Good Luck Ducks, Week 1: Student Orientation

Oregon begins another season with big expectations and dreams.

A new college football season is upon us once again! Dan Lanning begins his 5th (!) season at the helm of Quack Central with all kinds of expectations on his shoulders once again. For two years running, the Ducks felt like they were the best team in the nation for stretches only to find themselves unable to measure up to one of their own conference foes when things mattered the most (i.e. the playoffs.) Two seasons ago, it was the second meeting with Ohio State that clipped their wings. Last season, a second chance at Indiana was no more fruitful than the first one.

Nevertheless, Dante Moore, who some had pegged as a #2 pick had he decided to enter the NFL Draft even after some issues were exposed in the playoffs, has returned to lead a stacked Ducks team back to another hopeful playoff run. He's joined by a talented defense and some interesting offensive weapons as Oregon will make their season debut hosting Boise State of the new eight team Pac-12 Conference.

I have a lot more Boise State memories imprinted on my brain than your average early season nonconference opponent. We all know about the Smurf Turf, which they weren't allowed to bring on this trip. There was the glorious Statue of Liberty play, the hilarious Blount punch (not so hilarious for Blount, I suppose) and more recently a Raiders guy named Jeanty doing a modern day Bo Jackson Tecmo Bowl impression all over NCAA opponents circa 2024. This year's Broncos team is at least a couple of touchdowns of an underdog against the Ducks juggernaut in Eugene, but that doesn't mean that they can't make it interesting. After all, it was Jeanty's team a couple of seasons ago that really made Oregon sweat it out. It's difficult for me to have any expectations going into Week 1, especially in the era of shifting conference alignments, the transfer portal and the whole NIL thing.

Notes:

• Welcome back to football season, whether you like it or not! I took my now annual unplanned summer(?) vacation from regular posting here, but you can expect more activity around here this fall beyond the minimum of a post-per-Oregon game.
• With big success comes big coaching losses, and it will be interesting to see how Oregon deals with losing both their offensive and defensive coordinators. It's more than a bit scary to think about.
• Opponent fun fact: It may not be fun for the visitors, but weather here in the Willamette Valley took a strange turn this week when we were greeted with unseasonably cold and occasionally unstable weather. Our consistently dry season tends to run from the beginning of July through early October, so it's been strange. In any case, apparently Boise State's flight to Eugene was held up from landing multiple times before being redirected to Portland where the team had to wait for buses to show up to take them down to Eugene late last night.
• Opponent history: The Broncos lead the all-time series 3-1, with Oregon's lone win coming two seasons ago in a 37-34 squeaker at Autzen.
• Game time is 12:30 PM PDT on CBS in Eugene. Go Ducks!

Transitional Season

 

Shifting from summer sports to fall sports with help from a huge stack of cards from each.

This time of year can always sneak up on a person. The Boys of Summer are winding down while the gridiron lines have been painted and are ready to go. Full-on hoopin' is just around the corner. Let's check out some cards from the fall sports and a few baseball ones from buckstorecards, with the typical several months time delay you're used to seeing around here.

Cooper Hjerpe starred locally (at Oregon State) and wound up drafted by the Cardinals, which means that they are actually some intentional Beavers cards in my collection. Hjerpe (pronounced JER-pee) is on his way back from suffering some major injuries in his pro career and could look to make a big league impact at some point.

Here's a Triple Threads card with that canvas-y feel of old Eagles favorite Brian Westbrook.

My Ducks collection gets another fairly low numbered card in this Luke Ridnour "Proof" from 2009-10 Studio.

A pair of Ducks football players team up here on a Playoff Contenders inserts from around 20 years ago.

Kramer Robertson only had a single plate appearance in the big leagues across two games and would end up hanging it up after that final season (2023).

Oregon has always been successful at placing quarterbacks in the pro ranks, although for a time many of them were journeymen like A.J. Feeley.

This might be my first and only Harry Giles Blazers card, but it's a good one!

Here's a numbered (to 100) Reuben Droughns card from Score Select, capturing his move from the Browns to the Giants.

Speaking of Cleveland Ducks, Dillon Gabriel started about half of his pro team's games in his rookie season but is caught in the middle of the drama where his team's position group also includes the son of Deion Sanders and a sex pest (to put it mildly.)

Demetrius Williams seems to have a ton of football cards for his era and the impact he made on the game, but I'm not complaining. Of course, these days he'd probably have more than three hundred thousand Wild Card so-called one-of-ones.

Although the orange clashes with the lime green here, it's always fun to end up with a shiny new Prizm Troy Franklin card.

This one fits Dolphin colors a bit better.

Panini Origins has long been a hobby exclusive, so any chance at snapping up a single or two of someone I collect from these sets is a nice deal.

The Eagles haul continues here with one of their best all-time running backs, LeSean McCoy.

I'm not really able to place the name Ed Reynolds anymore, but I thought the pink tint of this autographed Prizm card is interesting. Check the breast cancer awareness ribbons as well.

This is another four pack of lesser known Eagles guys on numbered cards (plus another McCoy.)

As is typical, I also ended up with another stack of St. Louis Blues cards. I chose this one from 1991 to scan. I mean, his name is Zombo after all.