EastBayDuckDad

Well, that's the cherry on top if it stands. Yep. Cherry on top.

Liberty appears to be talking a big game in their version of a 'us against them' video. This should get the juices flowing for OBD. All the more reason to start hot and fast and extinguish the Flames. Liberty Trolls Oregon With Elite Hype Video Ahead Of Fiesta Bowl WWW.OUTKICK.COM Any college football program looking to troll their upcoming opponents better take notes...

Oregon 49-24 2 TO 3 Sacks 375 yds passing

A couple of observations after watching the Ducks take care of business at home against the LA schools. Defense is back. So is moving the ball and playing DA's offense that makes the extra pass to get an open look. Thus 3pt shooting is better and it compensates in part for the lack of post presence while Dante and Bittle are out. In both games the Ducks built a lead then came out flat in the 2nd half. In previous years they would fold and lose close games. Now led by Shelstad, they stiffen up on defense, get a couple of clutch points and play well enough down the stretch to win. JS is not only playing good fundamentally (crisp passing, ball movement, lack of TOs and aggressive defense) but making clutch shots. When he brings the ball up on point he is always glancing at DA to get the right call. He is showing rapid progression and a level of maturity that is rare in a freshman. As far as comparing JS to PP at this stage, perhaps it's better to recognize the connection and line of succession from one to the next, with the pupil following in the footsteps of the master.

Shelstad has PP level floor vision and ability to run the offense. A step quicker for sure. 3 pt shot maybe not quite as good but he did bury a couple of beauts against U$C early in that game. IMO overall trending as a freshman on par with PP, but he doesn't have the insane level of talent that 2016-17 Final Four team had. This will put JS in a position to have to step up more to shoot and make plays that PP didn't need to given who was around him. Already loving the chemistry with Evans and can't help but think that growing pains aside, once they get Dante and Cook back this team could make the tournament.

Agree with all here. TMac is a receiver in the Odunze and TFrank mold that runs great routes, gets open, wins the point of attack and gets YAC. He's a Sunday dude for sure. It's a joy to watch him with Fafita and I'm actually thankful the Ducks didn't need to play them in Tucson this year as they would have been a tough out. They will be a force in the B12 next year.

This is just wrong. All of you are contributing to climate change and unethical eating. Uncooked sustainability sourced organic heirloom fruits and vegetables served with Cascade artesian water on compostable hemp plates and with plant based utensils is the standard and should be enforced by law. I'm going to write my congressperson to demand change. Just kidding. Cook it and eat it anyway you choose. Happy Holidays to all and Go Ducks!

Great and well researched article. I agree with Mike that the committee got it right given the constraints they worked under and that it wasn't rigged. What a fitting way to usher in the 2024 12 team CFP. The main argument against the expanded field has always been that it wouldn't change the eventual NC as the best team was always in the top four. Not so true this year as Georgia could beat anyone on a given day and FSU was 13-0 and did win the ACC. You can argue that it's all about the dollars with the best teams playing as many as 16 or 17 games. Let's face it, the talent arms race created by NIL, eight digit HC salaries and the portal make college football NFL Lite. It's the world we now live in, good and bad. Oregon might as well use the tools available to it and prosper. With the demise of the Pac-12, there are four power conferences left standing. In the future each conference champion will be in the CFP along with the runners up in at least the B1G and SEC, Notre Dame (maybe) and a few G5 flashes in the pan. The ultimate NC may very well still come from the champ of one of the P4, specifically the B1G or the SEC. But no more potential winners getting left out and no more whining about not getting in.

I tend to agree. DL appears to be a man of his word and made a definitive statement when rumors were swirling about the Texas A&M job. That said, the dollars speak volumes. Smart has a 10yr $112.5M contract that expires 2031 with a $91M buyout. I don't know if that buyout extends to taking the Atlanta Fail-cons/Dirty Bird job or if it just applies to college. DL is getting $45M on a six year contract that expires in 2028 with a $20M buyout. Georgia would have to pay $20M to get Lanning away from Oregon and then pay him $9-10M/year with a Smart sized contract, but they may have that kind of money to burn. Rumors are just that and Smart may not be giving the Fail-cons job a second thought. If coaches want to jump, that's exactly what they are going to do. DL is setting OBD and himself up to be the kings of the west and a perennial CFP power in the B1G. I think he stays put even if Smart moves on. Either way we'll know pretty soon.

Don't think Georgia can do that when they missed the CFP this year, but back to back NCs is still pretty dang impressive, and DL owns one of those.

Fentress has always been the "odd duck" on Talking Ducks with JKent, JoeyH and ANewman, all high level former athletes. Fentress played WR at Grant HS, then PSU, then Pacific but never at a high level. He has done some coaching at the HS and semi-pro level. Interesting that he likes to be the contrarian in the room about OBD. Maybe because he never got a sniff from Oregon as a player and it sticks in his craw. He certainly has a bee under his bonnet over how Helfrich was shown the door after that dismal 2016 season, leaving a bare cupboard except for Justin Herbert, Troy Dye, Dillon Mitchell, Brady Breeze, La'Mar Winston, Hunter Kampmoyer and some good O-linemen as incoming recruits. Helfrich was a very good OC and QB developer but overreached his ceiling as a HC. He didn't last long at Chicago as an NFL OC. He did bleed Oregon green (and yellow and black and silver and pink) and maybe Fentress is angry because that homegrown loyalty was cast aside, just as he was never offered the chance to suit up for OBD. Or maybe AF knows that the best way to generate clicks is to create controversy.

The RPO game can keep defenses guessing without exposing the QB to the kind of hits that take them out of commission. Gabriel ran that game successfully at OU and I'm guessing that Stein will expand that aspect of the Duck offense some. MM was the RPO/Zone Read master at Oregon and stayed upright mainly by not being asked to run through the inside gaps.

Not for me. Still burns like it was yesterday. I was doing ok this morning, soaking in the Dante Moore transfer before I read this thread. All that therapy and Prozac shot to hell. If anyone needs to find me in the next few hours, I'll be under the bed in my safe room sucking my thumb.

Appears to be a good add for the O-line. Ducks needed a guard once the JPJ domino fell. JPJ to NFL Pancho from Guard to Center Bedford to Guard Hopefully Cornelius will stay and the other interior linemen like Iuli, Silva and Strother as well

Short answer: Yes Long answer: Yep, Sí, Ja, Ya, Da, Oui, Tak, Sim, Hai Ya sure ya betcha Nelson wants to play now. No way Oregon needs any of that drama. Moore says he wants to be developed and is willing to wait a year. Not to count the chickens (or ducklings) before they hatch but Moore has some elite skills that just need time and coaching:

Yikes, who does Beach Crib Lincoln have left once he loses his 5* QB? Looking iffy in LaLaLand. Maybe entering the B1G running the wildcat is his plan. This Zenitz fellow has put out some brassy predictions in the last 24. My coarser nature hopes he is accurate.

Getting Savage would be just fine and the quality safety Oregon needs Interesting side note: Savage faced Gabriel on September 24, 2022. He led the K-State defense with 8 tackles and they beat the Sooners at home 41-34. Gabriel had a good game going 26/39 for 330 yds and 4TDs but was sabotaged by the Okie D (largely Riley leftovers) who got spanked by KSU and Adrian Martinez.

Thanks to AnotherOD for the transfer QB manifesto. Every elite (and non-elite) team now mines the portal for quarterbacks. Looking back at the last few CFPs, around half of those teams got there with a transfer at the helm. If there was a team to be concerned about QBs that they recruited going on to star at another school, it might be tOSU. CJ Stroud was homegrown but think Ewers at Texas and Burrows at LSU. Then again, they picked up Fields from Georgia so it would appear to cut both ways. The perception that Oregon doesn't develop quarterbacks or that elite recruits will avoid the Ducks if they have to compete against a transfer could be applied to almost every quality program in the nation. It will be the reality in CFB going forward now that transfers can play immediately and there is serious NIL money available. The good news is that by virtue of Stein's prolific offense, Bo's success and the history of elite players like JH and MM, OBD have positioned themselves to not only recruit well at the position but get the cream of the crop in the portal.

Incredible play call that even worked for a first down against UW, and they probably knew it was coming. With the OL releasing downfield once the TE drifts into the flat, the essential rule is to catch the ball behind the LOS to avoid that penalty that vexed the Ducks all too often this year. Using the TEs in Stein's offense is a winner from every angle. These plays stress a defense to no end. Every good NFL offense has a TE weapon. Think Kittle, Kelce, Andrews, Hockenson and of course recently retired Gronk. Bowers will be the next in line. Hopefully we get TFerg back for another year to amp up the Oregon offense and give him a shot at the next level.

Sorry to see Dowdell transfer but his parent's statement was honest and likely accurate. At the start of the year it looked like Dowdell had the edge on Limar by virtue of size and pure 'bowl you over' running style. Limar seemed more versatile as the the season wore on and certainly got more snaps. When Noah went down, James stepped up and solidified himself as the #2 rotational back behind Bucky. These young men are always only one torn ACL away from starting and it looked like Dowdell was going to be behind James and Limar when Noah returned. He will be a stud for whatever program he transfers to, and he may have a ceiling as high as Benson has had at FSU. Oregon definitely needs another depth piece at RB and it's reasonable to conclude there will be either a recruiting flip or quality transfer in the works. Locklyn has established himself as one of the premier RB coaches in the country and the cupboard will be full come spring ball.

Nice that he might want to follow Gabriel to Oregon. Wait and see.

Soon OBD will living rent free in tOSU's brainpan, just like they do now in U$C's.

That's kind of apples and oranges, QBs and safeties are graded on dramatically different scales. I just don't see a healthy Bo having so bad a combine performance that he would drop to the 5th. No one is arguing that he has the elite arm of Caleb Williams or foot speed of Jayden Daniels, but in a QB heavy draft Bo is in the top five. Third in the Heisman, Maxwell finalist, Campbell winner and Pac-12 Offensive POTY. His Wonderlic score will likely be first or second. There are at least ten NFL teams that need to draft a quarterback or a solid backup. I can't imagine them sitting on their hands until the third day thinking "No worries, Nix will still be available".

Like U$C......

I think it is possible to get a fair shot and a raw deal at the same time. As has been mentioned, we never got the opportunity to see TT at practice. How he reacted in do or die situations, when exotic blitzes and pressures were thrown at him or what he switched play calls to based on defensive looks. The coaches did. I'm pretty sure that at the start of the 2023 season when Bo said he was returning, the coaching staff evaluated TT, decided to give him the year to develop into the next starter and told him so. That was the fair shot. The raw deal was that DL and WS decided he didn't develop as hoped and went to the portal again. Thompson now has the opportunity to go to a program that will start him and let him develop on the job. A luxury he didn't have at Oregon. Somewhere he can make mistakes and learn from them, where a 7-5 season and a minor bowl game is considered a good season. More power to him. Maybe he will end up in NYC and be able to look back and say "told ya so". I don't predict that but like most everyone on this forum I wish him only the best wherever he goes.