OregonDucks

I don’t like the idea of automatic qualifiers and believe that you should put the “best” or most “deserving” teams in the playoff field. However, I do believe that you have to weigh the strength of schedule when deciding who the most deserving teams are because college schedules are not balanced. The college basketball tries to do this and football should be no different.

“The SEC is different. The Big Ten, you’ve just got your big three: Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon. That’s it. Penn State? They’re mediocre.”

“Oh, and how about this: The playoff would have featured its first four-loss teams. Auburn (2016), Stanford (2017) and Texas (2018) were four-loss teams ranked high enough to crack a 16-team playoff.” I really hate the direction college football is headed. It’s all about $$$ - rivalries, tradition, the pageantry and fans be damned. 1) Start playing games on Thursdays, Fridays, early and late night. 2) Break up traditional conferences and consolidate regardless of geography and traditional rivalries all for TV money. 3) Allow boosters to pay college athletes an unlimited amount of money to come to and remain at their schools. 4) Set up a transfer portal to create an unrestricted free agency for every athlete, every year. 5) Expand the playoffs watering down the regular season even more. Now it’ll be like every other professional season. Four-loss teams making the playoff - give me a break. If you lose a quarter of your games, you don’t deserve to go to the playoffs. I’d rather they throw in some mid-majors instead, just to make things interesting. At this rate, I’ll start to look for other things to occupy my Thursday nights, Friday nights and Saturday from 9am PT to after midnight.

My heart goes out to the young man. This will be a big blow to the talented, but unproven Oregon receiver room. I was hoping that ES was going to have his “breakout” season in 2025-26, improving his consistency and getting 1,000+ receiving yards this season before being selected in the 2026 NFL Draft. I hope he keeps his head up and continues to be a leader on the team as he works through the grueling rehab ahead.

I personally don’t believe it’s as much as not scouting ourselves as not scouting and being prepared for adjustments that the opponent made during the season. And that applies to both sides of the ball.

Great post. It’ll be interesting to see how the member schools and the SEC/B1G conferences react to potential uneven revenue distributions, once the TV money plateaus and the top revenue generating teams start pushing for unequal revenue shares (e.g., Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan). USC (PAC-12) and Texas (Big XII) both pushed for bigger slices of their conference’s revenue pies before leaving their respective conferences. Those schools are running out of places to go but you can be sure it’s only a matter of time before they start asking again. I wouldn’t be surprised if the SEC/B1G cooled on FSU and Clemson, after all the shenanigans they pulled. I hope the B1G pursues ND and UNC instead.

Would the SEC ever have done this to Saint Nick at Alabama?! It’s almost criminal that Georgia has back to back schedules like this. I hope that Coach Smart has lit up Sankey for the SEC scheduling. It’s hard enough to make the playoffs but it almost seems like the SEC is trying to give other teams a chance. Maybe Texas negotiated a back room deal for easier conference schedules in exchange for joining the conference? It shouldn’t be too difficult to create somewhat balanced schedules in the major conferences. You generally have an idea who the good teams are going to be and every once in awhile you get a surprise like Indiana last year (heck, even University of Southern Cal might be good one of these years, if they get a Heisman QB). It would help if they could hold off and only schedule the next 2-3 years.

Ranking the 5 Best NFL Players From Oregon WWW.GIVEMESPORT.COM The list of notable Oregon Ducks in the NFL includes two Hall of Fame quarterbacks. This is a solid list. Penei Sewell has a chance to be up there at the end of his career, IMHO.

This is a college basketball environment!

I completely disagree with this. If fans can still rock Autzen Stadium for big games there is no reason that they couldn’t rock a basketball arena (a fraction of Autzen’s size). I have no desire to attend another game at Matt Court. It’s dead, cold and depressing. I would show up for a game at Mac Court and rock the balconies and backboards. “If you build it, they will come.”

Mac Court was crumbling but Matt Court shouldn’t have been the solution. There is nothing special about Matt Court. It has no unique design characteristics and has no intimidation/home court advantage. Really? Oregon/Nike couldn’t have done better? (It was just as dead in the PAC-12 so it doesn’t have anything to do with B1G opponents.) I went to school during the Mac Court days and attended many games there. I’ve spoken to alumni of former Pac-10 schools and they hated when their teams had to play at Mac Court. Our teams were often inferior to those Coach Altman has regularly put on the court over the past decade+ but they played with intensity and the Pit Crew had their backs, willing them to victory over much more talented squads. David beat Goliath more often than not at Mac Court.

“The pay raise of more than $2 million annually moves Lanning up to No. 4 on the national salary leaderboard behind only Dabo Swinney, Ryan Day and Kirby Smart. That makes him the highest-paid active coach without a national championship.” Not sure Coach Lanning has earned that salary quite, yet, but hopefully this keeps him in Eugene long term and he is able to win that elusive National Championship. It certainly sends a message to teams snooping around looking to poach DL. I’ll be interested to see the buy out and any exemptions. P.S. - I love Coach Dillingham. Wish he stayed in Eugene for a couple of more seasons but happy the success he is having at his alma mater.

I love Tez but his comments just come off as sour grapes, at this point. Just tip your hat to the opponent and say that they beat you.

Ohio State’s inside linebacker, Donovan Jackson, is projected to be a first round draft pick. Excluding the DL, Cody Simon (LB), Denzel Burke (CB) and Lathan Ransom (S) are also projected to be drafted in the 2025 NFL draft. This does not include their young stud safety (or other underclassmen) who will be a first round draft pick when he is eligible for the NFL Draft. Ohio State had a dominant line but they are loaded everywhere (they consistently bring in top 5 recruiting classes). Being dominant up front but sucking on the other two levels is not a recipe for success. 2025 NFL mock draft: Abdul Carter goes No. 1 despite foot injury; Jayden Daniels gets new weapon in pass game - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM A handful of new faces join the first-round projection as the NFL combine is...

I agree with that to a degree, but to be elite you need to be solid at all 3 levels. Oregon had a very good defensive line last year (probably one of the best in school history) but you need linebackers who can play the right run fits (Penn State game) and a secondary that doesn’t allow receivers to run free down the field (Rose Bowl). Lanning and staff are recruiting at an extremely high level but we’ll see if they are able to develop the dudes. Bama and Georgia just looked different particularly in the front 7.