tee duke

A tip of the helmet to Babyjesus. Stockholm syndrome is a devilishly clever analogy.

Amen, brother. I can relate. Each year, when Autumn is in the air and football returns, I find myself renewed in a Forever Young sort of way. Watching these young athletes compete, seeing their exuberance, their innocence, is exhilarating, renewing. It brings back wonderful memories while creating new ones to celebrate and enjoy. I like to think of them as role models, not for their endless array of uniform combinations, but for how they perform and how they carry themselves whether in victory or in defeat.

Yes, it still hurts. (Gee thanks for reminding me.)

As fans, we're outsiders when it comes to what actually goes on inside the Ducks program. We can speculate til the cows come home, and often do. But in the end we really don't know who is responsible for sending a running back into the middle on 4th and 1 over and over again. I for one would like Mario to answer that question. It's time.

Laying an egg in the Fiesta Bowl won't help with recruiting or holding onto commits.

Do we really know what's going on with the Ducks coaching? There's an awful lot of speculation going on. But so far at least I've yet to see anyone do anything more than infer. One thing's for sure. The Ducks have no discernible system.

I'm with you bro. The coaching staff has made a mess of our QB situation and possibly harmed Tyler's head, opening the door for him to leave. This really bothers me especially since we saw his parents in the stands, watching this play out. If you were the parent of a high school athlete, would you permit your son to commit and play for these coaches after witnessing that? In my mind, Oregon has always given the impression of a family, where relationships matter and help young athletes grow into adulthood the right way, with the right set of values. I don't know, but I suspect the Sewell family thought that. That earned reputation was damaged tonight. And that hurts worse than the loss, as bad as it was.

It was not fun to watch. So many unforced errors for the Ducks. What's fun to watch is a contest between two battling teams who push one another to one great play after another. That was not in any way this year's Fiesta Bowl. This was an embarrassment for the Ducks program, players and especially the coaching staff. I feel sorry for our talented players, who played hard in a losing effort. Perhaps it will prove a turning point for the program and provide the motivation for everyone to perform at a higher level in the coming season. We can only hope that is true. But the fact remains, based on the evidence I've seen in the games played yesterday, we have a long way to go to get to that level.

And I'm beginning to have serious reservations about our coaching staff. That's even more serious.

With outings like this on national tv we aren't going to get the recruits you're talking about.

Outcoached.

Just turned the game off. We shot ourselves in the foot every which way. ISU is not a very good team. They just managed to methodically move the ball, and we couldn't. They ate the clock, wore out our defense, and wore down our spirit. Oregon was outreached and outplayed. This has become a familiar problem for the Ducks. We can't win consistently and we look pretty lame. OU is not in the same league with Alabama, Ohio State or any of a dozen other programs. We couldn't even beat OSU and CAL. This loss reminds me of the letdown after the Alamo Bowl disaster. Only it's worse. Because we have some very talented players. And we are supposed to have good coaches. But this ... spectacle ... is going to hurt how Oregon is perceived, not to mention recruiting. I guarantee we are going to see a bunch of de-commits.

Just who is the QB coach for our DUCKS? Team website says Coach Moorhead is OC and QB Coach.

I find it difficult to criticize any player who appears to give their best effort. I'm not the one out there executing plays. I feel for Tyler and I hope he takes advantage of the opportunities presented to him in the coming game. The coaches bear some responsibility for player performance. It's their job to put the team in the best position to win. Perhaps both players and coaches have learned something from their last outing that will enable the Ducks to perform better and possibly redeem themselves with a well-deserved win against ISU.

There's more to life than money and the NFL.

Impossible to select just one, there have been so many who stand out. But for me, if you put a gun to my head, I'd say Marcus Mariota. Not just for his football talent but for the character he has always displayed. He is in a special pantheon of great role models.

Unless players get to play in front of large national audiences, they might as well be playing in Pop Warner. Visibility is critical. And both the BIG and the PAC 12 put themselves at a disadvantage to begin with by getting out of the gate late. Still, the level of play is vastly different at some of the brand name schools in a normal year; the pandemic only made things worse. Much as I love the Ducks, their level of play this year is far from elite calibre. Are the Heisman finalists this year—or in any year—the best among all players on well over 100 teams? It's anyone's guess. But the finalists have definitely drawn a lot of attention during the course of the season. About the best that can be said for what is an inherently unfair situation is that at the very least the finalists didn't screw up while operating in the glare of a very big spotlight.