Good Luck Ducks, Week 1: Greater Oregon

New season, new conference. 

 

There's a, um, movement -- if you want to call it that -- where certain residents of the Pacific Northwest want the state of Idaho to annex a portion of eastern Oregon. They call it Greater Idaho. I bet you can guess what I think of that whole thing, a sort of far-fetched idea from a far flung outpost of the country. (Honestly, if you love Idaho so much, maybe consider moving there?)

It's the end of August, and that means the Oregon Ducks are back on the field. It's their first year in the Big Ten conference, but they have the usual three non-conference games to get through before they get their first taste of action against the primarily midwestern opponents. Idaho is up first, an FCS team from the Big Sky conference. While the Vandals aren't necessarily trying to steal precious resources and territory from The Beaver State, they would love to take the preseason number three ranked Ducks down a peg or five.

So much has changed for Oregon this season, with wholesale changes at nearly all of the skill positions. I can't remember Oregon ever being ranked this high before the season, and those expectations seem even more questionable considering that they've moved on to what is by most accounts a tougher conference with so many new players at important positions. Dillon Gabriel will start at QB for the Ducks, entering his sixth season after playing for UCF and Oklahoma. Gone are Bo Nix and Troy Franklin to the Denver Broncos, but there is still an extremely talented and versatile corps of receivers standing by. Jordan James takes his first crack at RB1 after primarily being a second option last season and a short yardage/goal line specialist early in his career. Also, there's a dude named Kobe Savage on the team now? Cool name, for sure.

Notes and such:

• I'm not going to talk about the uniforms every week, but suffice it to say that I've liked what I've seen previewed so far. It looks like they're really leaning into a throwback-inspired look more than ever this year, along with the latest experimental Nike technology, of course.
• Do they have any history at all? Oregon has the, uh, slight edge, with a 52-3-4 record over the Vandals. They used to play every year up until 1970, but their last meeting was in 2004.
• Ducks Ranking This Week: 3 (AP). It's meaningless until we hit at least the halfway point in the season, or basically whenever the actual CFP rankings come out. By the way, perhaps even a bigger deal in the long run than all the conference changing shenanigans is the expanded playoff format this year. I like it, but I wish it didn't take such a huge chunk of my lifetime to get there.
• ???? Heisman Watch: Despite the lofty expectations thrust upon this team, I am not sure they have any sort of Heisman candidacy going at this point. Sure, Gabriel has a lot of buzz right now because he's coming off a nice season with Oklahoma, but it's tough to know what to think at this point. It's The Duck (mascot) at this point who is doing all the legwork to get noticed. Could we get him on the ballot?!
• Game time is 4:30 PM PDT on the B1G Network in Eugene. Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks: Pac-12 Championship Edition

 

Oregon's biggest game in nearly a decade sees them in a rematch with the only team that beat them. 

 

Here it is! After a full season of dominance, aside from a bit of a hiccup against Washington, we've finally arrived at the final Pac-12 Conference Championship game. This rematch wouldn't have even been possible just a couple of years ago, but a decision was made to effectively eliminate the divisions in the conference and just have the top two teams battle it out for the title. (This change, of course, did not save the conference.) Setting aside the fact that the title actually loses a bit of its meaning when it no longer pits the best from one division against the other, this should be a really exciting game!

Oregon has been, shall we say, on one since the unfortunate loss to UW. Bo Nix has the offense humming. School records have been falling week after week. Could the Ducks be any more prepared for this one? I don't think so. It would be the ultimate capper to everything this team has accomplished if Oregon could take the final conference title home tonight.

Washington will have something to say about this, of course. In the first game up in Seattle, which feels like a lifetime ago, a lot of what went wrong in the end felt self-inflicted. In the weeks since, none of this poor decision-making has cropped up again, although to be fair the Ducks haven't really been in a close game since.

Notes and other things:

• If we were still operating under the old rules, Washington would be playing 9-3 Arizona tonight. That would still be a fun game, but super frustrating considering where Oregon stands in the overall rankings right now. Hey, the Pac-12 finally got something right!
• Where Are They Headed? As mentioned previously, Oregon and Washington will meet during in late November every season for the foreseeable future. While tonight's game will close the books on the old conference (and a number of hugely successful college careers), the rivalry and all that goes with it will go on.
• Ducks Ranking This Week: 5. Oregon still finds themselves outside the top 4, but have a chance to move up if they win tonight. Nothing is certain, however.
• Bo Nix Heisman Watch: Not only are the conference title and playoff hopes on the line, but this game could decide the Heisman race as well! The primary competition for Nix and Penix is Jayden Daniels, whose season is already complete.
• Game time is 5:00 PST on ABC in Las Vegas. Go Ducks!

Stacked with Ducks

A stack of Ducks from @realwesmore from a Twitter swap a few months back. 

 

You may know him as The Pancake King or perhaps by another name, but often times the cards from super trader Wes come randomly and by surprise. This was different, however, as Wes offered up a ton of cards from various sports for blind trades. I ended up picking out a few -- all for my Oregon Ducks collection. I could have held off on showing these until next football season, but maybe this will motivate me to add even more Ducks cards to my collection before September arrives.

This is a really nice looking Josh Huff card from a 2014 Upper Deck offering. It includes a two-color jersey swatch and is numbered to 125.

This one isn't signed, but it was my first Jake Breeland card. I have... let's see... two now!

I guess back printing plates are a thing? It's kind of amusing to me that they would make these for a set with such boring backs like this Press Pass product from 2008, but it's a plate nonetheless. I don't have many of those.

Here's the proof of the stacking!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 8: Avoiding the Trap

The traveling freak show that is the Oregon Ducks football team is in Tempe tonight, under the lights, to face the Arizona St. Sun Devils in prime time. The Ducks have typically fared very well after a bye week, and hopefully the extra time off will give them a chance to correct a few things that have been recurring themes so far this season. The offense has been very "feast or famine", with the famine side of the coin coming up more often than not in the past three games. Not coincidentally, wild card De'Anthony Thomas hasn't done much with the ball in those three games. It feels surprising to write this about a team that is scoring as much as Oregon has been scoring while blowing their opponents out of water, but a large part of why the games have gone the way they have has had to do with a very opportunistic defense.

Marcus Mariota will eventually get this offense running like a well-oiled machine. He is a freshman, after all. Games like tonight's game scare me a great deal, especially when the opponent is playing on their own turf and is sitting pretty with a 5-1 overall record. Neither team has played any powerhouse teams yet, but Oregon comes into this game knowing they are facing an opponent on the road that can play well on both sides of the ball. Limiting mistakes, getting the ball into the hands of their most explosive playmakers (hello, De'Anthony) and creating more of those turnovers that appear to have come so easy to the Ducks this year will all be important tonight.

I expect a win tonight, but I'm more nervous about this game than any of their games going back to sometime last season. Lets hope the Ducks stomp all over those ridiculous trident yardmarkers and head into the weekend with a still unblemished record.

(Requisite YouTube clip still to come. In the meantime, watch this.)

Game time at 6:00 PDT with national coverage on ESPN. Go Ducks!