latracey

Tomorrow promises to be a crazy, crazy day indeed.

The point that the PAC 12 has some excellent coaches and is one of the strongest football leagues in the nation at this time is a great one. The problem is that George Kliavkoff is perhaps the worse in the nation at his job. The media rights deal should have been done months ago and had it been, we’d be looking at much different circumstances right now.

Captain Kliavkoff seems to have completely lost control of the ship and it’s every PAC 12 school for itself. It makes me wonder how close Kliavkoff truly was to closing the media rights deal; clearly, not nearly close enough. The next 24 hours promise to be interesting for we fans who hold the Conference of Champions near and dear to our hearts. I’m really hoping a way is found to save The Pac 12. It’s looking more and more like it’s going to take a real and true miracle.

Good for Justin!

Ducks Win !!!! Woo hoo !!!!

Ducks lead 10 - 1. Wow!!!

A good local newspaper weaves a community together. The Register-Guard was an absolute jewel; long time employees who were master craftsmen and truly gifted writers with their fingers on the pulse of what made Eugene special and unique. We are all at a loss now when it comes to getting local news. None of the local news sources are great and The Register-Guard is a complete waste of time.

Whether you agree with Daniel Kelly’s harsh analysis, or not, it’s clear that Oregon’s defense this season left a lot to be desired and the overall play at linebacker was not very good. The film that accompanied Kelly’s assessment, for those who needed evidence, backs his criticism. The linebackers are the heart of the defense and it’s one of the areas where vast improvement is needed. It’s hard to say how much adjusting to a new system effected Sewell, but he certainly wasn’t the beast he seems capable of being. It seems clear that staying another year would have helped him hone his skills and raise his NFL stock. That said, as Kurt Rambis pointed out, there is plenty of positive buzz supporting Sewell. He won’t be a first round pick, but he will get his shot at his NFL dream. I wish him nothing but the best.

DJ made an excellent choice. Although he seemed to struggle at Clemson, something tells me Jonathan Smith is going to have him playing lights out for the Beavers. Look out Pac 12.

One critical area I’d like to see Oregon improve on is the quality of their punters and kickers. Kicking the ball out of bounds on kick offs hurt the Ducks in several games. Punter errors contributed to losses. Great teams have kickers who consistently kick the ball in end zone on kick offs. Punter errors hurt us in the Washington loss and were instrumental in the loss to Oregon State. I know Oregon signed an Australian kicker who has never played organized American football and they are rumored to have a few others as preferred walk ons. Hmmmmm… Some aspect of the kicking game has been a thorn in Oregon’s side for several seasons now. It’s a critical aspect of the game as evidenced by the loss to Oregon State. I hope Lanning and his special team coaches make it the recruiting priority it needs to be.

Noah Sewell just declared he is throwing his hat into the NFL ring and won’t play in the Holiday Bowl.

This is turning out to be one of the best and most exciting signing days in the history of Oregon football, and there is much more yet to come. My hat is off to Coach Dan Lanning and his staff.

I’m glad Oregon recruited a punter. Poor punting proved critical in Oregon’s loss to Oregon State. That said, it would be nice to have a little more information on Luke Dunne.

I have a feeling that Coach Lanning is well informed regarding what Nix’s plans are for next year. If Nix’s plan is to leave for the NFL, I’d be surprised if Lanning doesn’t snag a QB out of the portal. Given the history between Card and Stein, recruiting Card looks like a pretty smart move.

I like that Lanning pointed out last year that he keeps a list of quality coaches he knows and has worked with. I was impressed with how quickly he put together a very high quality staff of assistants. Whomever he chooses, he will put a high premium on a candidate’s ability to recruit and develop talent. I trust him to find an OC who will perfectly fit into and augment what he is creating at Oregon.

There was an interesting article in The Athletic yesterday about Dilly taking the ASU job, how he was raised in the area loving The Sun Devils, and the family and all of the connections he has there because it really and truly is his home. I get it because Oregon is my home, and I grew up here loving my Ducks.The money will be nice, but this truly is the job the means the world to him. Maybe it would have come back around, but who knows. I really enjoyed watching Oregon’s offense this year for the first time in many years thanks, in no small part, to Dilly. Although I was really looking forward to how things would have evolved with him working his magic with Oregon’s offense, I wish him nothing but the best.

Although I expected it, losing Dillingham is a blow on top of the blow of losing to Oregon State in the heart wrenching fashion.the chips finally fell. I was looking forward to seeing his offense evolve in the next couple of years at Oregon. I understand that being a head coach is his dream and, even if the situation isn’t the best one, when your number gets called, it would be hard not to go for it.

I grew up with the game being called The Civil War and it’s etched that way on my heart. The fact that no one has come up with a new and better name that everyone can agree on is evidence to the fact that changing the name of the game was a completely ridiculous idea.

We all saw this coming. At least Mario has that 80 million dollar contract so, like Willie before him, he’s going to come out of this doing just fine. What were the people in charge of his Miami hire thinking? It’s another thing for Oregon football lovers to be thankful for this Thanksgiving 🙏❤️🙏

I wouldn’t call it borderline stupid, but putting Ty in at the beginning of the third quarter, and having him run the trick play they had him run had me scratching my head. That fumble, scoop, and score killed Oregon’s offensive momentum for the rest of the third quarter. Clearly, when considering what could go wrong by putting Ty in, the answer is a lot. One could argue that the fumble wasn’t Ty’s fault, but getting hand offs and tosses from him seems to be a lot more complicated than it should be. I don’t get it, but it is what it is.

We aren’t going to know anything more about who plays and who doesn’t until we see who is suited up for the game on Saturday. Today is the last media contact day until Saturday night. While I’d like to give Ty the benefit of the doubt and believe that a weeks worth of practice with the ones will make the difference, it doesn’t align with what we’ve seen in games he’s played in so far this year; not to mention the fact that Utah’s defense is one of the best in the PAC 12. My fingers are crossed that Bo is able to go.

Kris Hutson gave a post practice interview shown on 247 Sports Duck Territory where he actually said Bo is down so it’s the next man up, and then talked about how much confidence he has in Ty Thompson successfully leading the team. My fingers are crossed that this is part of Lanning’s gamesmanship to fake out Utah, but I don’t know… Hutson also suggested he faked his injury and it was just part of the game plan to give Oregon a few more seconds last Saturday night. Yikes !!

Lanning is playing the injury situation close to the vest this week and is even restricting media during visits to practice, although he did state the news regarding injuries was what he considered "good news". We aren't going to know the extent of Nix's injury, or whether or not he is good to go until Saturday's game.

I also won’t attend games that start at 7:30 pm. That puts the ending of the game much too far after the bed time of an old man like me, not to mention the time it takes to get home after the game. That said, I guarantee you that Autzen will be sold out and rocking on Saturday night for the Utah game.

The big exception to the above was the decision to go for it on 4th down, deep in Duck territory, in a tie ball game with around a minute left on the clock. All of the successful trick plays, with the exception of the on side kicks, were attempted with the starting QB at the helm, which greatly increased their likelihood of success. Few of the successful ones were attempted with the game on the line. The fact that TT has proven to be a one dimensional QB meant that Washington knew what was coming, stacked the box, and were in position to stop our running back even if he hadn’t slipped. A better decision would have been to call a time out to carefully consider the situation and the options available; one of which included putting Nix back in the game to run the 4th down attempt. Hind sight is 20/20 and mistakes create the best learning opportunities. Lanning is very smart, and I’m sure he learned a lot from his mistakes on Saturday night.