OhioDuck

The pistol has some advantages for running backs who have good vision and also allows for more counter kind of action. Yes it does have the draw back of having the running back a long way from the line of scrimmage, and giving defenses an extra step to close a hole, but it also allow for the back to see cut back lanes and to some extent get more to full speed when they hit the hole. Any offense has it's pluses and minuses. My hope is that one formation will not dominate, but the defense will prepare for each play not knowing what formation the ducks will be in. I liked much of the older Malzan offenses because they created so much stress on the defense to defend the run and pass at the same time, but that was before they ran much pistol. In that system you never knew where the running back and receivers were going to be. Creating a situation where the defense is off balance and exploiting that is the most fun for me to watch.

Yes, this is a possibility. Another possible headline at the end of the season, How Miami Head Coach Turned a Heisman Candidate QB into a non-factor in One Season. If they could hide the talent of Herbert, they can certainly hide Tyler Van Dyke's talent.

Nix seems to have all the advantages, experience, actually rated higher than the others as a recruit, existing relationship with OC. He is also coming off an injury and I'm not sure where he is with that yet. If he can't practice fully and play in the Spring and one (or both) of the other guys really impresses, it might be Bo's job to try to win back. I'm not sure what Bo's floor is either. He has had periods when he's been great and then when he's been erratic. I think a lot of that is owed to his situation, but if it's not this could end up a hot competition. There could be surprises in store.

I can see why the Ducks would get some respect. There is a lot of talent still in town, and an exciting new coaching staff. Draw backs are of course there's a new coaching staff. How quickly the players and coaches mesh, how good Mix (or Thompson or Butterfield if one of them beats him out) turns out to be this year, how well the whole flock of young running backs and wide receivers perform are all questions? But if all of these turn out to be positives, I can see the Ducks in the top 10, especially if they can pull off that shocker in Atlanta on 9-3. That'll be a tough one though.

Yeah, they seemed to move him around from the video. I'm not sure of his size, but looks like he could play on the edge too. he has that explosiveness coming out of a three point or two point stance. Would be great to see him a Duck.

Yeah, if they play the way I'd really like there won't be 80 plays. 4 play scoring drives is hard to turn into 80 play games. Play fast, play with explosiveness and speed, get your play makers into a position to make plays. It's the excitement I want to see. It's not knowing what play is coming next unless you've found something the other D just can't stop and you run it until they do. I want to be surprised!

We better be able to do both run and pass. If the offense is working well, some will say the run is setting up the pass and some will say the pass is setting up the run. If one is stressed over the other good defenses will adjust and shut it down. Even great defenses have trouble stopping great offenses when they don't know what the offense is going to do. There should be no tendencies, I think this is what doomed MC's offense to mediocrity.

I haven't thought of identifying curiosity in development, you make a great case and I believe you're right in its importance. Thanks for this thoughtful comment.

A little different story here maybe. I grew up rooting for the University of Virginia. Lean years back then, until George Welch became the coach. I moved to Portland in '99 and lived there for 2 1/2 years. Some friends there were Beaver fans and I went to several games with them. It was the Erickson years so it was a pretty exciting time for the Beavers. I still think his second year they were the best team in the country. but while in Portland I also started watching Oregon. I really liked how they played and kept following them even when I moved back to Virginia. When Kelly took over the offense and then as head coach that pretty much locked me up as an Oregon fan. I loved the spread offense with the read option, lots of play action, speed, speed, speed everywhere and playing the fastest tempo in football at any level. As I became a fan, I learned more about the program, doing things the right way, being innovative, creative and aggressive in every aspect of how the program is run as well as on the field. And I guess there is just that little bit of being the little guy threatening the big guys that I like too. Look out USC's, Alabama's, Ohio State's of the world, here comes Oregon! Now I'm excited about a new coach, maybe not a life long Oregon guy, but neither am I. I think Lanning fits the reasons I became a Duck fan.

Adding Nix is definitely good. A good competition at QB will help everyone in the long run. I expect at least one of the younger guys to stick around, win the starting position this year or not and playing with a guy with SEC experience will be great for those guys. I understand the misgivings of some of us, and I say US because I have some. But Nix is not AB. He is a former 5 star recruit who has had some problems, but at other times looked every bit the part of those 5 stars. He has had the misfortune of not having the same OC for two years in a row during his career, playing for a team where there is a ton of pressure, because they aren't Alabama, but are expected by their fans to be and not always having the same kind of 5 star talent around him that he has. I think the Oregon situation this year may just be the place where Nix can thrive and live up to that 5 star rating he had as a recruit. Here's to the competition at QB. May the best Duck win! Yet one more thing to make the prospects for this season excciting!

And Mercedes Benz Stadium is 2600 miles from Eugene. Hmmm... seems fair to call that a neutral game to me. Actually no, it may not be a home game for Georgia, but it's no where close to neutral!

This sounds great! But don't try to trademark it. As a VCU basketball fan I will tell you, we own the trademark. I love this though. The idea that defense is about disrupting what the offense wants to do, to make the offense not work the way it's supposed to is exactly what I'm hoping for. We VCU basketball fans will tell you that not only works, but it's exciting to watch! This is going to be fun!

Don't know about the 8 game schedule one way or the other. The night games are not good for exposure if you want the exposure to include the East Coast. Here in Ohio, I can't watch a PAC 12 game at 8PM PST. 1 PM PST, 4 PM here games make a lot of sense. People here watch OSU or Alabama and a PAC game comes on right after on the same channel. Hopefully they see Oregon and realize how exciting the football is and become a fan, I did. SC will always get top billing for TV. They are in the largest TV market in the country. The draw back for SC is that they have a lot of competition in their market, Dodgers, Angels, Super Bowl Champion Rams, Chargers, Clippers, Lakers... to a lesser extent UCLA. Oregon doesn't have the giant market, so Oregon has to beat them with a better product. The past 10+ years they've done just that. With Riley that may be harder. But the Oregon brand is national now, it's not just SC, it's Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Florida, Clemson, Oklahoma... why do you think many of those programs adopted a fast paced, wide open spread offense? Oregon was winning a lot of east coast fans because their product was more fun to watch, and even those who weren't fans were talking about Oregon football, is part of the reason. I think this was something MC did not understand. Oregon became a national brand because Oregon football was FUN, FUN, FUN! May it be so again!

Yes, the Georgia opener can change things. Even then if the competition is close, then you can still bring in Nix if things don't go well. Part of what I'm hoping for is that there will not be this awful reality of a QB performing at an unacceptable level and never an inkling of having a back up come in. It would have been nearly impossible for Thompson to have played worse than AB at times (not all the time) this past year. In the best scenario whoever wins the position will play at a high level.

If Nix plays well this year, he's going to make some money in the NFL, unless we can offer him more in NIL. Of course if he is really playing well we will want him to stay. We have a couple of offers to the top guys in the '23 class. They'd be ready then when Nix left. I always want to have more than one good QB though. Too many injuries, off days, and sometimes a team just has one QB's number and another comes in and smokes them. Sometimes guys aren't on the bench because they can't play or even because they are not as good as the guy ahead of them. Off the top of your head, can anyone name the guys playing ahead of Joe Burrow that made him transfer from Ohio State?

Strategically it could be better to start Thompson even if he doesn't win the job outright. Nix is not transferring anywhere. Then the head to head can take place as the season goes on. Thompson is having an off game Nix comes in and leads to a victory, Nix then has an off game Thompson or Butterfield (let's see how that is going too) come in. Having multiple QBs ready to play and getting playing time is not a bad thing as long as both are prepared and have the reps they need. This past year we saw what it was like when one QB just couldn't get it done and the coaching staff had no one ready to come in in relief. This year whoever wins the position out of the gate, let's make sure others get reps and are ready to go. Even if Nix starts, if Thompson and Butterfield know they are going to see the field on game day too, they just might stick around until next year when he's gone.

This is a great start. just pull in a couple of these guys and that's the core of a great recruiting class! Glad they're getting "the drip" right, what ever it is?

Caleb Williams is definitely elusive and has the speed to turn that into big plays. That will help a lot to overcome any problems SC has with their O Line. But lack of a good O Line will also make it more difficult for them to run the ball effectively against some of the better defenses. Then defenses will come after Williams with a hard pass rush and a backer shadowing him. There is a difference between a QB running because that's how they plan it and a QB running because the O Line protection breaks down. Caleb Williams is good enough to make some plays while running for his life. He may also get pretty banged up doing that. I expect SC will score some points, but may also be a bit erratic if the O Line is not performing well. Games will tell the story.

When and if they get to the point were it wouldn't have a negative effect on the strength of schedule.

It depends on your defensive scheme and what other players you have around them. I'd love to see a big strong guy in the middle of the line this year, even if not the swiftest (within reason). That guy can eat up offensive linemen and keep them from getting to our very talented, big, fast linebackers. Give those guys free run to clog holes and chase QBs and our D will be on its way to being very good. Doesn't have to be 370, but 325 wouldn't hurt. As an aside, the most effective D-lineman I've ever seen at any level was a 5'11" 195 lb nose tackle in high school. He was also our star running back and a track star. He was strong enough and quick enough that he got off of blocks quickly and could chase guys down sideline to sideline. It helped that he had two 280+ guys playing tackle on either side of him. Just saying great D-linemen come in lots of different sizes and shapes.

I imagine with Sewell and Flowe both in there we're going to see a lot of them moving in and out disguising who might be coming and expect to see some delayed blitzes, even some corners and safeties coming at times. Lanning used quite a number of different kinds of blitzes to good effect during the year last year. When there isn't a KT this year, there are still way to pressure the QB. My guess is that a lot of QBs facing Oregon are going to see Mr. Sewell and Mr. Flowe in their faces. Then with the threat of those guys it will open things up for DL guys to have opportunities.

Yes! How often life works this way. short term sacrifice leads to long term success, taking care of customers/clients/fans keep them with you and earns more business.

Bengals 31-28. 285 passing, 105 rushing, 1 turnover, 2 sacks. Bengals down 21-14 at half, once again make great half time adjustments and come back for the win. Rams turn it over 3 times. Burrow pressured, but only sacked twice and able to get the ball down field often enough to get the win. Living in Southwest Ohio now gotta go for the Bengals.

The possibilities of what can happen with this coaching staff in this program the next few years are exciting to me too! There is a chance of capturing the best of all worlds. I think this coaching staff is poised to do just that! Of course we haven't even seen the first Spring Game yet, but right now the signs are pointing in a great direction. I can't wait! I'm beginning to work on plans of visiting friends in Portland next fall and actually get down and experience a game at Autzen! Problem is most of my friends in Portland are Oregon State (and even a few UW) fans.

It seems that during the tenures of Brooks, Bellotti and Kelly Oregon majored on doing their homework and getting recruits that had a great up side and then developed them to perform well beyond their star ratings. Combine that with innovation, great facilities... and Oregon grew itself into a national power and gained fans all over the country, like me. MC had high rated recruits but didn't develop them as well and was not innovative in approach. Can we combine those now? Great recruits, developed well and with an innovative system that allows them to thrive would be so much fun to watch unfold!