Good Luck Ducks, Week 9: Fighting Realm

 

The Fighting Ducks host the Fighting Illini in a battle of ranked B1G squads. 

 

While it still feels like just yesterday that the 2024 college football season started, we're already heading into Oregon's eighth game of the season, with just four more games on the schedule after today. This part of the year always seems to fly the fastest. The Ducks are coming off of a comfortable shutout at Purdue last Friday, along with a bonus day of extra rest (or practice?) heading into another Top 25 showdown.

Illinois is no joke! While they've only appeared in three bowl games in the last decade, all of the lower tier variety, they head into today's affair with a 6-1 record and a shiny #20 ranking. As much as I can sadly admit that Purdue mostly made me think of Drew Brees, the only image I can currently conjure up of a star Illinois football player is Jeff George on his sought after 1990 Pro Set draft pick football card. You'd have to be sure that knocking off the undefeated Ducks would be a legendary experience on the campus in Champaign, Illinois.

Fortunately, Oregon has been firing on all cylinders. Some early defensive concerns look like they've been addressed, even with a couple of key players sidelined due to injuries. The "Next Man Up" concept only works in practice if those reserve players are capable of fulfilling those roles, and for the most part I've liked what I've seen on the field with the less familiar names on the backs of the jerseys.

With a tough ranked team this week and, presumably, next, I don't think anyone wearing Ducks colors is going to be looking too far ahead to the Washington game. If there's any side benefit to Oregon's B1G move, it could be that the lack of familiarity with many of these opponents and their schemes could effectively keep them on their toes. In other words, I don't think we have to worry about the Ducks dropping a game to, I don't know... Cal(?) out of sheer boredom.

Notes and such:

• The Old 97's Bob Dylan-adjacent track "Champaign, Illinois" is always a nice listen.
• Do they have any history at all? It's Oregon with a 2-1 lead in the series, although the two schools haven't met since I was still a teenager.
• Ducks ranking this week: 1 (AP). Yup. Number one in the land. I would be making more of a big deal about this, but I really don't care where they end up at as long as they are firmly in the top ten when all the conference championship games are done. Besides, I don't think history has been too kind to teams that have peaked in Week 8.
• Dillon Gabriel Heisman Watch: I don't know, man, but it feels like Gabriel has just been... there... and doing really well! I mean, he's been historically accurate with his throws, which sounds exactly like Bo Nix's time at Oregon. Is this a Dan Lanning thing or is Oregon just landing top flight QBs who have already been in college for a million years? Probably a little of both?
• Game time is 12:30 PM PDT on CBS in Eugene. Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 8: Give Me Boilermakers

 

Oregon hits the road for Friday night football. 

Coming off of an epic victory last weekend over Ohio State, it's a short turnaround for the Ducks with all kinds of targets on their backs. The Buckeyes game was everything as advertised: a nailbiting, back-and-forth game with explosive plays on both side of the ball. It came down to the final seconds, with the clock running out on OSU's attempt to get into field goal range after Oregon coach Dan Lanning exploited a (soon to be closed) loophole to shave a few seconds off of the clock before the final snap.

There are a bunch of tough teams ahead, and tonight's prime time matchup against Purdue has all of the potential trappings of, well, a trap game. The Boilermakers are coming off of a 50-49 OT loss to a ranked Illinois team, who the Ducks will be seeing soon themselves. Purdue can definitely score, as evident by last week, but they just haven't been consistent with it. Oregon will be looking for a little more consistency itself, especially in the kicking game, which wasn't quite up to par last Saturday.

The Ducks survived losing start DE Jordan Burch last week due to an injury he suffered in practice and will likely be without him for a stretch. Other players stepped up well in his absence, but as the season goes long, the depth chart always seems to wear thin.

I'm still not used to this Friday football stuff. I'm not sure that I'll ever like it, but it does free up my Saturday a bit and lets me enjoy flipping around through other games without being stressed about it.

Notes and such:

• Two things Purdue always reminds me of: Drew Brees on the cover of NCAA College Football 2K2 (great game!) and decades of sportswriters calling them Purdon't.
• Do they have any history at all? The schools have met just three times on the football field and all three matches have been decided by less than seven points. The last meetings were a home-and-home series in 2008-09. Oregon holds a 2-1 edge.
• Ducks ranking this week: 2 (AP). Oregon moved up with the big win last week as expected, but stays below Texas after the Longhorns trounced their rivals. We're still a couple of a weeks away from the first edition of the only rankings that matter.
• Dillon Gabriel Heisman Watch: As the Ducks go, so does Gabriel's Heisman chances. He's still in the conversation.
• Game time is 5:00 PDT on FOX in West Lafayette. Go Ducks!

Saturday Stars and Players for the Rest of the Week

 

Football, baseball, basketball, hockey?!

 

Fresh off a customs inspection at the border (presumably) and sitting around my office for awhile is another pile of goodies from buckstorecards. As always, he hit up a bunch of different areas of my collecting interests. I could have easily saved the DJ Johnson Prizm signature for this week's Good Luck Ducks post, but it clearly says "SATURDAY STAR" on it while Oregon is actually playing on a Friday this week for the second time in three games. I have rules, you see. (Also, DJ plays on Sundays these days, if you can call what the Panthers have been doing "playing".)

Vernon Adams Jr. really seemed to kick off the era of Oregon looking to transfers to help their QB ranks, although he certainly wasn't the first.

It's fun to follow Ducks players in their pro careers when the NFL thing isn't in the cards. Fortunately, CFL cards exist, as do generous traders who drop them on my doorstep (figuratively, of course.)

Here's a nice, numbered, high end Kiko Alonso card from something called Topps Supreme. I wonder how many of their old brands Topps will resurrect when they get their NFL rights back.

With the nearly complete lack of labels and color here, you'd have to forgive me for assuming this was one of those janky Leaf products. It's actually a Press Pass Showcase card, and looks very interesting with the red ink signature (on card!) and two distinct head shots.

I still pick up the occasional Eagles card from time to time, and this one is right in my wheelhouse as it's one of the members of the Super Bowl LII winning team. Nice.

It's on to a different sport and a bird of a different color. This is the white bordered variation of Lance Lynn's not-Photoshopped 2024 card because the photo is actually from 2017 (or earlier.) I did the research when the set first came out to track down the original Getty photo to confirm this, but I'm not doing it again.

I don't typically put college/draft cards of players the Cardinals drafted on my want list unless there's a prominent mention of the Cardinals on the card somewhere, but I also do include them in my binders when someone sends them to me. Pete Hansen is still working his way through the minor league ranks and played at high A this past season.

Is this art, AI, or some sort of AI-assisted art? I'm not sure, but I do know that it's from one of those online exclusive mini sets. This looks to have been released prior to Albert's reunion with St. Louis.

It's on to the non-aviary section of the package now, as we're checking out a "teal explosion" parallel of a Jerami Grant card. Grant is currently my favorite player on the team and was actually born in Portland when his father (Harvey) played for the Blazers, but with the team stuck near the bottom of a seemingly bottomless pit ever since Chauncey Billups came sniffing around, any decent veteran like Grant is always the subject of intense trade rumors.

Cards like this are just unfortunate, and a product of the way the NBA Draft functions, or at least used to. Joey Dorsey probably wore this Blazers cap for a few minutes that day before he was dealt to Houston. Sometimes you do get fun stuff out of these situations, like LaMarcus Aldridge holding up both  Bulls and Blazers caps during one of his photos. Still, this is a nice little oddball to have, and certainly less unsettling than seeing Luke Walton on a card wearing a Blazers jersey as a gimmick/tribute to his father.

It's already hockey season?! I've seen some of the scores come across the ticker already, so it must be. I picked out a former Blues player I'm actually somewhat familiar with for today's Blues-card-o'-the-post. Pacific made a lot of junk in their day, but this isn't bad.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 7: Deez Nuts

 

Number Two versus Number Three! 

 

To be perfectly honest, I thought I'd have a lot more to say about Ohio State this week. As it turns out, I really don't. Don't get me wrong: this is a huge, huge, huge game. However, with the expanded playoff format, this is no longer the game that is going to cruelly end someone's season, and unless there's a severe blowout (unlikely...?), it's probably not going to heavily alter the course of either team's trajectory. It should be fun, though!

At first thought of the Ducks joining the Big Ten, games against Ohio State and Michigan particularly seemed like a step up from their usual Pac-12 regular season competition. And on the flipside, as a fan of either of those schools, you probably weren't super thrilled to welcome a team of flashy-feathered fiends in goofy uniforms two or three time zones away. But we're here now, and we've never really liked Ohio. (My apologies to the unsettling amount of people I know personally with Ohio ties.)

The Ducks are going to quack regardless of the opponent, and they're coming off of another nice performance that showed off their talents but stopped just shy of showing their true potential. I think the best opponents usually bring out the best in top teams, so I'm hopefully that Oregon can step up and prove themselves today as one of those top teams. It's not going to be a sunken season if they can't come away with a W, but I would be shocked if the effort isn't at a season high.

A buckeye is some kind of tree nut, isn't it? Ducks can eat that in their sleep.

Notes and such:

• More uniform stuff: Oregon is busting out an all-black uniform in a new style tonight. It would probably work better if it was a month or so later in the season when it would actually be dark outside for the bulk of the game.
• Do they have any history at all? Oh, yeah. The Buckeyes were 9-0 heading into their meeting in the 2021 season. Oregon upset the Buckeyes on the road, but Ohio State would go on to win the Rose Bowl while the Ducks sputtered to a 10-4 season concluding with losses in the Pac-12 championship game and the Alamo Bowl.
• Ducks ranking this week: 3 (AP). It's #2 vs. #3!
• Dillon Gabriel something-or-other: Let's come back to this next week. This game could be huge... or not.
• Game time is 4:30 PM PDT on NBC. That's right, it's that network that used to only carry Notre Dame games. Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 6: Get Sparty

Oregon hosts Michigan State on a Friday night, just like the college football gods intended. 

 

Tonight, it will truly feel like the Ducks are part of the B1G. Well, that's aside from the whole Friday thing. Part of expanding to eighteen schools meant that, for broadcast reasons, Friday games were going to be part of the mix for, well,  most of the schools. Oregon hosts a traditional conference school in the green and white that they've played a few times in the past that they may someday form a new rivalry with. Or not. It's tough to say.

Last week, the Ducks won comfortably on the road over an outmatched and outgunned UCLA team that is still adjusting to a new head coach. This week, they are hosting a 3-2 team that is coming off of a blowout home loss to Ohio State. The Spartans also bring in a familiar face in ex-Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith. This might be one night that a bunch of Beavers fans could be pulling for their in-state rival, given the lingering bitterness of their prized head coach, alumnus and former QB jumping ship as the conference was imploding.

 

It should be a fun night at Autzen Stadium, with the full complement of the student body on campus and the typical shenanigans that a Friday college night brings. The Ducks have yet to play what feels like a "complete" game this season. I'm confident that Oregon will be up for showing the rest of the conference (and football watching country) what the move to the B1G is all about tonight.

The Spartans are led by a former Oregon State backup quarterback in Aidan Chiles, who has struggled with interceptions so far this season. Look for the Ducks to continue to establish some consistency on defense, while looking out to stop Chiles' ability to scramble and move on designed runs. (Look for me to enjoy the rest of the weekend without having any football games to worry about after tonight.)

Notes and such:

• I haven't said much about the uniforms this season, but they been nothing short of wonderful to look at, blending all of the latest modern flourishes with a look back to the mid-'90s uniform era, which just so happens to be when I attended. Tonight they are going for something different, as Dan Lanning's family helped design these to help "Stomp Out Cancer".
• Do they have any history at all? Oregon holds a 4-3 edge, with their last meeting coming in 2018 in the eminently forgettable Redbox Bowl, where the Ducks squeaked out a 7-6 win. Prior to that, the two schools met for home-and-home series three separate times, most recently in 2014/2015.
• Ducks ranking this week: 6 (AP). Oregon climbed up a couple of ticks this week while awaiting the arrival of the actual CFP rankings.
• Dillon Gabriel Heisman Watch: Gabriel seems to be a step or so outside of the conversation this week, but wins over Ohio State and Michigan could change that dramatically. You never know!
• Game time is 6:00 PM PDT on FOX. Go Ducks!