Haywarduck

3* High School Player, and Outland Trophy, Bednarik award, Lombardi award winning, very lightly recruited, and still only 13th pick in the NFL draft, Aaron Donald. “He was not a highly recruited kid,” “He was wrestling then. In our scheme, any guy who was a wrestler I always thought that was a nice intangible for a football player. You saw his quickness and stuff, but it wasn’t off the charts. He was perfect physically for what we were looking for as far as an inside tackle. We recruited him, and it all worked out.” 3* High School Player and Outland Trophy, Bednarik award winner Jordan Davis. Played at Georgia so Lanning is familiar with under the radar guys who should get more respect than they receive from the recruiting services. Davis played basketball until realizing football might be his sport. There have only been three guys who have won these two college awards. Suh was the other and grew up in Oregon, but chose Nebraska for their engineering program. Suh is also one of those guys who was under rated at 4*. All of these guys have one thing in common, they didn't just play football. Suh played soccer, basketball and was all state in the shot put. My hope is like what was said about Aaron Donald we are looking for more than football ability. Other sports can show hidden ability which translates to the football field. The coaches need to know what physically they want and not limit those metrics to the football field. Georgia wouldn't have been the same team without Jordan Davis, might never have won the national title.

Dat was something, worth the price of admission that is for sure! The post Pete Carroll era where they wanted to put DAT on defense. What a joke putting that much talent on the defensive side of the ball. This is what has made Oregon great for decades, put the speed on the O side and let the D try and keep up.

I wonder if he got the Hayward tour? Bring on the speed Coach Lanning!

We would, along with WSU, have the easiest schedule out of all those matchups. The beavs are a once in a blue moon program, and the dawgs are merely intimidating preseason with the pundits never really understanding the last couple decades of history. I do agree we would need to be guaranteed at least one to two cali schools each season to fill out the 8 game schedule. I think going forward we should try and schedule Hawaii every other year too. The recruiting connections from the islands needs to continue. Playing a game there keeps us in the other islands consciousness too. American Samoa needs to know we are a poly friendly program! We should then try and travel around the south and midwest on occasion to fill out our schedule, or have those programs come to Autzen. Scheduling should really look at recruiting as the number 1 priority. Not a fan of Notre Dame either but for a school with less than 9,000 students they have an amazingly strong fanbase. With the Catholic connection along with the Irish connection the school has a massive wannabe fanbase. They actually have a better tv deal than Larry could have ever dreamed of creating.

Phil Knight is an accountant without the Oregon Track and Field Program. He is grateful as are we, success leads to success.

I could definitely see some coaches and programs not wanting a 3* because it may effect their program rating. I am glad that isn't the number one concern for this staff. We saw the film, understand you're a good student, and want to offer you a scholarship, love it! It also helped a coach was aware of the kid. I do think you need to go off more than film. I also think you have to go off more than the recruiting rankings, and what the camps he went to said. We would have missed out on the NFL rookie of the year if we had just gone off what the recruiting rankings had said. Fortunately the new staff is indicating they aren't obsessed with rankings anymore. A coaches recommendation is the most important thing, just like when Helfrich saw Mariota. The rankings didn't matter and I am glad they didn't. The old formula of doing the footwork and getting to know recruits matters again. We aren't just hitting up every top recruit and trying to sign as many as possible to appease the alumni on signing day. The day that matters is game day, and having the players with potential to become legendary Ducks! I want the Ngata's and at the Alonzo's on defense. I want the DAT's and the Barner's on offense. A legendary team is full of amazing stories before they become Ducks and after. It is nice to see this mantra becoming true again! Bring on the student athletes who have passion, potential and lets see it all come to fruition on the field, once again.

I like the recruits stated the coaches obviously studied their film and showed them more than the football facilities. One recruit mentioned seeing the academic side was a different approach from when he was recruited the last time. There was even mention of touring the Hayward Field, bravo! Seems like the coaches are recruiting the whole student athlete. Good stuff to hear about the Lanning Era. The Future looks bright and it will be fun to see the new Oregon Football Program under Head Coach Lanning and staff.

Kind of fun to listen to the dawg homers predict last season. I would use the Willy Wonka meme on this one, but have used it too many times. The dawgs like to fly under the radar, right.........! Listen to the dawg homer below predict last season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZn2pc7Lhow

He does need to get some upgraded spots on commercials. The Kendall Auto Group ads are a little weak. The guy is going to make a lot of money going forward if he stays on the same trajectory. I suppose an upgraded defense would help his cause too.

I also think the term lures another one, is a more accurate term to use. Mario has a gift for appearing to be exactly what the recruit wants. The difficulty, like many coaches, is to help the recruit to become what lured them in. Again recruiting is just one leg of the player stool. You have to bring the kids in, develop them, and then put them into tough situations they can learn from, and excel at. I think Mario is good at bringing them in and putting them in tough situations, but they seldom excel to their potential. Helping players reach their potential is where greatness becomes a reality. Oregon, in the past, brought in players who reached their potential more than other programs. We exceeded other programs because we developed and schemed better than the elite programs. Talent without a challenge to exceed their purported level of ability is a recipe to become just another program. Oregon isn't just another program, and should never accept seeing talent flounder on the field. Oregon's secret recipe is effort and innovation, time to see it in action again.

I think recruiting is the latest shiny object the Oregon Football Program is focused on. Since the famous quote from Scott Frost stating you can't recruit to Oregon we seem to have a fascination with winning at recruiting to the detriment of what really matters. The ironic thing is the biggest recruiting win in the recent past was signing Justin Herbert, a little recruited hometown kid. He probably remains the biggest recruiting win the program has had, but we were focused on the 4* and 5* kids at the expense of the development and scheme which made Oregon great, in the past. Hopefully we can combine these three elements going forward. Recruiting without development leaves you with talent on the bench and mediocrity from the transfer portal. That is what we have seen recently. There is still time to develop these student athlete's too! Time for recruiting both talent and potential along with development. Add that to a scheme designed to take advantage of the skills on the team and we have a roadmap to greatness. We should also sprinkle a strong culture throughout ,and we can move beyond winning the star game. I mean Jordon Davis the Outland Trophy winner at Georgia was a 3* 6' 6" 340lb. basketball playing football recruit. He was the 424th ranked recruit, and the 29th ranked DT prospect. I trust Lanning to again, do the work on finding talent, potential and desire. Time to bring back the Oregon formula, recruit, develop and scheme, with an emphasis on the last two. https://247sports.com/Player/Jordan-Davis-86447/

Best of luck Logan!

I think Dino Philyaws Barbecue needs to get a longterm contract to supply brisket, ribs and everything tasty to the Oregon Football Teams food service. A d-line needs to be fed and fed well. Shakes and salads are all good, but the big boys want some meat on the bone!

Sage advice for the season. I too look for mistakes, poor execution, and players looking lost at times. What I also look for is effort and improvement. If the 2022 Ducks don't have those bad attributes then Lanning is going to get an early rewrite of his contract, and rightly so. Those good attributes have been sorely lacking.

I went to place where it was, you bring it, we'll fry it. I won't go any further than that.

It could be argued, rightly, Phil Knight wouldn't have amounted to much other than being an accountant if it hadn't been for the Oregon Track and Field Program. What Phil Knight did was leverage that program's success into Nike. He then helped that program and others. This is the formula for success, success builds success. Other programs don't have that synergy, thus the jealousy. It can certainly be argued Phil Knight has helped the Oregon Athletic Department, but Phil Knight benefited the most. I doubt Phil Knight would argue that point, but our opponents just drone on and on. Next time somebody bring up the point Phil Knight had a large, too large of an impact on Oregon Athletics, just nod and point out Oregon Athletics had an even bigger impact on Phil Knight. The same can be said for most involved in Oregon Athletics.

As much as I love Big Joe as our coach, he didn't put us over the top recruiting elite interior lineman. A student athlete like Siaki Ika, from SLC, was a must get, but we never moved the dial on this guy. He wasn't the only one, but Oregon is now more attractive to those prospects. Between Tosh and Tuioti Oregon has committed to recruiting and developing interior d-lineman. I completely agree with what Joshua says about the lineman making the whole defense go. Back when we had Ngata and Igor our LB's looked much better than they were. Now that we have elite LB's, all we are waiting for is some beef with speed and power to help out. As the fans focus on bringing back the Oregon O, the program is focused on building an elite defense. It will be great to see explosive plays again, but the defense will be exploding offensive opportunities if Lanning does what he was hired to do. I look forward to this development, which has already started!

https://247sports.com/Player/Camar-Wheaton-46050152/ The next great Wheaton?

All part of the Altman process, we have all seen it before, relax!

I suppose the coaches are all agreeing, Mario didn't need much help, I mean take much help on the sideline. It definitely is a stark contrast to what Oregon is experiencing. Mario's coaching flaws are compounded by the firing of Manny Diaz. When a program shows no loyalty, and the opportunity to move up, stay in a position, coaches don't see Miami as great opportunity. Miami and Mario made their bed, now they get to sleep in it. It is interesting our last 4 coaches who left, or got fired (Helfrich) have struggled. Even Helfrich was given a pretty nice opportunity and struggled at Chicago. Now Mario is starting down this path, pretty rapidly. Oregon, where coaches thrive, and not so much when they leave. Speaking of OC's Marcus Orroyo might be available. At 0-14 UNLV might be happy to see him leave.

Like in most sports the freak athletes are the game changers. You need the guys who go over 300lbs and can move. You also have to look for the guys who make it look like it is a game of tag because they are so quick. The qb is the obvious game changer, but there are those guys on the field who you have to put two guys on. That makes the math of winning the game much easier. It seemed like Mario just saw the game as each guy winning their battle. The game can be a much more exciting game when there are players on the field who can beat multiple people on the way to dominating a game. I saw a little of this with Donte Thornton, and look forward to seeing more that in the players who take the field on offense and defense going forward. I suppose we have to put them in position to do this and try and use their talents too.

I wonder if there has been a study on the transfer kids. I would think a person could just study the IMC Academy in Florida and see how their star ratings have turned out once they got to college. Seems like there is definitely more hype with some of the transfer, multiple camp type of kids. Some deserve it, others it seems may have just paid the price for the hype. I know kicker camps are full of hype, often just hot air literally lifting the recruits into scholarships.

All I know is that if I was a couple inches taller and my coach didn't have an attitude I could have been somebody! This is what we are going to hear even more, and it probably won't include any limitations on ability. Full disclosure, not my quote, but the attitude I see with too many student athletes.

I am pretty sure most were around for this one. Economists have studied it for decades. The amount of mismanagement, and just incompetence was astounding. Like the leader at the time of new coke, Mario was able to move onward and forward from his mismanagement too. Mario went elsewhere to take his formula, and we are all grateful. Fortunately for Coke they went back to the original formula. Hopefully Oregon will go back to our formula too with new management. The original is always the best, especially when it worked the first time!