2002duck

First of all, I'm sure some of you may have noticed that I keep hammering home that Oregon and UW need to go to the B1G as soon as possible. And that remains the same. Until that day comes (in 3 or 4 years?), I think it may be worth adding Boise St. to the Pac, but only for football and basketball. Either way, the goose is cooked. UO and UW are going to the B1G and AZ/ASU are going to the Big-12. When? I don't know. I'm curious if UO and UW will accept a very short rental contract in the Big-12 until the B1G wakes up from their slumber. The Big-12 will surely accept us for a short GOR. Right?

But those are not lucrative West coast schools. The BIG-12 is just waiting for Oregon and Washington to go to the B1G so that they can get ASU/AZ, Colorado, and Utah.

Your scenarios are predicated on programs like TCU and Texas Tech leaving the BIG 12. Why would they leave the BIG 12, especially if Oregon and Washington are going to bail to the B1G the first chance they get- no matter what GOR penalty they may have to pay?

For East coasters, who's watching late night Oregon games the following day that isn't already a massive Oregon fan? The "watch anytime you want" argument doesn't work well unless you love analyzing plays. It's live or bust. Having to do the whole dance of "I'm turning off my phone, and avoiding looking at the news until I watch the game in solitude" is not a sustainable business strategy. Of course I will watch streamed games that the Ducks play live, but I'm not going to stream any other games. I have given up on NFL Thursday Night Football- toggling to the app- and away from it to check out other games like the Blazers is a chore. When games are on network TV or ESPN/FS1 people are almost "tricked" or forced to watch, or happily stumble upon the game and stay to watch. With streaming, someone has to go out of their way to watch a game- and I don't see that happening. I don't see any point in being a guinea pig. We can have a short GOR, and do whatever soon anyway. Also, Amazon is always axing their budgets (or staff) when things are not going well. If they don't like the numbers- then they will bail. I could see them dropping Thursday Night Football, to be honest. The PAC and its big programs need to focus on exposure, and less about money. Short term payments from an unproven model in sports streaming are not worth it.

Oregon and Washington will not go to the BIG 12. It's not all about money. We absolutely will go to the B1G, though. I'd rather see Oregon go independent than join the BIG 12.

Maybe Portland will get an WNBA team by the time Vanslooten is draft eligible, and she and Sabrina can team up in Oregon.

In my experience at UO, the basketball and football players only showed up to lecture or labs several times a term. And this was from 98-02 when remote learning was not really a thing. Seems to me that longer flights could allow students more time to do homework or study. By missing so much class time, they are required to prove they are learning the material in other ways. It's more difficult to get any reading or research done on one and half, two, or three hour flights. With the whole taking off and landing thing, the occasional drinks and snack cart runs, and the general banter amongst friends, it's hard to focus. You could hammer out a lot of reading when you have to fly out to play Rutgers or Penn St.

'Glory' was a great movie, and I know it's based on a true story, but did Ferris Bueller and the former Dread Pirate Roberts have to lead the battle on the beach at Fort Wagner? I mean, they knew they were going to die! That's why our leaders make decisions from nuclear bunker war rooms or offensive coordinator skyboxes these days.

1) Don't go for it on 4th down in your own territory- especially deep in your own territory late in the game. 2) Make sure you have a back-up QB that you can give free reigns to make plays called for QB1. No more "safe" calls for the back-up. Let the QB scramble and throw the ball. No more safety handoffs or trick plays. 3) Don't schedule Georgia or Alabama. 4) Pay more NIL money. 5) Only be as faithful as your options. If the B1G comes calling, leave immediately.

I still to this day will not forgive John Canzano for ragging on the Ducks so much for the Willie Lyles nonsense. It was low-level steering. We weren't paying players 250k like what Auburn gave to Cam Newtown. I sure wish we could have, though. I've long seen the writing on the wall that college players will essentially become semi-pro. They deserve to be labeled as semi-pro. This isn't baseball or tennis, after all. These are freak athletes. Pay them, and get them adequate representation. These kids don't have MBA degrees at age 17 or 18- they should have professional agents guiding them. To Oregon.

College football needs to cut ties with the NCAA. Period.

If you are a 5-star and you do not get drafted in the first round of the NBA draft after your freshman year, something went seriously wrong.

I thought King was extremely solid. So was Troy Brown Jr. The issue is Oregon (or Altman's coaching talents) is not a school for centers. We need to stop chasing centers, and go after 5-star small forwards that have NBA bodies out of high school. Also, we need tall shooting guards that have NBA bodies out of high school as well, or can at least shoot lights out. No more skinny centers no matter how high they are ranked. This should be easy to do, right? King: " Named to the Pac-12 all-tournament team … Selected as an all-Pac-12 honorable mention … Member of the Pac-12 all-freshman team … Was the No. 2 freshman scorer in Pac-12 games at 14.5 points per game … Overall, led Ducks in scoring (13.5 points per game) and rebounding (5.5 rebounds per game) ... Scored in double figures in all but two Pac-12 games … Appeared in 31 games with 28 starts ... Led Oregon with 16 points in the Sweet 16 game against Virginia … Netted 16 points in the NCAA Second Round versus UC Irvine … Dropped in 17 points (3-of-3 3FG) in the NCAA Tournament versus Wisconsin … Had a great Pac-12 Tournament where he reached double digits in all four games"

Yeah, well that's kind of my issue. We're smack dab in the middle of the I-5 corridor in Oregon, so it's not like many, if any, of these players are coming closer to home. And if we're touting their abilities so much, why would they be scared of 17, 18, and 19 year-olds taking their spots? If it's about NIL money, then that's fine by me. I'm not paying those bills, and their time is ticking- they need to perform to make it to the NFL with two years of eligibility left to prove it. When it comes to super seniors, it makes a lot of sense for me to check something new out if you aren't getting drafted. Travis Dye isn't getting drafted, and neither will Cam McCormick- in my opinion. But I don't want those type of guys through the portal. I only want guys that are using the Ducks to get a better path to the NFL. So, getting guys from somewhere like Fresno State makes sense, because we are high profile. Getting guys from South Carolina that have already proven themselves is more confusing.

When we get these portal players it would be nice to be able to read about why they entered the portal. It seems to never be included in news blurbs.

UCLA is not a football school. There's likely no changing that. They might do well in basketball, though. They have been underperforming for too long. If the NBA goes back to allowing high school players to go to the NBA right away, UCLA's athletic program will be in trouble.

I'm not buying that USC can not be a top dog in the B1G. Michigan has made some great strides the past few years, but since 2000 they have not exactly been living up to a "Blue Blood" program. Oregon has out-performed Michigan and USC in that time frame, and I eagerly await our invitation and gracious acceptance to the B1G. Like Andy Dufresne said, "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

Well, I was being a little cheeky with the 5pm ABC spot, but an alternative of streaming on ABC would be the exact opposite of a win for exposure. Again, Oregon does not need to be a guinea pig in regards to streaming. Streaming is not there yet, not even close. If an entertainment company wants the rights to our games- fine- as long as there is crystal clear language in the contract that 10 of our games are aired on ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, ESPN2, OR FS1. If they want rights to stream those games as well, that's fine. I understand that streaming helps Duck fans that live around the country, but it does help Oregon gain exposure, recruits, and National Championships. You're not going to get passive viewers to use a streaming app to watch a random Oregon Pac-12 game, and we need those eyeballs.

Someone here posted our roster a few weeks ago, and asked who could possibly leave, and I took 10 minutes looking at each player's eligibility status, number of games played, etc., and Isiah Crocker was on my very small short list of players that I could see going. Except for our walk-ons, most of our players have lots of eligibility left, were fairly highly rated, and have actually played a fair amount.

The interesting thing for me was that I thought that this was something the California schools pioneered, became mainstream elsewhere, and that this could be done at any point in time. I was not sure on specifics, just that if a player was given a scholarship to play football at UC Berkeley, for example, they would get to keep their 4 year scholarship even if they didn't pan out on the field. I suppose a difference between what I thought had become the norm from institutions and this "new coach" rule, is that the coach can demand a player to leave to football program, where as in the policy I mentioned, it would be up to the player to decide to leave (and stay to study). So, if a player enters the portal, and loses their spot, the worst case scenario would be to stay at their original school to study tuition free.

Ah. That's a great point. This is also where I will say that it's more important to me that Oregon seeks out the best national exposure for Oregon, and I don't care as much about the rest of the PAC. There should be no good reason why either a network channel, or FS1 or ESPN would not *want* to air all of Oregon's games (except for cupcakes). It's also why I want to go to the B1G as soon as possible. American exceptionalism is taking a beating in the modern era, but heh, I have no problem with Oregon going on a conquest to join the forces of SEC & B1G Powerhouses. 5PM on ABC every Saturday would be nice.

I very much prefer Oregon and the PAC-10 not to be the guinea pigs of streaming games as their top tier. Whatever is going to get us the best presence for voters, future recruits, recruits, parents of recruits, the average lunch pail Joe in Ohio, etc- that's what we need. And that is not Amazon's Prime TV.

I still have traditional cable (and PrimeTV, and all the other streaming services except for Disney+) and I find it a nuisance to watch NFL Thursday Night Football on the streaming app. Is it too much for me to take the 20-40 seconds to switch from the stream back to cable when there is no live action? Yes, absolutely. I like cable, and I like channel surfing. Honestly, I find myself on Thursday evenings at 7pm wondering what to watch, and I invariably say, "crap, Thursday Night Football is on, and started two hours ago!" If it were on a national broadcast or on ESPN I would have not missed kickoff. So, you can count me in on the anti-streaming crowd for live sports. I mean, go ahead and ALSO put it there, just make sure it's on a national broadcast or ESPN/FS1.

Charles, it's no longer "the Ukraine"! Hasn't been for a long time. It could get you in trouble saying such things out loud on public transportation! "The Ukraine" is incorrect both grammatically and politically, says Oksana Kyzyma of the Embassy of Ukraine in London. "Ukraine is both the conventional short and long name of the country," she says. "This name is stated in the Ukrainian Declaration of Independence and Constitution." The use of the article relates to the time before independence in 1991, when Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, she says. Since then, it should be merely Ukraine. "After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians probably decided that the article denigrated their country [by identifying it as a part of Russia] and abolished 'the' while speaking English, so now it is simply Ukraine. "That's why the Ukraine suddenly lost its article in the last 20 years, it's a sort of linguistic independence in Europe, it's hugely symbolic."