Mudslide

If DL is still around in 20223 () I think he will bring the excitement back to the Ducks ... after oh so boring Mario ball.

Over at 247, five predictions have been made....four by South Carolina Insiders, and one by a neutral guy from Maryland who has a 100% accuracy rating for this recruiting cycle. (Close to DC, no?!) As you can surmise, the SC guys have Harbor going there. The MD fellow, a publisher of Maryland Sports, has a high confidence of Harbor to the Ducks! Predictions, with one SC exception, were made today. Oh, and Rivals likes him as a Duck, too. I hope Harbor's girlfriend either transfers to Oregon or knows she will be logging a lot of air miles in her future.

Great post. Thanks for the insight, 51. When I went to Cal in the '60s, I wasn't offered bupkiss. But now a question. Did you sign with LSU?

By the way, Ware has a better shooting %, overall and for 3-pt. than Richardson. Sad. It seems Richardson, who thankfully has cut down on his turnovers lately, has had a tough time regaining his form after his late season injury last year.

I agree on the comparo of Ware to TT. Same blank look. Soares requires some getting used to. He's an agressive, sometimes over-agressive, defensive player. The Ducks really need his D. But you're right about his shooting ... which, by the way, is only slightly worse than Richardson's. If Richardson is more than 2 feet from the hoop, it's usually a brick. (I say usually, because sometimes he must close his eyes and hit a 3 like last night's basket.) Oh, and it's said that the Ducks have the worst 3 shooting team in the conference. Sad but obvious. Catching teams that have a big lead requires good outside shooting. Ducks are mighty short on that skill set. Cousinard (and Dante, as well) is going to be the Duck's savior this season and its tournament hope. The guy is a hustler with a great shot. GO DUCKS!

This team reminds of the men's team. No one can reliably shoot from distance. Those bricks hurt my ears...........

I wonder how Harbor's girlfriend would enjoy running track for Oregon.....

Oregon Football Head Coach Dan Lanning Visiting Junipero Serra Cornerback In-Home Ahead of Commitment - Sports Illustrated Oregon Ducks News, Analysis and More WWW.SI.COM Pleasant has Oregon in his final five and is a top remaining target in the 2023 class.

LeBron is not noted for keeping his opinion to himself. I think he'd have plenty to say about how Bronny is used. Bronny may or may not be overrated but let's hope if he does come, the media attention and his bullish dad stay away from Eugene.

Perspective must be embraced. If 2 or 3 bold decisions in challenging situations had turned out differently (e.g. the One Play Thompson, 4th down vs. the beavs) we would have cheered him as a gunslinging football savior who completely erased the sour memory of MC. Further, we'd be wringing our hands about him leaving to coach Alabama in a year. There are no guarantees for winning in football. Other teams can present matchup difficulties, are have their best game against the Ducks, or are simply better teams than our beloved Ducks. Perfection in football is almost as rare as a unicorn. DL tried some things that didn't work. He also tried a lot of things that certainly did. Let's give it a measure. I'm going with 99% good to great and 1% oops to yetch. How would you grade his overall work? I want DL to be our Ducks' coach...and for a long time. I also want a more attacking defense. Hopefully that comes in year 2. I want a natty for our boys. But then...I want a new 77" tv for Christmas....but the missus says "Nyet". So one can't have everything. Can one? Nevertheless, I have a nice 8 year old 58" plasma in the meantime. (Unless I accidentally break it, heh heh.) GO DUCKS!

Thanks, coach, for bringing us some fun football. Condolences to his loved ones and team. RIP Coach Leach.

Look, I don't much care for Canzano. With him, it's all about click bait and ... himself. But he said a couple of things in the linked article worth repeating. First....a hesitant personal admission...please pardon me. In 1989 I suffered the "widow maker" heart attack. I "died" on my wife's lap as she was driving me to a hospital. (She is truly my angel.) I was anoxic for 6-10 minutes on the trip. She then got me to the ER and patients helped drag me out of our truck and into the building. They immediately began CPR and defibrillation. They shocked me 20+ times (they lost count) and my heart struggled to return some kind of rhythm. It did, barely, and they immediately took me to surgery for crushing the complete blockage of my left anterior descending artery. I was unconscious and in the ICU for 5 days. I regained consciousness (and at that time I DETESTED being intubated!!) and spent the next 5 days in the cardiac care unit (CCU). I was later told that I was the ONLY ONE ever brought into that large hospital in that condition and walked out! I'm not a religious person...but I found out later than some of our friends started a prayer chain in my behalf. So if you're religious, do what Canzano is doing and say a prayer for the coach. Today. And here I am, bugging you guys almost 33 years after that event. I've even survived cancer and a cerebral hemorrhage since then, so I guess I'm as tough as my 40 year old boots. I only say these things to encourage you to always have faith that any outcome can become miraculous if you try hard enough...want it hard enough. And as Canzano said, kiss your loved one tonight. Call your friends and family just to tell them how great it is to have them in your lives. Life is short. Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday and 2023. Mud

Another great article. Many thanks, DNC. At times during the season I could have agreed with both yours and Charles' opinions on this issue. It was something worth pondering. Given the style of defense that Lanning fielded at Georgia, one has to wonder if his attacking Cover-1 wasn't ordered by Kirby Smart. Like you, I fully expected DL to bring an attacking defense to our Ducks. Our Ducks certainly had the player power to successfully utilize that same scheme. And I, like many of you here on OBD, felt a little bit cheated by that vanilla and boring bend-but-not-break strategy he used instead. And it bit our beloved Ducks solidly in the butt against WAZZU and the water rodents. Here is something I said a few times about the maudlin Mario era: "Surely he is smart enough to learn from his mistakes. Surely he will open up the offense". But nope. He never did! I said similar things about Brady Hoke's defense. But nope. So...twiced burn and all that. Now I'll just let myself be pleasantly surprised IF DL learns from his foibles.

Good ponder points, Charles. Thank you. I would add a thought that could reduce the risk to a team. The risk that you pose in portal players is that a school must honor the scholarship as long as the player stays...injured, under-performing, or for whatever reason for as long as the (non)player stays. An easy way to place the risk-reward factor in the school's favor is to take players with ONLY one year of eligibility remaining. I realize that such a strategy would limit a school's field of potential transfers, but targeting some such players would reduce the overall risk of damaging that 85 scholarship limit.

Much respect, Charles. This forum has been my morning coffee companion since it began. The folks here are overwhelmingly good people who care about the Ducks and honor your rules. The good far outweighs the bad. Of that I'm certain.

Thanks for another fine article, Dazed. A worthy view or the Ducks' 2022 defense might include the team's sack stats. Oregon ranked #1 in sacks allowed with 4! The team ranked #125 in sacks generated. 125th...right next to Arizona! That's not exactly my idea of the Lanning attacking defense that many of us expected. I'm unsure if this was TL's take on the bend-but-not-break D or simply a lack of player talent and/or scheme familiarity due to the coaching change. Further, the Ducks' scoring defense ranked #77 in FBS. I believe that DL will get his recruiting chops rolling this year, portal talent included. TL also has a strong recruiting record. I'm also not disillusioned that the team has an uphill battle in the new, pass-happy PAC teams will place a big challenge on the 2023 back 7. So improvement, by a large margin, needs to occur next year, even assuming another stellar year of offense. GO DUCKS!

I enjoyed the game. The guys fought hard, I thought. The many injuries pose a real hardship on the team for both practice and game. A couple of guys were even playing the game at less than full strength, e.g. Guerrier. On the flip side, I really wish the Ducks would play a little more pressure defense. And the team in general was not very mobile. I guess the zone is necessary with so few bodies to play. But my one big issue with the team is Richardson. The guy is a turnover machine...bad passes into a crowd, driving against multiple players in tight areas. He can score...but there is a reason coach wants him at the off-guard position. Bad handles. Still, the season is young. I look for a lot of wins from this team. GO DUCKS!

Another bites the dust. UNLV fired Arroyo. UNLV fires coach Marcus Arroyo after three seasons WWW.ESPN.COM UNLV has fired coach Marcus Arroyo, who was 7-23 in three seasons.

Thanks for the article, Dazed. You bring up interesting candidates. Count me as another Garret Riley fan. And allow me to throw another hat in the ring. Jeff Lebby from UCF, their OC/QB coach. He has done wondrous things at all his coaching stops. He currently has UCF as a top 10 team in total offense. His teams there have averaged over 43 ppg for a couple of years in a row...netting top 5 NCAA scoring finishes. Earlier in his career, he coached RBs for five years. And for those five years, he had a 1,000 yard rusher in each of them. He was running backs Coach of the Year at Baylor. This dude can coach! I don't know a lot about his recruiting chops, but his coaching record speaks loudly.

Oregon 38-17 1 2 285

Hmmm...why don't we just take this nonsensical anti-civil war name idea to its nonsensical conclusion? Pardon the alliteration...how about we call it The Affable Acrimony? Or The Gracious Engagement? Those should make the schools' administrations feel safe.

The trick plays aren't the problem. It's the choice and ability of players to execute the plays that matter.

The U....minus 11 yards rushing in the first quarter. Couldn't see that coming.

The thing about this game is, of course, the injury story. The Ducks have 3 o-line starters that are doubtful, 3 d-line starters that are doubtful with one questionable, and also that big one, Nix. Unless most of these guys have a miraculous recovery at the trainer's table, a win is highly unlikely. Utah is a strong and mostly healthy team right now. Regarding the defense, this game is the one in which TL must unleash the blitzes and pressure. At the receiving positions, Utah has one incredible flanker, and is average otherwise. So it is possible to pressure with the Duck's talent. Our D has been very, very passive this entire season (though strong against the run!), which is quite unlike Lanning's Georgia D that could press and pressure everywhere.. So THIS is the time for the Ducks to defy D tendencies. Lastly, Ty Thompson. If you carefully watch the games he has been in, he never scans the opposing defense for a pre-read. He walks up to the line with his head down, staring at Forsyth's butt and doesn't look away until the snap. How can he possibly read the D? I believe he is stressed and spooked at the role...afraid of making mistakes is the likely culprit in my junior, pseudo-psychologist analysis. If Nix can't go, I too would like to see Butters get a shot at qb. So sadly, I think OBD are in the deep end with this game. I pray for the best, but without most of the injured returning and healthy, it likely won't end to our liking.