Washington Waddler

Was at the game. If you didn’t have a stake in it, it was probably a really fun, exciting game to watch. The Husky fans surrounding me were obviously enthralled and energized by the game’s progress and outcome (puppies are so excitable). But the comments that really stood out were the amazement being voiced about how no one had seen their team play this well all year. We get (and deserve) the best the PAC 12 can offer. Dana’s past success doesn’t make it any easier on the latest edition of his flock, or on him.

You’re probably right, but the problem remains the actual incident(s) never making it past the coach’s desk, and into a written record that travels with the transfer’s transcripts. If enough ‘transfer dumping’ of this sort occurs (and can be verified via police records, etc), then some form of culpability on the part of the original program seems justified.

Dorothy dreamed of a world of OZ; football fans dream of a world of IF. Sometimes you can click your heels together, and you’re in the Emerald City; other times you’re back in Kansas. Either way, it’s a great trip!

Geographic position would most likely still play an important part in any lucrative independent media deal for the Ducks. What feeds Notre Dame’s contracts (and keeps them reasonably sane) are the attractive prime time match-ups with teams no more than one or two states away from Indiana. At this time, can the west coast provide the same attractive match-ups that the midwest, south and east can? Oregon would most likely end-up doing as an independent the same thing USC and UCLA will be doing as members of the B1G, and for the same reason: putting in a lot of air hours for the $$.

The most important ‘get’ on the other side of the line is who will be DL’s new OL coach. With the necessary adjustments to a new guy’s methods, and limited spring/fall practices to implement those changes, getting five veterans and new faces working together at the level they’ll need to in order to protect Bo, open holes and down field block will be a challenge.

And you can bet Bo can’t wait to sit out the 2023 season as the result of a 2nd transfer. Opportunity of a lifetime!

If the current curve to the recruiting war between Oregon and USC for cali’s elite is bothering this guy now, just wait until the bright shiny glow of being the new kid on the B1G block has worn-off, and the LA schools are reduced to resume-padding novelties who will never belong, and will always remain outsiders in a league that only wanted them for their TV audience. You think November in Wisconsin, Michigan or Minnesota is icy cold? Try warming yourself at the fire of people who will never see you as their equals. Recruits won’t miss noticing that cold shoulder. Garbage? That’s what we flush every time we out hustle the Troylets.

Certainly creates boatloads of anticipation, but part of me wonders how these 5* lottery picks deal with the derecruitment process if their heads aren’t screwed on properly.

Tend to agree. He seems to get flummoxed and a bit lost whenever his players are not playing with the same level of energy and commitment to the game that he has.

That fairly persistent look in his eyes of a young man feeling cornered by the demands being placed upon him unfortunately appears to play out in that all too familiar adolescent drama of feeling threatened, and refusing to comply. I feel for Dana. Not easy being coach and mentor and dad.

In ‘77 I was finishing a degree at Portland State, and living in an apt. building full of students I never saw. Schonz’s broadcasts of that epic run opened every door, and you could wander in to just about any place, have a beer and enjoy the game. Long before Portlandia, it was the Blazers and Bill Schonely who gave the city on the Willamette its real sense of identity. Thanks Bill

Because the Troylets have for so long been the consummate masters of the meaningless whine, it fades into the background, no longer qualifying as noise pollution, but simply as white noise.

Ever notice all the advocates for dismantling west coast football seem to have been born and continue to live east of the Mississippi?

I’d like to see all the individual traits translate into team traits: being good at developing trust, pushing one another to achieve, and helping each other with sound advice, among others.

Green Bay may also be thinking it’s time to change direction.

It’s commits like this that tell me the heart beat of the college game hasn’t yet flat-lined. For all the NIL zombies, there’s still a few out there wanting to live the dream.

As much as I’ll miss knowing he’s on the team, I have to admit I admire the possibility of a ‘giving back’ by Cam in his choice to play for the coach who stuck by him. It’s a feel good ending for a guy who knows what it means to never give up. And anyway, there’s a touch of familiarity for Cam in getting to segue from the Oregon Duck to Miami’s sort of whatever it is kind of looks like a Duck? Nothing but the best pal!

It’s not easy being forced into the role of a bi-polar fan

The worst thing you can see from a first-year in any field is being afraid to make mistakes. What matters is seeing where they went wrong, making the necessary adjustment and learning that that will always be the key to achieving their goal.

Right. I guess one could look at Brandon Buckner and Bradyn Swinson as the canaries in the coal mine.

I certainly fall in the O-fricken category as well when it comes to ink. Tats were either the unintentional byproduct of a hard night’s drinking (Jimmy Buffett?), or on old sailor’s who’d try to convince you what the smudge on their sagging bicep use to look like. But I agree (and even admire) that tattoos have for younger generations evolved into a form of self expression that can encompass all the passions and longings of the human soul - somewhat akin to what many ancient cultures around the globe have been doing for centuries. And anyway, look at the bright side. Dan’s tat didn’t end up trying to attach a pair of Duck Lips to the mug of a bulldog.

Stars can dazzle and get in the way of what’s important: the heart and desire of the player behind those stars. The evidence suggests Mario was more about the dazzle, and while the jury is still out on Dan, it feels like his focus is on stars that go to work.

Yet again, you can’t help but consider what effect Tony Stubblefield had on both recruiting and player development. While he’s not killing it yet at DePaul, he did recruit 2022’s 3rd highest rated high school shooter in Zion Cruz. Dana is our coach, but he needs top level recruiting and input from his assistants.

Chip who?

The money interests (media markets, professional sports leagues, over-payed head coaches, agents, boosters, et al) that influence college football athletics have, over time, quit on the young people they should feel responsible towards, and morphed into a single purpose: that of diminishing the value and importance of the role of education in the student-athlete equation, and replacing it with the sole goal of becoming nothing more than a feeding tube to the professional ranks. With that purpose in mind, you can’t allow an archaic value system that prizes celebrating the joy and athletic excellence of being a part of the American dream of higher education stand in the way of cashing in on determining whose number one.