2002duck

It doesn't need to be Nike. It can just be Phil Knight himself.

Maybe I'm still too young at the ripening age of 42 to fully appreciate the civility of an even playing field, but I look at the NIL platform, and then I look at who our biggest booster is. Nike is the Crown Jewel brand of all sports, and we have their money. We should be doing cartwheels and fist pumps 24/7! We won! Am I right? Guys? Hello?

Black signifies strength, power, confidence, and authority. It's easily the most elegant color. Well, I guess it's not technically a color, but that's just nit picking. Suits are black. Tuxedos are black. It makes women appear more beautiful and men more handsome. Black goes with any accent color, such as lightning yellow or lime green. Black is fantastic. Black clothing, above all, sells like hotcakes. That's the color Nike will sell the most jerseys and the most shoes to the general public. The only color that's almost as good as black is chrome, and the chrome helmets for the 2012 Rose Bowl were Oregon's finest version to date. Needless to say, 85% of what I wear is black, gray, or charcoal- including the requisite black Wayfarer Ray Bans.

Utah? Hah! Sure, they've been doing OK for several years now, but soon enough they can go the bottom of the Pac-12 next to Oregon St. and Colorado where they belong. Georgia is an SEC powerhouse with prestige. An Oregon win over Georgia in Georgia would be massive. Utah? I don't think about them at all.

The NCAA is batting 0.00 in the courts. Just saying.

Oregon Ducks Surplus Sale Has anyone been to the event in recent years? Any tips to score the best items? I plan to go at the early time, but I'm mostly interested in shoes, and wearing a size 10 shoe probably does not help with how tall our athletes are!

Uber and Lyft are mostly in the technology/app business. Rides just happen to be what they are selling. Sure, you can book in advance, but all it does is lock in the rate at the time you requested the ride in the app, and creates an auto-request around the time you wanted to be picked up. It's not like any given driver has you "on their schedule" to be picked up. Traditional cabs are usually the way to go for early flights. At least in my experience. As for delivery apps, I received a $100 Grubhub e-gift card once, and I ended up just driving to restaurants to pick up food orders to-go on my own. I figured out that work around with minimal research, and it stretched my buying power. I'm not paying $13 for one large M&M Blizzard from Dairy Queen if I can help it.

You joke, but there is something very strange happening in Eugene lately. I suppose nothing can be determined "odd" in Eugene, but the Whiteaker Neighborhood Alliance/Association has been protesting to the City the past few years concerning the new "Quiet Zone" train track installations Union Pacific is paying for in the inner Eugene core (where Whiteaker is loacated). It turns out that the Whiteaker Neighborhood Alliance is arguing that the $10M noise-reducing installations will increase the value of the homes in the area, and thus "make Eugene's housing crisis worse." Golf balls = bad. No train noise = bad. I guess you can't ever win!

I was assuming that once Nix gets the job he nixes the chances of the other QB's on the roster from ever starting for the Ducks. I would hope our incoming recruits would win the QB1 job in their freshmen or sophomore seasons. Again, I tend to shoot for the moon when it comes to the Oregon football program until a defined point in a season where they are no longer in contention for the National Championship. It's not unreasonable to think that the Ducks should win the North every single year, and from there you're just a Conference Championship game win and a Playoff game win away from the title game. Even if you're retooling, it doesn't mean you can't get there. It's not like we have to win the SEC West along the way.

I'm a forever optimist when it comes to preseason expectations for the Ducks football program. I often get asked by friends and family members about various sporting outcomes (some for betting reasons, some for general discourse) because I read a lot of analysis, but I still get some smirks when I invariably say, "Oregon is going to make the National Championship this season." But you know what? I've been right twice in recent memory. Seeing that I have lofty expectations for the Ducks, I am here to champion the cause on behalf of our presumptive starters until there is a zero percent chance of making the National Championship. So, as for now, I'm all in on Bo Nix, because I think he is our only QB with elite potential, and he can give us the best chance to make the Playoffs. I'm not here to settle for the Rose Bowl. I'm not sure that Nix is personally aware that I have assigned our fortunes on to his back, but I know that he already has a gigantic motive- and it's not to be QB1 for Oregon, or even to win the National Championship. No, I believe Nix transferred to the University of Oregon because it will give him the best path possible to be drafted in the First Round of the 2023 NFL Draft. I raise my eyebrow when reading people debate about who the QB1 should be for the upcoming season, because if it's not Nix then we most likely won't be at SoFi Stadium on January 9th, 2023.

In this day and age I try to think of it less as "Player X transferred from School A to School B," and more along the lines of "Player X was picked up in the Waiver Wire by team B," or "Player X was traded from team A to Team B for nothing in return." In this sense, college football is becoming more like NFL Fantasy Football. It can be fun for the fans and for the players (if they become famous), but I suppose it does lessen the spirit of college sports. That said, I don't think Bo Nix should be handicapped just because he's late to the party. He already put his time in risking his body in "The League".

Ha, some interesting reads there on trojanswire. I like how the writer talked about the 1950's when trying to prove that Oregon is not a rival to USC. The writer went on to concede that the Ducks were pretty good adversaries when Mike Bellotti (that was ages ago!!) was coaching against Pete Carroll, and then went on to gloss over Oregon's dominance ever since. He says we're are not worthy of being a rival yet (because we were not good in the 60's and 70's, apparently), but are mere impediments! Ha!

I'm a bit confused about the Spring Break in Florida rumor. I just googled the UofO academic calendar, and Spring classes started on March 28. What's the timeline on these allegations?

None of the dollar amounts quoted by the Husky forum posters have been confirmed, but even if all of them are true...so what? I think Oregon fans need to come to the realization that we are going to be paying recruits lots of money through NLI, and for some recruits the bigger payday Oregon offers will seal the deal. Again, so what? Don't hide from it. It's the new reality, and a Husky or Beaver fan saying we're giving recruits the bag does not need to be taken as a put down. Embrace it , own it, and be grateful for it.