spartan2785

IMO the two worst ideas for venues are putting the 4A championships at Forest Grove HS, and the Volleyball championships at Liberty HS, both deserve better than being put in random high schools, they deserve to be at actual universities. They both have large gyms, but it doesn't feel very special. Not everything has to be catered to Portland, Eugene represents a nice balance for the teams down south instead of traveling 5 hours up north.

I actually think the coolest thing it could be used for is the OSAA championships, get it out of Portland at their horrible venues and put it back in Mac Court where you had actual crowds and actual passion.

I do wonder where the 3 point line would be if this was to happen, is it the 20'6" WNBA line or the 23'9" NBA line, does make a difference.

Heart says 11-1, head says 10-2, reality is probably actually one of the two for once! As always injuries could have huge effect on the outcome of the games, you look at all the QBs in the top 4 teams and they have all had injuries, none of the teams have a backup that they feel even good about I would argue. With Oregon I think we'll see an offense that will be around the same mark as last year, the o-line is revamped but the skill positions are probably a step up from last year. The defense will be very interesting, Lanning certainly has had a very good idea about the type of players he wants for his scheme, and he's found the body types that he wants for those spots, now we have to see if the round pegs into round holes will prove the difference between last year and this upcoming season. I would bet we will see improvement, but it will be another year before we see a dominant defense. In the end I think we win all the games that we should, we beat USC at home, OSU, Utah will be a toss up, and for UW...well this is where I think we see if the defense has taken a step forward.

No, but he did initially sign off on a 2 week suspension, it's more how he's handled the punishment that is not even remotely adequate for what was going down. It's a complicated situation where it's difficult to prove how much Fitzgerald knew about the hazing, or whether he should have known, so you have two sides where it's completely inadequate to only suspend him for 2 weeks in the offseason, but the flip side is firing the most successful coach the program has ever had with no concrete proof that he supported the hazing or even knew about it. Northwestern has one of the leading journalism schools in the nation, and boy did the school paper put the heat on the administration!

Big sigh...losing out on a recruit who chooses to stay home is just the nature of the business, it doesn't say anything about the program, the coaches, or the NIL committee, it's just life. Bama, tOSU, Georgia, they all lose out on major recruits, you win some, you lose some, nobody is saying anything about the other DL guys we got from Arizona just last year.

Sorry I didn't think you were approving it, I can see why you thought that, I just meant the idea really disgusts me, I know we are about to get into politics so I'll just stop, but sorry for making you think I thought you were promoting the idea!

No offense but screw that!!!! The last thing we need is Saudi continuing to sportswash our sports, it's bad enough that it's gotten into soccer, golf, F1, and about to go into all the sports in the D.C area, we don't need the money of a murderous autocracy that denies the basic human rights of women, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone that disagrees with the regime and has the balls to say something. If they begin to be a direct support system to the Pac-10/12 then I'll have to seriously consider stop watching.

Never put stock in the whole 5 star kicker thing, been burned too many times by that to put any stock into kicker/punter rankings. I'm sure he has talent, but that is probably the least reliable ranking system in football/basketball.

It's how the SEC has been able to dominate the narrative, nobody cares if a team ends up at 6-6 when they started in the top 15, those teams that beat them on the way to that 6-6 record get to usually say they beat a top 25 team, then at the end of the season they'll say that they beat 8 top 25 teams, yet only 4 or them are actually worth of that title. I see this as more of a problem with the teams in the middle, Ole Miss, Miss St., Florida, etc. There have been seasons where the SEC has bombed in the bowl games, but nobody ever mentions this, but when they have a good year they'll use that to say, "well there you go, by FAR the best conference!". Then the next year it never seems to affect the rankings unless they had a good bowl game. Pre-season rankings are a joke, they shouldn't be allowed until at least 4 weeks into the season.

This is why we should always be rooting for the Pac, even UW and OSU, we have to start getting the public to respect this conference if we are going to ever get the benefit of the doubt. Honestly the conference is more fun when multiple programs are doing well, yes we may lose a game or two more, but the wins are sweeter, and the rewards greater usually.

Noble Meyer is a cert to go top 20 in the draft, could go as high as top ten, there is no way he ends up at Oregon. Best high school pitcher I've seen, Mick Able was a stud as well, but I feel like Meyer is more polished. Ducks still have a great class coming in including guys from right here in Eugene/Springfield.

Pitchers never gave themselves a chance in this game or last night, you can't walk so many guys without the consequence of eventually getting demolished, needed Grant to make the play last night.

Well time to get someone up in the bullpen I guess

Yeah, mine as well, at least ORU will be without their closer, I can't see him coming back after throwing 60 tonight and pitching the night before. Makes me wonder if their bullpen is that shallow that they went to him for a 4 inning outing.

Have to make plays, doesn't matter if it was scorched, you have to get at least one out there. Doesn't help when the home plate ump basically doesn't call anything on the outside corner for us, yet was giving an extra inch to ORU.

Wow, what a fight back, and it doesn't happen without the pitchers coming up huge, shutout except for one horrible horrible inning. Credit to all those guys, just an amazing amount of heart there.

College Baseball can be so weird, give up a 8 spot, then shut them down, and work yourself back to an even ball game with two innings to go, really good job not panicking, kept at it, and they get their reward. Now they need a 3 up 3 down inning to keep the momentum.

Well this has turned ugly Not really surprised, can't rely on freshman for this long.

I just don't think it's as easy as cancelling games and forcing Auburn, LSU, and Bama to accept home and homes! It's really really hard to convince these schools to take the risk of getting waxed at Autzen. We've seen what happens to SEC teams here at Autzen, they get dominated. The reason why Auburn is playing Cal, Bama with Arizona, and LSU with CU, is because they know they'll kill those teams and get a nice opportunity to recruit the west. A lot of these teams are booked now for the next ten years, so I don't think you'll get anything more than taking an unfair neutral site game against anyone else in the SEC. Sure Georgia, LSU, and Auburn will play us in a "neutral" site game (as long as it's closer to them than to us), but they won't play us is straight home and home, I'm sure Mullens has tried to get these teams to commit, it takes two to tango. Now could Oregon get home and homes with Arkansas? Vandy? Miss St? South Carolina? Yeah probably. Does it help more to play these teams instead of Baylor, Tech, and Okie St.? Debatable. I'm pretty sure all the upcoming Big12 games are going to feature two ranked teams. Utah as an example has BYU, Wyoming, Arkansas, Houston, and Wisconsin in future schedules. Pretty comparable to what we have in both Michigan St., both OSUs, Baylor, Tech, Boise St., and Utah St.. When I look at those two schedules I would probably rather have Houston than Utah St., I might like to play the Big10 more than the Big12, but we've already played Wisconsin multiple times so I'll probably take something new in Baylor or Tech. The reason why I'm not as harsh on Mullens as you is that I just don't know what options we had when we were making these schedules, I'm not sure what the coaches were advocating for, we've shown we aren't afraid to take games against the best, so that tells me we've at least tried to probably make some of these games happen, I just believe that we haven't been able to find partners that are willing to make a fair deal. If I was to criticize Mullens for anything, I would probably look at trying to schedule a set with some team from the ACC, if we can't convince a big SEC team to come here, let's see if Clemson, FSU, or NC St. might be willing to come out here. I think it's very fair to be frustrated and disappointed by the upcoming schedules, but I just wonder if it was really possible to get some of the teams we might wish for.

I mean it wouldn't surprised me if it was happening, but I'm also not holding my breath. I'm at the point where I just don't really care about reports like this from any source since so many journalists have been wrong in their coverage, in the end it will work itself out, I'm just exhausted worrying about the future, and whatever happens happens.

Feels like there has to be a time when the league was this deep, just with the history of this conference being the best when it comes to college QBs. Certainly this year stands out with both the experienced QBs and few pretty hyped freshman QBs who are going to get their chance. This isn't even mentioning some pretty interesting situations at OSU and Colorado where you have a former 5 star and the coaches kid who was pretty outstanding at a much lower level of competition. You look at the mid tier QBs in De Laura and Ward it becomes abundantly clear that this league is stacked, there's only about one school that doesn't feel pretty good in their QB room (Cal).

Well I didn't see this coming after getting absolutely shellacked by UW at home in one of the worst series I've seen from the Ducks. They bounced back, got right in the last two games against Utah, then got enough pitching to allow their awesome offense to do their thing, congrats to the team!

It will be an open competition, I suspect the coaches will play whoever they see as giving the ducks the best opportunity to win if Nix goes down, if Novosad is the better QB in practice I suspect he'll play, if Thompson is the better one he'll play. I don't think you can play one over the other if there's a clear difference, if neither QB separates themselves from the other, then I think you give both an opportunity to do so in garbage time, hopefully there's enough to do this. The key to this is we can't just be super vanilla so that we can allow the QBs to show what they have.

We've already been experiencing this a lot in the last few years, but I think we have to get used to even more 7:00 games, with the Big10 and the SEC with their new deals I suspect we'll be seeing even less 12:30, 3:30, 4:00, or 5:00 games, unless we go to the Big10 and we're on the road in Wisconsin or wherever. Of course it will help if we're a top 10 team, but Fox and ESPN will basically ignore us for any prime spots.