Worrying About Next Year?

[GatOrlando]

As Charles has said over and over again on here. Enjoy this season, you have what may be your most complete team ever, and you guys are recruiting at a top ten pace. You are going to the B1G, not the Big 12. So what if Texas A&M wants your coach.  They have money, so do you. They have "potential" being based in Texas. But recruiting isn't the issue.

 

History? They have 777 total wins, 3 national titles, and 2 Heisman winners.   Oregon has 703 total wins, 0 national titles, and one Heisman winner. I don't know how relevant those titles they claim since they were won before I was born. Minnesota has seven titles btw.  At some point a guy is gonna realize he can win where he's at. You guys lost Mario because he's a Miami guy. I would be concerned if Alabama or Georgia came calling perhaps, but nobody else.

 

Getting back to the start of my post though. Enjoy the good times now. Soak it in, watch the games with your kids, friends, or crazy Eddie. In ten years this is gonna be a season you feel nostalgic for. Too many times in life we don't enjoy the moment, we are too busy working towards the future, or clamoring for the past. Today is yesterday's future, it's tomorrow's past. Roll on, but enjoy every second of it my friends. It's a great time to be a Duck football fan.

 

You can always make more money, but you can't ever buy more time.

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by GatOrlando

[Mic]

It's in the DNA of all football fans to worry about 'next season'.  Winning is hard and history has shown us that even the best teams don't keep winning forever.  Why, I recall the service academies (Army in particular) being among the best teams in the country.  Imagine Army or Navy winning a National Championship today!

[Nevada Dawg]

 

Duck fans, you have a coach who knows how to build a winning program and this year stands as evidence of that fact. But I caution that Lanning has to continue to recruit like a banshee, and I am confident that he knows that the best route to a sustainable winning program is recruitment primarily at the high school level of those who are "culture fits" for what he is building. He took an inordinately large number this year from the portal to fill holes that weren't adequately addressed in last year's recruiting class. I suspect that number will eventually shrink to a select few to fill critical holes.

 

Worrying about next year, my biggest concern is addressing the QB issue. Anyone who believes (and I hope this isn't throwing shade Charles) that one can easily replace a talent like Nix in the portal may be living in a "fool's paradise". Nix was a jewel who fell into Oregon's lap--enjoy the good fortune. My preference has always been to develop QBs from what is in-house, and don't you guys that two 5-stars slated to grace next year's roster.? But even at that, next year's QB play is likely to be a disappointment to many, even if you do take a portal guy.

 

So enjoy the present and look forward to the continued development of the Duck brand over time on the national scene, even though the ascendance will not always be in a straight line upward.

 

 

[Log Haulin]

On 11/12/2023 at 10:23 PM, Nevada Dawg said:

Nix was a jewel who fell into Oregon's lap

Hind sight is 20-20. But when Nix first showed up, many fans didn't like it. And not just Oregon fans. Folks all over the country were questioning the move. Nix didn't exactly fall in Oregons lap.

 

We heard things like "Bo-pixs", "play our 5*", "we want Thompson" and on and on. After the UGA game that rhetoric ramped up.

 

Nix is a jewel but Oregon had something to do with that. Ducks played a part in knocking the grime off and polishing that jewel. Auburn definatly had tossed Nix in the scrap heap. It also appears that Thompson is being polished in the same manner. 

 

There is probably no one here that thought Nix would become the Heisman leader at Oregon. I agree, Nix is a generational player, hard to replace. Very few saw it coming in. I am glad that the ones that mattered saw it.

 

Next year it will be Ty Thompsons turn. And this fan believes Ty can get it done. Not at Nixs level, but at a very high level and thats all Oregon needs.

 

So its true, Bo Nix is a gem that the SEC threw in the trash. Oregon swooped him up, cleaned him up and put him on a path of greatness. Nix plays a huge part in that but so does Oregon.

[Flyin Vee]

I read the book “good to great” a number of years ago. I especially liked the “right people on the bus” and “shoulder to the flywheel”. The comparative analysis and brake down of how a good company becomes a great company revealed commonality no matter the services provided or goods produced. The primary takeaway is how to build a sustainable team whether you you make steel or in this case a football “progrum”. Go Ducks!

[Jon Joseph]

On 11/13/2023 at 12:52 AM, Mic said:

It's in the DNA of all football fans to worry about 'next season'.  Winning is hard and history has shown us that even the best teams don't keep winning forever.  Why, I recall the service academies (Army in particular) being among the best teams in the country.  Imagine Army or Navy winning a National Championship today!

Where have you gone Roger Staubach and the Lonely End?

 

Service academies never die, they just fade away.

[Jon Joseph]

On 11/13/2023 at 7:08 AM, Log Haulin said:

Hind sight is 20-20. But when Nix first showed up, many fans didn't like it. And not just Oregon fans. Folks all over the country were questioning the move. Nix didn't exactly fall in Oregons lap.

 

We heard things like "Bo-pixs", "play our 5*", "we want Thompson" and on and on. After the UGA game that rhetoric ramped up.

 

Nix is a jewel but Oregon had something to do with that. Ducks played a part in knocking the grime off and polishing that jewel. Auburn definatly had tossed Nix in the scrap heap. It also appears that Thompson is being polished in the same manner. 

 

There is probably no one here that thought Nix would become the Heisman leader at Oregon. I agree, Nix is a generational player, hard to replace. Very few saw it coming in. I am glad that the ones that mattered saw it.

 

Next year it will be Ty Thompsons turn. And this fan believes Ty can get it done. Not at Nixs level, but at a very high level and thats all Oregon needs.

 

So its true, Bo Nix is a gem that the SEC threw in the trash. Oregon swooped him up, cleaned him up and put him on a path of greatness. Nix plays a huge part in that but so does Oregon.

I think that Ty will have plenty of competition for the starting spot including a guy out of the portal. UGA's Vandergriff?

 

College rosters roll over, sooner now than ever before but top programs sustain their excellence. 

 

The new QBs at UGA and Bama have both improved significantly during the season and UGA and Bama recruiting keeps on keepin' on. 

 

OREGON has a coach who is not only an outstanding recruiter but a terrific portal picker. And going B1G and the Big 10 Network will only help with recruiting.

 

Today, if I were a UCLA, USC, or UW fan I'd be far more worried about next season than I am as a Ducks fan. And Oregon has 4 OOC games to start 2024 and figure things out. 

[Mic]

On 11/13/2023 at 11:43 AM, Jon Joseph said:

Where have you gone Roger Staubach and the Lonely End?

 

Service academies never die, they just fade away.

Actually, the Army-Navy game is the one game I never miss, outside of Oregon games.  

 

When I was in the Navy 'Army-Navy' day was THE most important day for our sub captain.  He was a TE on the 1973 Navy team that beat Army 51-0.  I still have in my possession a splinter of the goal post (they were wooden back in those days) from the game in JFK Stadium, Philadelphia.  My son-in-law found it on a plaque with the newspaper story of the game at a garage sale in Medford about 10 years back.

 

I understand why they're no longer the football powerhouses they once were, the academic standards and the after-graduation service requirement.  But I love watching the academies play, esp. Navy.  I figured that if the old Soviet Union had wanted to attack the United States preemptively that would have been the day to do it!  (just kidding).  Everybody that could was in front of a TV.  Underway at sea under 300' of water it was the ELF radio broadcasts throughout the Pacific & South China Seas with updates beamed over the IMC for the crew to follow.

 

GO NAVY - BEAT ARMY!

GO OREGON - BEAT ASU!

 

[GatOrlando]

The transfer portal has allowed Washington and Oregon to be title contenders this year. But both Penix and Nix weren't seen as sure things. You gotta give credit to the programs having talent evaluators , and coaches who made them better. Schools like Texas, Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, and Oklahoma have seen prized recruits leave through the portal, they stack five stars. Arch Manning is likely next on that list.

 

I don't think it's pure luck landing a guy like Manning, Ewers, Hurts, Williams, Fields, Murray, or one of Ohio State's backup. It's just an extended recruitment. At Florida we got Mertz through the portal. No offense to the young man, he plays hard. But he isn't a guy that was ever gonna become the next Joe Burrow. Penix is a Florida kid, we also could have gotten Gabriel from UCF. But we didn't.

 

Dabo Sweeney is learning that this transfer portal thing isn't going away. Florida State supplemented a'lot of guys from the portal, that's one of the reasons they have made such a turnaround the last couple years.  I don't buy much stock in luck, some yes.

[EastBayDuckDad]

On 11/13/2023 at 7:23 AM, Nevada Dawg said:

 

Worrying about next year, my biggest concern is addressing the QB issue. Anyone who believes (and I hope this isn't throwing shade Charles) that one can easily replace a talent like Nix in the portal may be living in a "fool's paradise". Nix was a jewel who fell into Oregon's lap--enjoy the good fortune. My preference has always been to develop QBs from what is in-house, and don't you guys that two 5-stars slated to grace next year's roster.? But even at that, next year's QB play is likely to be a disappointment to many, even if you do take a portal guy.

Van Buren (4☆) and Moga (3☆) are quality QB but not 5 stars. So this is a legit concern that all OBD fans share and there is consternation about what comes next. We all hope TT will be ready but past observation has been less than reassuring.

 

But remember that when Nix was brought in via the portal the decision was not universally applauded. The same could be said for UW bringing in Penix. What made the difference, at least in Bo's case, was consistency in scheme, coaching and protection from the O-line. And the fact that he has developed into a defacto on field OC (I love the fact that DL and Stein asked Bo about the throw to TFerg that resulted in Oregon's 3rd TD against U$C. Bo said "That's not a bad play call").

 

The Nix standard will be tough to match. Until proven otherwise, I say trust in DL and WS to utilize the talent currently here or arriving in the spring to make it work, or find another gem in the portal.