Grandpa Duck

I'm a really old guy. Were I Lanning replacing poached coaches, I would stay with youth. The most important thing college coaches do is recruit. The right raw material will make any coach look good, as we saw with Lanning's predecessor. We have a group of young coaches who can sit in a high school player's living room and speak the kid's language. Older guys have difficulty making that connection, as I well know from talking with my Grandchildren.

I saw my first Duck game in 1956. I was a senior at Marshfield and we came up to play Eugene High, with Charlie Warren as their QB. We beat them soundly at Civic Stadium. We had the choice to stay over after the Friday night game and were treated to watching John Brodie QB Stanford to a victory over the Ducks on Saturday. I already was a Duck fan, but started following them closely after that game. No Oregon team has ever played as consistently as this Duck team is playing since the mutt game. At times we have had better players at every position, but never have we had as many who are close to being the best, at one time, and been as solid in all aspects of the game, except field goal kicking, as we have today (and the same kicker has been one of our best, last year). The Ducks will beat the 9.5 spread, but not score to it's season average of 42 points. Our defense, despite the secondary injuries, will stop the mutts cold. Penix is injured and may not finish the game. And, our coaching staff is the best ever and getting better with each game. The sky's the limit with this group of players and coaches.

Maybe find a “Fridge” with good hands to bull his way in.

While I would like to see staff continuity, it occurs to me that bright young offensive experts everywhere are salivating at the opportunity to learn from the coaches Lanning has assembled at Oregon. I suspect that there would be a bounty of applicants should Stein be the successful applicant at Houston. New blood can bring new ideas that will keep Oregon on the cutting edge of advancing the ball down the field.

In the spirit of the season, I am thankful today that I proved to be the most accurate score prognosticator for the final Pac-12 conference Civil War. While basking in the glory of my week-long reign, enjoying all the plaudits and honors of my victory, I am seriously considering whether to reveal my technique. I sometimes wonder whether the outstanding posts of Duck football knowledge on this wonderful OBD “Forum with Decorum” gives away secrets to the opponents. Far be it from me to engage in that kind of traitorous behavior. But in return for all the pleasure I receive from the many folks inhabiting this space who know far more than I know about football, it’s only fair that I provide a taste of my vast experience in predicting scores. Here are few clues. As an animal carrying a huge, unwieldy tail behind them, beavers are slow movers and that takes up a lot of time. So, when competing with them, the scores are likely to be lower than they would be against faster moving competitors with smaller tails, like mutts. During the contest, Duck possessions, and resulting scores against the slow movers will be fewer, but success ratio should be about the same as against other creatures, such as bears, cougars, buffaloes and trojans weighted down by armor. For the Ducks, I was thinking seven possessions with five successes (TDs), one draw (field goal) and one failure, totaling 38 points. I thought the beavers would also have seven possessions, one success and two draws with the rest failures, totaling 13 points. So, even though Solar, above, congratulates me on going with the “under”, I still was overly optimistic for both teams. All of this analysis is wrapped into a marvelous acronym, sometimes known as a WAG.

Anyone but Georgia. Saving those Dawgs for the finale!

Not only is my despite of anything husky related irrational, I own no purple clothing, have nothing purple in my home, and won’t have purple flowers in my beautiful yard.

My thought is that For Ty to win the 2024 starting QB job at Oregon he will need to beat out one of the best in the country. Lanning and Stein will have their choice of several prospective portal transfers, considering what the Ducks are going to do in the next four games, the house that Bo will be vacating, the NIL Division Street will offer, the offensive line protection, facilities and attractive community of Eugene. Agreeing with Charles that chickens can’t be made into eagles . . .

Ducks 38 - 13 2 turnovers 3 sacks 308 passing yards

Agree with David Marsh. I believe many recruits will opt to play in a regional conference with Oregon State, WSU, Cal and Stanford, rather than travel across the country.

What's wrong with a conference of 10 teams? If UCLA and USC jump, why follow them or expand the conference? Everybody else is doing it is no answer. With 10 teams you have a round-robin schedule. For you younger folks, that mneans everybody plays everybody. No playoff game at the end, like it used to be since the beginning of conferences. Win the regular season and you're the conference champion. If I were the AD and/or the UO president I would not be talking to the B1G, or the SEC. From my over 70 years of following college football the major factor that looms over everything is the time zones. We're three hours behind the big SEC teams, and always will be, same for much of the B1G. I detest the idea of one conference for football and a different conference for everything else, which is what will happen if football jumps to one of the two major conferences. To UCLA and USC I would say:"Bye, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!" (That very well might be the end of their musings about making the leap.) No! The AD and university president should do the smart thing. Talk to all the other schools that are not looking for the next major conference realignment. Get 80 schools willing to form eight 10-team conferences by geography. Then you have an eight team playoff in football, and also have every school play a post season game against a team from another conference. Conference runner-up vs. conference runner-up, and so forth. Have an interconference competition. What then will happen is that the winner of the geographic alignment of eight conferences will be the college football national champion and the winner of the semi-pro conferences, B1G and SEC, will be something else. Basketball history would be a good analogy. In ten years the semi-pro playoffs of the B1G and the SEC will be about as significant as the NIT, and everybody else will be the NCAA. I may be stuck in the past when it comes to transfer portal and NIL, but if I were in charge, I would go more in the direction of fans watching players who truly are amateurs. I believe all this pay for play thing will lead to players who are not as interesting to watch as those we have been watching for decades. Yes, I do not watch pro football, unless a former Duck is the QB.

At some point Rob Mullens needs to realize that the softball coach simply does not have the right players. People who complain about the transfer portal need to consider that very good players also transfer in . . . to other schools. We need to have a coaching staff the draws those transfers in, and also that recruits the type of players who play the game with power and speed. There has to be a reason Oregon softball looses a player like Yanez. With this loss we have no pitcher who can compete in the PAC-12. In softball, the pitcher is more important than the QB in football and the point guard in basketball.

Lightning strikes!

Put me in the ruddy-dud group. Traditional colors and style appeal to my eye.

There are things about the team that puzzle me. Our small players are not fast movers. We need to do a better job of recruiting speed. We almost always finish every half and every game with unused times out, yet our players appear to be tired. Why not rest them? Then there is what I call the "prevent offense". At the end of each of the four quarters our time management is not calculated to get the most possessions. When you get the ball with 55 seconds left in the period, you need to get a shot off in no more than 15 seconds. That leaves you another possession before the horn, two for one. Yet when we get that possession with a minute to 50 seconds left we invaribly use almost all of our 30 seconds and take a shot with five or fewer seconds left, in effect, giving up a possession. When the circumstance is reversed, and we get the ball with 25-30 seconds left, we hold it until there is ten or fewer seconds left before any effort to score. With our lack of speed, and tired players, this strategy is doomed to fail, as it almost always does.

My view of this team is that it lacks speed. They go entire games without a fast break attempt. The back court also is inconsistent. Watched every home game and was impressed with the play vs U Conn. Not a lot else.

In 1945, my recently home from the war uncle gave me a Duck beanie with an “O” and alternating green and yellow panels. Two degrees, B.S. ‘65, and J.D. ‘68. First game at Hayward field about ‘52 saw John Brodie, Stanford, beat the Ducks. In school those years saw many games at Hayward and watched construction of Autzen. season ticket holder at Autzen from ‘71 until the second year of alcohol sales. now, at age 82, I attend only women’s basketball and softball. For men games, strictly TV fan.

The only football history that matters is a school’s record within the memory of an 18 year-old recruit!

For Chip's system to work well he must have players who are in great physical condition. They need that so they can play at the pace the system requires. He got that willingness from the players to get in super physical shape at Oregon. He also got buy in at the Eagles, for one year. Then it waned. Hard to get pros making the money they do to work that hard year-round. And UCLA guys, not likely.

As to recruiting rankings, Oregon does have some attractions to recruits and transfers that are separate from the coaches that neither Cal nor UCLA posses, like facilities, winning tradition and existing players who have a chance of major success. It is just as possible as Mullen brilliance that Wilcox’ spouse said: “You want to leave our beautiful home and kids’ wonderful schools for where? Not in my lifetime!”

If James Naismith could have foreseen the play of this game he would not have invented basketball. The one positive was there were far fewer observers in attendance to repeat what they saw than witnessed the Duck women go down to OS yesterday.

As Shirley Bassey sang so beautifully: “Let’s go where the grass is greener, for the grass is greener, anywhere you go!”

If Lanning has the success we hope for, just maybe his spouse will like Eugene as much as Mrs. Bellotti! Their children are the right ages, and Eugene is about as good as it gets for child rearing environment. Thanks for the thoughtful post,Mre. Penny.

The most important change is an offense that plays up-tempo. The Lanning Dillingham goal of 80 plays a game will make the Ducks “must see TV”.

In High School I played Football, Basketball and Golf. In the summer I played American Legion baseball. For me, baseball was the most fun to play. Now, for me, watching baseball is akin to watching paint dry. The game has become far too slow. Pitchers throwing to first base is not my idea of fun. But, softball is very fun for me. The speed of the game is the primary reason. And, the Duck players are passionate about their team and play. And they cannot lead off, so no pitcher holding runners on base. I attend many home softball games. My spouse holds season tickets and has for years, as do others in my family.