Nevada Dawg

I was flabbergasted to learn that there is a Pro Disc Golf circuit in this country. We had a player and family member of the couple I was visited in the greater Boston to dinner one night and he told us all about it. He wasn't one of the big winners in the league (a raw rookie playing that summer before entering his real job in the fall after graduating from college) but he easily made expenses and was having fun. When he told me he was living in the extreme western part of Virginia, I remarked "Sounds like you live out in David Baldacci ( a famous popular novelist) country". Nonplussed, he said "Yeah he lives about a mile from me and is a pretty fair disc golfer himself".

I certainly wasn't saying that crap about Nix. I sent Charles a clip of Nix's highlights and said he was bound to flourish in Eugene. Lanning knew it as well having to work his tail off to stifle the guy running the Auburn offense when he was DC at Georgia. I am nowhere near as optimistic about Raiola. Nix could move and take himself out of problematic situations. Raiola cannot and is so slow as to be a statue in the pocket. I wish the guy no ill will of course but actually breathed a sigh of relief when he flipped from Georgia to Nebraska on signing day. And as a Duck fan, I hope I am wrong by the way, but fear that I am not.

That Ole Miss game in Oxford will be interesting. I wonder if he will be showered with bottles and other missiles the way he was in Knoxville on his return after deserting the Vols so early in the game (for USC IIRC).

I'll never forget my first true winter storm in Northern Ohio when I moved there for graduate school. I had about a 20-minute walk across campus to my office. Being a Californian, I had no true winter coat (My mother bought me a reversible Jacket with fur which I turned out (like a fool) and made myself look like a Sasquash. I had no head covering. I walked in the building feeling no pain and the Department Head said "I envy you Californians getting all that sun on the beach in December". I hadn't been to the beach and was wind burned from the 25 MPH winds and -20 wind chill that morning. And I thought I was going to die 15 minutes later as my frozen ears thawed. I immediately thought of that day as I read about the frozen East Coast this week. Poor devils!

Here in Minden, NV (near Carson City), it has been the mildest winter of the 10 years I've been here. The house is at 4800 feet but has had one-quarter inch of snow all Winter. It is chilly with highs of 40-50 degrees but mostly sunny. I have three nearly 11,000 foot Sierra Nevada peaks out my front window that are snow-covered however. My bestie, who lives outside of Boston, has had 30 inches of snow with below zero wind chills the past couple nights. I know this native Californian is missing his old Santa Cruz County home these days, poor devil.

Informative article, particularly for those who consistently geek out on recruiting rankings. When I saws the title of this thread, I thought this was going to be an assessment of transfer additions who have proved most meaningful to the team ON THE FIELD during the Lanning era. My guess for number 1 (given my assumption) was incontestable I thought: Bo Nix followed perhaps by Tez Johnson. I don't mean to be difficult here, but in my world , rankings based on...others' rankings, are next to worthless. Let's evaluate the transfers based on actual contributions to the team made between the lines.

The Ducks certainly aren't alone in this regard. The Georgia Bulldawgs lost a couple of very promising DBs even though they saw the field a good bit as freshmen. One was probably feeling squeamish as the Dawgs snapped up two very experienced CBs who are going to play ahead of him. So he portaled to Ohio State where the likelihood of becoming a starter (not to mention the NIL payout) will be higher. While we are at it, the head recruiting Guru at Georgia mentions Ohio State as one of the leading programs that is getting hammered with important losses in the portal this year. I think when the smoke clear, a fair number of top programs will be licking their wounds over players they'd hoped to retain that ended up flying the coop.

I was very enthusiastic about the addition of Bo Nix and he flourished in Eugene like I thought he would. Bo was far more mobile than Raiola and far further along as an on-field leader. I warn you--Raiola is a statue in the pocket and that was before his leg fracture. I hope it all works out for the Ducks but I have my doubts about this one.

When Raiola was committed to Georgia, several of the QB gurus on the board hoped that he would flip arguing that he was all arm talent and a statue in the pocket. That pretty much proved to be the case at Nebraska where he avoided having to sit on the bench behind Beck,, another QB in the same mold with even more arm talent. I think the Ducks are far better off with Dante should he choose to return. He should show improvement (if not many rushing yards) in his second year as a starter and that may work out just "ducky".

I remember someone above posting some stats that favored the Ducks over IU. Not to be nasty and so be it if it made you feel a little better, but this is why such posts often get the comment "Statistics are for losers." I also saw the comment something to the effect We'll be fine check our recruiting rankings. While there is often a solid relationship (statistically) between recruiting ratings and on-field performance, it is so far from perfection (as are the recruiting ratings themselves) as to be laughable. So don't simply "star gaze" to inform any betting decisions you may choose to make. Perhaps the most amazing factoid I have seen (cited by different sources) is that not one starter on Indiana's defense rose to the level of being a 4-star recruit. They seem to be a bunch of 3-star and lower FCS and smaller school FBS guys who came to Bloomington with chips on their shoulders and desperately hoping to prove themselves. I don't know about all y'all, but that is an amazing tale if true, illustrating that it is not the number of stars a recruit has that matters most. Remember that only 15-20% of 5-stars ever achieve the goal of being drafted in the first- round of the NFL draft.

I've now seen theplqy from several angles and definitely agree.

Trinidad Chambliss can become absolutely become electric in the clutch. But his problem tonight is he scored too quick at the end of the 4th Quarter to starve Miami of clock time. Even at that he brought his guys all the way down the field in the final 39 seconds. I simply watched this one not rooting for anything but an exciting game--and that sentiment was rewarded in spades. Whom do the Ducks match up best with? Can't say for sure, but should they get there, I think the Ducks would have the better shot against Miami. The reason I lean in that direction is that I saw several Cane secondary guys taking themselves off the field with arm and shoulder injuries. Watch the availability reports as the natty draws near. There is little doubt in my mind that tomorrow night's came with the Cigsters is going to be a war. As it is hard to beat a team twice in the same year, I'm leaning in on the webfeet. Go Ducks!

Place me in the Camp that thinks Dante needs another year or two of development to be likely to reach his full potential in the NFL. Should he ball out in this game to put out the Cig, he is very likely to be the first QB off the board, be able to sign an absolute fully guaranteed monster contract, and would likely be headed to the Las Vegas Raiders--an absolute disaster for any hopes of development IMHO. But with 50-75 million guaranteed, he's set for life. My biggest fear in that scenario is that Dante will be immediately fed to the wolves behind a terrible OL and could illustrate the old NFL mantra that NFL means ""Not for Long".

Pardon me for not reading all the comments (many I did read were insightful though). As I was reading pre-game comments on the Talk'n Dawgs site, many of the coach-types who hang out there started coming across like Miami would be the more physical team and ITO should be favored in this one. One guy even reached out advising me to get my butt to one of the local casinos and lay a healthy bet on the Canes. I should have listened. Their view (pre-game mind you) was that Miami would be a tougher match-up for the DAWGs than the Suckeyes. At this point I am just hoping that the Dawgs can be the first beat the jinx of having a bye, so as to earn the right of playing Miami in the semi-final next week. If that happens of course, it would indicate that OBD had taken care of Texas Tech and earned a semi-final berth. Go Ducks and Dawgs.

I understand yours and JJ's concern about Whittingham, but I have to admit that I admire the man and the way he coaches and I will be rooting for him (especially against Ohio State).

And a major reason the North was historically dominant in the 40s, 50s, 60s and until the mid-70s was segregated football in the South with the top Black athletes gravitating to the Big-10, the Big 8, Penn State, Notre Dame and other northern football powers. Th major rise of the SEC came as many more black athletes stayed home when member schools integrated.

I remember posting on more than one occasion that NIL would level the playing field. I just never expected it to happen as quickly as it has. Now if only the 18-team B1G could find a way to level the playing field a little better intra-conference. Recently Ohio State's Caleb Downs was asked the difference in playing an SEC schedule vs. a B1G schedule (remember he played, and played very well, at Alabama his first year). He said exactly what I thought he'd say remarking that you really only needed to be in top form for 2-3 of the 9-Game B1G contests to prevail. He then remarked that in the SEC you better be on your toes always as you are going to face "DUDES every game!" That is a bit of an overstatement but still truer of the SEC than the B1G IMHO.

Oh hell no!

They really do resemble each other on the sideline don't they?

I have to say I don't know. I am as mystified as you are but they always seem to have excellent receivers to take up any slack.

Oklahoma proved tonight that they suck playing with a sizable lead. The biggest play of the game IMHO came in the 2nd Quarter when Mateer, facing a 3rd and 3 around midfield, spun away from pressure and threw ACROSS HIS BODY to a receiver 20+ yards down field when he had 10-15 yards of unoccupied green grass in front of him. Had he not committed this egregious brain fart and simply tucked the ball and taken the easy 8-10 yards and the first down, he'd have put his team in FG position and likely been in position to improve on his 17-3 lead. What happened? The stop put a charge in the Bama offense and before you knew it, they marched down the field to cut the lead to 7. Plus OK quit pressuring Simpson and let him pick apart their zone defense. Really the game was never the same from that point on: a complete turn around. Will Bama compete with Indiana. It will not surprise me in the slightest. However, because the opponent is Bama, this is one of the very few times I will root for a B1G team other than OBD to win a playoff game.

Well I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the second pick and headed to Las Vegas. On the other hand 50 million big ones with half of that up front, properly invested, will be worth a whole lot more down the road than whatever NIL Oregon can come up with. As I financial consultant (which honesty compels me to admit that I am not) I'd clearly have to advise Dante to take the money and run. That is a no-lose proposition even if Dante never starts a game in the NFL.

I always respected this guy and his teams. I heard this Alabama lineman (an All-American) tell a story about playing Utah in one of the New Years Day bowls in a year after the Tide had won the Natty. He said Coach Saban didn't like the way they were practicing leading up to the game telling them "You better be getting your heads on straight or this man's team will kick your rear-ends!" They scoffed, went to the game, and got their rear-ends kicked. I think it is likely Whit would succeed In Ann Arbor but believe he is really retiring.

Well at least you are not the bear-er of bad news.

At some point I think it would be reasonable for the P4 conferences to tell Notre Dame to join a conference or face the very real prospect of not being scheduled by teams in the the P4 leagues. Probably ND would opt for the ACC--if I am not mistaken, they are already there in basketball and perhaps other sports as well. They could probably retain their private network, at least to some degree. I don't think the SEC required Texas to completely give theirs up. In so doing ND would have to poop or get off the pot and earn their way into the dance rather than relying on any preferential treatment which will become stale real quickly in the modern era.