OregonDucks

Watching his highlight videos, he seems like he’ll be a good possession (slot?) receiver. Benson makes tough contested catches but doesn’t seem to be super elusive or have breakaway speed (of course I could be wrong). Should be a good compliment to Evan Stewart.

I think that’s a good decision. He needs to become more consistent before heading to the League, as he disappeared for long stretches this season. He certainly has the talent. Hope he puts in serious work with Dante Moore this offseason to develop that chemistry!

Watching Makhi Hughes highlights remind me a lot of Bucky Irving. He has good vision, sets up his blocks nicely, makes good lateral moves and runs much tougher than his size. Might be a home run addition to the offense and, even if James comes back, he would be a good compliment to James’ running style.

I’m just amazed at the job Coach Lanning and staff do from a recruiting perspective both high school and the transfer portal. They are relentless. As I mentioned in another post, I’m a little concerned about the OL transfers out, as that is one of the key position groups that we need to upgrade and it’s hard to rely on the transfer portal (see Colorado and USC). Hopefully those were mutual decisions between the coaching staff and players. Love to see USC on the list of “losers.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Thank you for your posts. I hope that you become a regular contributor over here. Good luck the rest of the way. Ohio State certainly looks like the best team (I have no idea how the heck you lost to Michigan and it’s probably the worst thing that could have happened to the Ducks and other playoff teams). Just wish OBD could have waited until the final to play the Buckeyes, so we’d have a few more weeks of football.

I’m a little concerned with the OL transfers, as that is one of the positions groups that we need to upgrade the most and it’s difficult to rely on transfers (see Colorado). Hopefully they were mutual decisions.

Thanks for sharing. I respect the heck out of Josh Pate and believe that he’s one of the best college football analysts. “Dan Lanning could coach another 13 seasons and he would still be younger than Nick Saban was when he won his first title.” Dan Lanning was a home run hire and the best Oregon could have expected. I’m sure that he has exceeded all initial expectations. The Oregon Football Program is on the right trajectory, under Coach Lanning’s leadership, and needs to continue to upgrade the talent on the roster (as they are doing) to compete with the best of the best in the post season. Remember, fellow Oregon fans, we will always be fighting an uphill battle since we don’t have a state rich in high school football talent, are not based in a major metropolitan area and do not have the history and tradition to fall back on. If Coach Lanning can win the first national championship at Oregon it would be way more impressive than winning at USC, Alabama, Ohio State, et al.

I also believe that Coach Lanning is instructing his OCs to limit QB runs and the potential for injury. Will Stein had a super athletic QB, Frank Harris, when he was the OC at UTSA (see clip below). Harris rushed for: • 2020: 528 yards and 9 rushing TDs • 2021: 566 yards and 6 rushing TDs • 2022: 602 yards and 9 rushing TDs Harris did miss substantial time due to injury earlier in his career (not sure if it was the result of him running the ball). Of course, I also believe that you have to allow your QB the ability to make critical plays in critical situations (Masoli running over the Oregon State defender for a critical first down) and that especially applies to the post season.

Coach Lanning seems to be more invested in the University of Oregon for the long term. He has said that he is tired of moving his kids around and, like Coach Bellotti, the longer they stay the deeper the roots will become in the community. Hopefully his kids and wife are happy in Eugene. Most knew that Coach Kelly was interested in the NFL and would bolt as soon as the “right opportunity” came along.

They are in for a culture shock. It’s definitely different down south.

I believe that Notre Dame was ranked #3 in the final regular season poll but Ohio State and Penn State would both have been at risk of being left out of the 4 team playoff and those two teams may play against each other in the final. It would have been really interesting to see who would have been the fourth team selected this year between Texas, Ohio State and Penn State. I’m assuming that they would have passed over ASU but they do like their conference champions…

Losing Saban to retirement certainly hurt the SEC. How many championships was he accountable for at Alabama and LSU over the past decade?

Thank you for posting your observations. Obviously, Ohio State is well coached and has tremendous athletes across the board. My only question is - why wouldn’t Oregon have had its best cover corner - Jabbar Muhammad - shadow Smith and play a safety over the top, if necessary? I would say that someone else is going to have to beat us.

I guess that the coaches did not watch the Tennessee game or believe that Ohio State would be aggressive 2 games in a row.

LOL. Makes you wonder what those same fans will say if Ohio State wins the national championship… Time to change their usernames?

Has the most yards from scrimmage amongst rookies heading into the final regular season game. Man, we really missed him this year. Such a fun player to watch. The Tampa Bay crowd was chanting “Bucky! Bucky! Bucky!” after his 25 yard run.

You could sort of make that argument BEFORE the playoffs started, which SEC/ESPiN tried to do, but then you’d also leave Indiana out. However, as much as I hate to admit it, Notre Dame looks like one of the best playoff teams along with Ohio State. And if you excluded ND and Indiana because of strength of schedule are 3 loss SEC teams (with losses to multiple .500 teams) really more deserving than a 11-1 team? I believe that strength of schedule should be used to break the tie of two teams with similar records, not justify teams with bad loses getting in. For the record, I’ll be rooting against ND in the semi-finals.

On the flip side, the Ducks had 24 days off to recover from that travel schedule and then had the shorter flight to Pasadena. How long do 18-24 year old, semi-professional athletes need to recover? Part of me can buy the rustiness from too much time off since all 4 teams with first round byes lost (although Ohio State had the same amount of time off before they faced Tennessee and looked far from rusty).

Yes, but this is nothing new and Coach Stein had a full season to adjust - moving the pocket or designing plays (chop blocks with quick passes) to create throwing lanes. Perhaps he started to do this after the first quarter, when I turned off the game…

Let’s be honest, Oregon was unprepared and didn’t belong on the same field as Ohio State on 1/1/25: • Rushing: 181 (7.2 YPC) vs. -23 •Sacks: 8 vs. 0 • Smith: 187 yards on 7 catches (26.7 YPC) with 2 TDs Can anyone explain what Oregon was trying to do on defense against Ohio State (e.g., keep everything in front/limit the explosive plays, stack the line of scrimmage to take away the running game) because I still have no idea what the strategy was? Ohio State did anything they wanted to with little resistance. While Oregon is improving its recruiting ratings, we’ll see whether it translates on the field. You still have to recruit the right players, need to develop that talent (including in the weight room) and then put that talent in the best position to succeed. The top teams still look different to me with bigger, more athletic wide receivers, linebackers and secondaries. Our offensive line looked slow and unathletic against the Buckeyes - it could not have helped some of the players draft evaluations. If you can’t match up physically, then you need to do something different schematically to try to gain an advantage. If Oregon completed but lost by a score or two, I would simply tip my cap to Ohio State and say the better team won but that was a complete beat down (as the article points out) and Coach Lanning and the staff need to do some real soul searching this offseason. The regular season was nice but the goal is to win a national championship. It might be worthwhile to bring in a former HC (e.g., Saban, Meyer) to look at everything and what we need to do, as a program, to get over that final hump.

You kinda expect it, as a long time Duck fan…

I can't imagine what Coach Smart is going through. At least his dad got to see him reach the pinnacle of his profession. I'm sure that he was proud of the man he became and the success he has had. My heart goes out to the Smart family.

I agree with you but if you bring in an experienced QB through the portal, then you run the risk of loosing Moore (a former 5-star QB recruit), who has 3 years of eligibility remaining. I guess we'll see how much the coaches believe in Moore since they've seen him up close every single day in practice for the past season.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a redshirt sophomore QB, with a few games of starting experience, on a team that is replacing almost its entire starting offensive line, wide receivers, tight ends, defense line and secondary… Not to mention following the two most experienced QBs in college football history.