Good Luck Ducks, Week 1: Do Something

Off we go, with a new coach in tow. 

It sounds absolutely crazy to me, but this is the tenth year that I've been blogging (tangentially) about sports cards here. This also means 10 years of Good Luck Ducks posts. This is the beginning of the few months where I talk about a different sport and a different team, generally boring to death the 80% or so of the people that come to this blog because of the banner and the title. Year One was Mike Bellotti's final year at the helm of the Ducks football squad, the coach who took an unlikely bunch that was coming off of a surprise Rose Bowl appearance and turned them into serious contenders. Year Two was Chip Kelly's debut, and Kelly only lost 7 (!) games in his 4 seasons in Eugene.

Mark Helfrich succeeded him and ended up losing 8 last season alone. That's not to diminish what the team accomplished in the Helfrich years, of course. A national championship appearance with, I don't know, Gary Andersen at the helm may not have been possible even with Marcus Mariota at QB. Year Ten brings us the first head coaching hire from outside of the program since long before I was alive in Willie Taggart. Taggart has been all up in everyone's business all of the time since taking control, which has led to phenomenal results in the recruiting department. With Taggart, we go from Win The Day (Kelly) to, uh, Keep Winning the Day? (Helfrich) to Do Something.

That's Taggart's slogan. Do something. Play football, I guess. I don't know, just do something. Draw a picture. Pretend you're not being exploited as part of a billion dollar industry where everybody profits off of your successes on the field and the hard work you put in as an unpaid (except for that pesky education) athlete. Just, do it, whatever it is. Something. The slogan might be the most ineffectual and uninspiring thing to come out of social media hashtaggery, but I'll give the coach the benefit of the doubt. Like every first college football weekend in September, today is a total reset for expectations. I may not expect the Ducks to win more than 2 games this season, but they could also win a whole bunch of them. That would be great. You never know until they hit the field, and that's what's exciting.

And now, here are some links for you to peruse at your leisure.

• Oregon's best receiver missed the national championship on his first strike. His third strike got him kicked off of the team, only to land comfortably on a conference rival.
• Justin Herbert, starting sophomore quarterback who looks all of thirteen years old in many of his press photos, has started embracing the campus stud role.
• Know Your Opponent: The Southern Utah Thunderbirds are a team I've never heard of before, but I enjoy their nickname. It makes me want to drink fortified wine, maybe.
• The Unis! Green and yellow, the best colors and probably their best combo in at least a couple of seasons. Taggart has hinted at toning down the uniform craziness (next week notwithstanding), but you never know.

The parting (video) gift: 

Game time is 5:15 PM PDT. Broadcast channel is the Pac-12 Network. Your scheduled broadcasters are JB Long, Jill Savage and Yogi Roth. Go Ducks!