Viking Duck

Thanks for that link - good stuff. I worked on set up and tear down of the Billy Graham event that year - brings back memories!

Great point - I always felt like Stanford has that advantage of being truly a school with 'academic prowess' but of course that limits their recruiting on the other hand. But for some years, if you had a huge, powerful O-line type who is also smart enough to be a rocket scientist, you knew who he'd be playing for

It's a great point, and with what I think you could only say is a near total collapse at UW and Stanford/UCLA/ASU all seeming to struggle right now, it really puts the pressure on the teams that 'on paper' should be dominating everyone else, at least in the eyes of national perception. Utah is the wild card, and I am glad for them because if you took them out of the conference last year, it would have been a bleak year indeed, outside of the win at tOSU.

I think it's going to depend on what the meaning of elite is. Coaching teams that are in contention for national championships probably does require exceptional recruiters, although you might say that some schools (Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State?) are such destinations that a lesser recruiter could still attract top classes. You will also have coaches like Whittingham who are probably never going to be seen as top recruiters, but who regularly develop teams with mostly middle of the road talent into very successful teams. If getting a national championship is the only yardstick, it eliminates a lot of coaches.

Book your tickets to Georgia so we can win that game too!

After thinking about it, I think that for our Utah friends on the forum like @savagefund and @Goutes18 I'd argue that next season's game against Florida has similar importance for the Utes. For the same reasons I mentioned.

Haha I immediately thought "Both!" when I saw the thread title, but of course multiple people beat me to it. I think in the grand scheme of 'national perceptions' the win against Ohio State at their home stadium will resonate for years. No more the narrative that tOSU and UO have met X number of times and the result has always been the same. The caveats - Oregon faded down the stretch while tOSU got better prime among them - will be forgotten by most. People tend to remember the main detail, and color commentators on TV may be saying for years 'the last team to beat Ohio State in this stadium was Oregon.' Which is a plus on many levels. For that reason, I think beating Georgia would be the real prize this year. It will make a difference that lasts longer than one season. On the other hand, if it's a competitive loss, it will at least give the Ducks a sluggers chance at the rest of the season, but then beating Utah becomes imperative.

Calls on Jon to tell us how the SEC sets up an easier road to success for their teams! But just goes to show - tough to get into a supposed "playoff" when you are playing nine conference games and schedule anyone other than the "Sisters of the Poor" university for your non conference games. UCLA at least is doing their best.

Great point - obviously the first third of the hundred is what they are measuring for the '40 times' and I am sure that there is a reason why that's the metric that people choose to evaluate football speed. How fast can you explode out of the box? On the other hand, I'd rather have some really fast sprinters than none at all! I notice that Seven is not on any of the 'fast times' lists, but we can just see from the tape how quick he is, and how quickly he can change directions. That does not show up in the time trials.

Someone with better memory than I might remember, but I believe there was either a FishDuck article or a posted link in the forum which showed that the incoming recruiting class has lots of legitimate track speed. And the defenders were the fastest of the bunch. I think there were 5-6 players with verified sub 11 speed in track. Doing a quick check on 247 I see Jahlil Florence 10.77, Jalil Tucker 11.04, Devon Jackson 10.54, Harrison Taggart 10.69, Khamari Terrell 10.72, Justius Lowe 11.07. Those are all legitimately fast straight ahead speed times for football players, especially the linebackers! How much any of them will see playing time this year I have no idea of course.

I enjoyed the article, but I don't think that taking what he's said with at least a grain or two of salt is anything radical to suggest - other than to the most rabid and hopeful fans. I certainly have been that rabid fan from time to time in my life, and I think it's something all of us can relate to! I hope that what he's been saying works out not only in intention and scheme, but also in practice on the field and brings great success. But, there is just no way to know until the season begins and we watch how things develop over the course of this season and the next few. I will admit that privately I have been less enthusiastic than some of the OBD forum commentary, just because I already had that 'talk is cheap, whiskey costs money' attitude from the time he was hired, and I do think that many if not most of us feel somewhat similarly. So far, what I've heard and seen looks positive, and I am very hopeful that it continues as his tenure goes forward. We will see, though.

Thanks for the article Joshua. I am looking forward to seeing how stretching the field vertically affects the running game. We might see that the number of rushing yards stays around the same as the last few years, even though there are fewer rushing attempts and more successful passes. Something that more than a few people have been preaching on OBD forum for a while now!

Amen, and I wrote something similar back when it was in the jury selection phase I believe. The amount seems ridiculous at first glance, but the blame for this mess falls on the desks of the people in charge. Or it should, although we know it doesn't always work out that way. I am sure nobody from the strength coach up to the athletic director and the president of the university *wanted* to put the players in the hospital and cause serious long term damage to their health, but in the end, when you are the one who hired the unqualified employee and that employee's (predictable) mistake leads to something like this, you need to pay the price. And a big result will help future administrators remember that fact. The 'bucks' stop here? Something like that!

I feel somewhat vindicated about Cota - just as a general thing, I think that securing 'journeymen pro players' - since this is sort of becoming a wild west version of the NFL - is more important than people might think. Those types of players are important for team success, and are just the type of players you might lose to the portal when they go for a more important role on a lesser team. I know that Charles has touched on it - do you think there is a chance that we will see Conerly move into the starting left tackle position as a freshman, as we did with Sewell? He might be an important cog for the new offense to protect the backside of the QB.

Thanks for sharing that! My quick takeaway about the quarterbacks after watching and reading @AllOregon 's comment is that I am grateful that Nix transferred over. If he hadn't, I suspect we'd have Butterfield as the clear number one going into fall camp and the early date with Georgia, with Thompson as a backup not looking like he's quite ready for serious action yet. Hopefully TT stays around and keeps progressing.

Just having watched the highlight video, I would say if there were 42,000 people there, Autzen would be a 80,000+ person stadium! But, most players gain an inch and 10-20 pounds in the official game program roster, so I am not going to complain about the number

Me in 2022: "We have two Rivals five star quarterbacks and one four star top 100 QB on the roster competing for playing time." Me in my heyday of being a teen fan of Ducks football (1980's): "What have you been smoking??"

I would actually agree with @fred flintstone focusing narrowly on his point about recruiting. Growing up, I never imagined that I would be saying I agreed with Fred Flintstone in a serious context I will grant you the criticisms of the on-field performance and talent development, but there is something to be said for definitively showing that Oregon truly can recruit with the big boys, and not just in a fluke year. Taggart never signed a full class, as far as I can remember, since he was gone before the verbal commits could actually sign in his one full season. MC showed that it could be done on a consistent basis. My sense is that Oregon was blessed with some excellent coaches over the last few decades, but there was always that sense of "Yes, but..." Yes, we have a great coach and great players who we love and root for, but we'll always be thrilled with getting some four stars and and occasional five star. Yes we hang tough, but we are destined to be the overachieving team of journeymen when compared to the true blue bloods of CFB. MC may not have raised the bar in terms of coaching the games, but he definitely raised it in terms of recruiting. And I think that is a culture shift that can really propel the program to the next level, if it's combined with better in-game coaching. I am sure that all the fans on this forum are hoping that is the case going forward, just as I am *edited to add* I think the previous two posts more or less are in exact agreement with what I put here, so I add this in support of that sentiment.

Still doing us proud, and hopefully has some success in the NFL coming up.

I had a bad taste in my mouth from the beginning over replacing Radcliffe; one of those things where you think, "OK, but you better be replacing him with someone phenomenal." The entire incident that ensued seemed like it emphatically showed that he was not replaced with someone phenomenal, but rather with a friend of the new head coach with mediocre skills. Taking the team from 'industry leading' sports conditioning science to boot camp practices from many decades ago was not an auspicious start. More deserved fallout from a really poor hire IMHO. No matter what the settlement or damages turn out to be, a rebuke is definitely in order.

USC assistant coach: "Coach Riley, um, there's some important news!" Coach Riley: "Shush! I told you all I am watching Tiger this weekend!"

I saw that news - what a tragic thing, and also hopefully a learning lesson that will save someone's life someday. Treat roads where cars and trucks are flying along at high speed with a great deal of respect and walk on the side where you can see oncoming traffic if at all possible. Even a fantastic athlete is no match for a vehicle.

I thought this was an interesting fact in an article from the Oregonian: at the moment, due to injury, transfer attrition, and several freshmen who will not be on campus until the fall practices start, the O line has two walk-ons playing with the second unit, and the third unit is entirely walk-ons. I think this shows that there is definitely that potential for him to start if he comes to fall camp ready to go; even if he can't beat out one of the experienced men, he will be poised to step in when injuries inevitably happen. The article: Jackson Powers-Johnson moves back to offense amid attrition from Oregon Ducks offensive line WWW.OREGONLIVE.COM Attrition along the offensive line prompted Oregon to have Powers-Johnson move back to practicing with the offense on Thursday.

Five-star 2022 OL Josh Conerly Jr. commits to Oregon 247SPORTS.COM Seattle (Wash.) Rainier Beach 2022 offensive lineman Josh Conerly Jr. has made his decision and is headed to Oregon...