projected to make the final, but he did. Otherwise, the Ducks held form and, in the only final involving Ducks today, the men won the DMR in a race that featured three teams that would have broken the collegiate record prior to this season. The Duck win was only about 1/2 second off their existing CR, pretty remarkable when one considers two of the athletes had already run prelims earlier in the day. The Ducks also picked up a potential point when UW's Sam Tanner, who was projected to finish 2nd didn't even make the final. If one looks at the whole picture, the Duck distance men are a better team under coach Thomas than they were under the Powell's, whose UW team seems to consistently underperform in the big meets. One can easily argue that the runners the Powell's poached from the Ducks a few years ago have, for the most part, been less successful in Seattle than they were in Eugene. In fact, the UW men have zero athletes left on the men's side who can score, so their final score is ZERO. Heartbreaking, isn't it? So while the Ducks are positioned to lose 2 points, LSU has already gained 2 and are positioned to gain 2 more based on the semis. JuVaughn Williams won the LJ with a world leading 8.45 (27'8.75") and won the HJ with a 2.31 (7'6.5"), which ranks 5th in the world this year. FWIW, that LJ mark would have won the 2019 World's Championships! The race for athlete of the meet is over. Fear not, Duck fans; the Ducks are still projected to score 67 points to LSU's 52. The women will compete later this afternoon (5pm PT, ESPN3) with five individual women competing along with a DMR team which is projected to finish 2nd.