AnotherOD

I was thinking Oregon's defense having a Devon Jackson at LB and a Devin Jackson at S would be tricky for announcing, and they go and top that with two Anthony Joneses. I think former Duck Anthony Jones (now also a DL) still has one year left at UCLA. So, there apparently was a non-zero shot of having 3 Anthony Joneses on the Duck DL in the same season. Then I remembered USC recently added an assistant coach from TCU named Anthony Jones... and then it was just time to stop. 🙂

A couple weeks back I was thinking about this a bit, is year-to-year pressure more player related or scheme related? So I looked it up and found, since bringing the Georgia defense to Oregon, over four seasons, both Oregon and Georgia have exactly 122 total sacks. That is about 30.5 per year. Oregon had 30 this year. In the last 8 seasons, Georgia has had between 20-37 sacks 7 out of 8 times, the only outlier being the 2021 team that had 49 sacks, which famously had 4 future 1st round NFL draft picks on the DL (T.Walker, Wyatt, Davis, Carter), and 2 future 1st round NFL draft picks at LB in Q.Walker and N.Smith (plus a pair of future 3rd round picks: Dean, Channing). On average, it suggests maybe 30-32 sacks per year should be expected from this D, based on the 12 seasons of data (a good portion of bend-but-don't-break, unless of course you get a D front with 6 future NFL 1st rounders, then, maybe QBs watch out). That isn't to say more sacks wouldn't be great, only maybe not what the scheme tends to generate (absent that obscene amount of talent). Advanced stats seem to try to move further than raw sack numbers. Advanced stats has something called "Havoc Rate" which is basically how much a defense is able to disrupt an offense by generating negative plays (pressure). It is somewhat hard to find, but one site that looks pretty good (CFBD) has the following numbers (generally a havoc rate of 20% or more is considered very good): Oregon: 2022: 15.1% 2023: 17.2% 2024: 19.3% 2025: 18.2% Georgia: 2022: 16.0% 2023: 17.1% 2024: 15.7% 2025: 15.1% For comparison, Indiana was 23.2 this year and 22.0 last year. Texas Tech was 23.3 this year (after being 13.7 the year prior). They further break the number into how much the front 7 contributes to the havoc and Oregon's fronts have been: 7.8 9.3 11.5 9.6 Georgia: 10.3 9.7 11.0 8.1 Indiana's fronts have been 14.5 and 16.0 and Tech's 15.0 this season. I think there might be some evidence in all this that Oregon and Georgia's scheme by design generates less havoc (pressure) than someone like Indiana or Tech. Borrowing from that great 2021 Georgia D (and all those sacks), its havoc rate was still only 20.2 and 12.1 for its front (very good but not Indiana or Tech good). That maybe indicates overall even great front players still trails behind an overall great pressure scheme. Well, if I am reading it correctly 🙂

Yeah, what is left of Sports Illustrated today. A "legacy brand" that essentially exists to be licensed to whoever wants to pay to attach their content to its name. ABG now owns the S.I. brand. First gave it to the Arena Group who eventually bailed and now Minute Media is trying to do something with it. You, me, Jon, and $30 million lying around and we could have been Sports Illustrated instead. I recently caught an S.I. Fox Crader article that sounded interesting. It turned out to be mostly a nothing burger of info, which wasn't great but fine. The thing that bugged me more was the article had two pictures, one of Dante Moore and one of OL coach A'lique Terry. S.I. going to write an article called "Oregon's Next Star OT is Already on the Roster (Fox Crader)", yet not get a picture in there of him? I know he didn't play a ton, but he did make it into 5 games (including the entire USC game and most of the second half of the Indiana game). S.I. regularly seems like barely trying, with "barely" having one foot out the door. 🫤

Yeah, I probably should have looked that up. In my defense, I did select for Indiana what I've always felt was the better acronym. I've always thought, "The University of _______" sounded better than "_______ University" • The University of Oregon > Oregon University • The University of Indiana > Indiana University Of course Oregon became a state in 1859 and the UO was founded in 1876, while OU wasn't founded until 1890 and Oklahoma didn't become a state until 1907. Oregon also played its first college football game in 1894 while Oklahoma wasn't until 1895. I see Indiana became a state in 1816 and Indiana University opened in 1820, while Illinois didn't become a state until 1818 and the University of Illinois didn't open until 1867. Indiana also played its first college football game in 1886 while Illinois wasn't until 1890. Are we sure Illinois didn't improperly steal UI from Indiana? (Just kidding of course, I get these things are rooted in history and tradition and I should have gotten it correct 🙂)

Aguirre to NC State (his brother is on the roster there).

A lot of people seem to be down on portal OL and I get it. I will throw in Pregnon came in and had to play on an OL with two other portal OL and was an AP first team All-American. He was good. I think that is the Ducks third AP 1st team AA OL since 1920. Over 100 years of regular OL development and two AP 1st team OL (and one of the two has been described as an absolute OL unicorn). Since the portal opened up, I think the Ducks have brought in 7 new OL and now have a 3rd AP 1st team AA OL. The Duck staff brought in a two year starter from FBS USC, and then added two G5 OL from Nevada and Texas State who they hoped to "fine-tune" or "fix" in 9 months, and these two particular OL I think (arguably) turned out to be mostly who they were on film the last 4 years. I think Harkey was 3rd team All-Sun Belt in 2024 and World was honorable mention All-Mountain West in 2024. Like all recruiting, the portal is at least in part projection. On college football boards, I see the term JAG used a lot, simply meaning "just another guy". If you bring in 3 hopefulls on the OL and get 2/3 JAGs, of course it isn't going to always look great. World and Harkey did help the team to 13-2 and into a game to have a shot to play in the National Championship. I'd say still not bad.

Reading today the number is expected to reach $4 million. If a team makes the playoffs, with no injuries (minus time coming out for "garbage time" snaps), what is a good number of expected snaps for a LT? Maybe 850? 4,000,000/850 = $4,706 per snap Imagine going 3 and out and your bill for just the LT is $14,118. Maybe the Duck offensive staff does need to rethink all those WR screens. 🙂 $4,706 a snap? It wasn't that long ago a guy couldn't get extra cream cheese on his bagel. I might be a bit more stunned if I didn't then realize Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zac Wheeler threw 3,134 pitches over a full season with a contract average of $42 million per year. 42,000,000/3134 = $13,401 per pitch So, $67,005 for that five pitch walk in the 1st inning. 🤷‍♂️

Guy is certainly fast (not putting him down at all - he was awesome for UI) in suggesting where is "fastest" coming from? I guess he was more of a hurdle guy in high school, Athletic.net lists his PRs at 100m at 11.24 and 14.42 in the 110. WR Nyckoles Harbor at S.C. has ran 10.11 in the 100m and 20.20 in the 200m. Gatlin Bear joins college football with a 10.15 PR. For reference, Oregon's Devon Allen set the 110 state record in Arizona his senior year at 13.52. I believe I read something like 400 high school 100m runners broke 10.75 last year. The gap between 11.24 and 10.11 is pretty huge. 🤷‍♂️

In terms of two deep, offensively so far so good (though Perry would probably have been considered part of the two deep at WR). Defensively, I've got several depatures off the two deep. Purchase and Porter at DE and Jack LB, Gray at DT, Austin at NB, and Laulea at CB. I imagine the staff would have liked to hold onto Jericho Johnson too (but that is just a hunch). It is just college football at this moment. Teams at or above "blue chip" roster levels (50% or better 4/5 stars) have typically seen departures of young players in the NIL/portal era so far, this year: Ohio State 29, Michigan 27, LSU 32, Texas 22, Alabama 21, Oklahoma 25, USC 20, and so on. I didn't study it, but I would imagine part of the reason USC took 35 commits, Georgia 30, ND 29, tOSU 28, Miami 30, Florida State 33, Tennessee 27 was a "net negative" portal flow the last couple cycles. 25 leaving Oregon won't be that bad if that's the bulk of it (I've got 22 if we are just counting players listed as commits and not from all 105 but it's been a wild day so I might have missed somebody). Overall, running the current roster as of tonight (plus the incoming recruits), I think Oregon's "blue chip" ratio actual has crept up two points. I think the bigger issue to watch is if Oregon can find sufficient guys in the portal to get its roster numbers where it probably would like them to be. I imagine the staff would still like to be at or over 85 (not counting "invite/walk-on" guys like Grace, Quinn, and Wiepert who make the whole 105). With the two additions and new commits, I think the number is currently 73? Finding and landing 11-12 or more will be interesting to watch.

Don't quote me on this (without a re-check), but the longest streaks I could find not losing to a team that eventually played in the National Championship for some recent coaches: Lanning: 1,161 Smart: 1,121 Swinney: 1,098 Day: 1,022 Saben: 798 Since the Ducks don't play for 238 more days, Dan is going to extend this streak to at least 1,399 days.

I read somewhere today it's been 1161 days (3.2 years) since the Ducks lost to somebody who didn't play in the National Championship game. That's pretty good.

I know there are reasons behind it, but a big game from the WR group seems almost a necessity. WRs only (first 7 games): 12.6 catches per game 175.3 yards per game 11 TDs WRs only (last 7 games): 8.9 catches per game 124.1 yards per game 5 TDs

Guy has only had over 6 carries twice this year (7 at Iowa and 10 at Penn State).

A random jump into the AI weeds, it does seem like people do break their collarbone and not know it (apparently a lot by falling off their bikes). Initial soreness that gradually increases. 🤷‍♂️

Some conflicting information about a possible injury in the RB room that would make some sense of this report. Don't want to jump the gun here, it just is out there. 🫤