Good Luck Ducks, Week 14: Dirty Dawgs

 

It's Rivalry Week as Oregon takes on Washington.

The Ducks Big Ten conference schedule will end in the same way as it did last season and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It's time to face the Washington Huskies as the last test before leaving it all up in the hands of the CFP committee. Theoretically, the Ducks could still end up in the conference championship game, but they would need Michigan to pull off a fifth straight win over their hated rivals as well as take care of business today.

Oregon knocked off USC last week in a very satisfying way, all but ending the Trojans chances of making it into the playoffs themselves. While the injuries, particularly to the Ducks talented receiving corps do continue to concern, they were able to spread the ball around once again to an array of ball carriers and pass catchers. Two Oregon tight ends came up big once again, and I'd like to see them utilized even more while they have a lot of their talented wide outs sitting on the bench.

The Huskies are led by sophomore QB Demond Williams Jr., who has put together a nice season for his 8-3 squad. Washington is more of a run dominant team this year and the talent disparity between the two schools has narrowed considerably since last season, which will certainly make winning on the road a tougher challenge this time around.

Notes and miscellany:

• There have been plenty of big moments in this rivalry, but since the move to the Big 10 it feels like something is missing. I think the hatred felt more... organic, maybe, when it wasn't the scheduled last week of the season. Now it feels a little more manufactured perhaps. There certainly isn't a week's worth of hype about the game all over the local news channels like there was with the Civil War. For now, at least, this is just going to feel like the last game of the regular season and not much more.
• Opponent fun fact: While I'm not much of a dog person, I can certainly admit that huskies are pretty cool looking dogs. Of course, Washington's live mascots over the years have been Alaskan Malamutes and not actually huskies, strictly speaking. Prior to adopting the Huskies as their official team name in the early 1920s, however, Washington's mascot was named Sundodger. As in, you know, there's not a lot of sun in Seattle! Apparently it wasn't very popular.
• Opponent history: Washington leads the all-time series 63-49-5. After winning three consecutive close games from 2021-2023, they were blown off the field in Eugene last season. Let's hope this game is more like that game and not the ones that came before it.
• Game time is 12:30 PM PST on CBS in Seattle. Go Ducks!

A Holiday Gift

 

Baseball and football cards -- just the way you like them!

Christmas in sports cards form came late, but that's because I was out of town. I usually end up with a pile of packages and trades around the holidays, mostly because I figure that people are in a giving mood and also maybe have a little extra time off to do the card thing. I'm also out of town for a bit around these holiday maybe every two out of three years, so I was greeted with an avalanche of envelopes of all shapes and sizes once mail delivery resumed after the first of the year. At the top of the pile was a generous holiday package from Dennis of Too Many Verlanders, which is always a welcome sight.

Let's look at the football guys first. This is one of the blue mirror parallels from 2018 Panini Certified and is numbered to just 50 copies. I know some people dropped a lot of money on cards of the Heisman Trophy winner Mariota early in his career, and I've benefitted lately on picking up a few of his nicer cards now that the shine has long worn off.

Here's another Ducks QB in his pro uniform. I think Justin Herbert is going to have to shed the stigma of being a Chargers player entirely if he is going to elevate his status in the NFL, but certainly having Jim Harbaugh around could eventually change things a bit. We'll see.

Of course, this is another card for my Oregon collection, but it reminds me of how strange it feels that I actually rooted for the Chiefs at one point. Like... this decade. Kind of.

It's kind of incredible that I now own two distinct versions of this fairly obscure auto/manupatch card of late oughts Ducks running back Jeremiah Johnson. You can see the other one here. (Same card, different patch!)

For every Jalen Hurts, Donovan McNabb or Randall Cunningham in my time following the Eagles, there's been a couple of Kevin Kolbs and a couple of Detmers. Well, maybe just one Kolb. Anyway, it was a great year for the Eagles and you'd think I'd have more to say about it, but the Super Bowl was kind of surreal... in a fun way!

I'm not a full fledged Eagles team collector in the same way that I am with Cardinals (baseball) cards, but I do have a couple of boxes set aside for them. I did add a bunch of base Duce Staley cards to my want list on TCDB since he was a favorite from the past, and serendipitously ended up receiving this numbered "Premiere Date" parallel from Dennis around the same time. It's great!

Jevon Holland is a really good player, and a free agent. I could certainly think of another bird team whose uniform he'd look pretty good in if you ask me.

Here's another Duck! Ed Dickson is showing off the underrated late '00s Ducks look here.

Of course, the package wasn't all pigskin pushers. (That's a thing, right?) Dennis sent over a nice little stack of baseball parallels and inserts from sets I dabble in from time to time. These two Bowman Heritage cards are both chunky one-per-pack parallels with facsimile signatures. This era used to have a lot of thick cards that would theoretically throw off someone trying to search for similarly thick coveted memorabilia cards.

This trio of lesser known baseball players are featured on mini parallels from the 2005 Bowman Heritage set. Chris Volstad is the only name I remember here. It's possible that the other two never made it to the bigs.

Last up from the set stuff is a 2005 Turkey Red red parallel for the meta collectors out there, and a '74 Highlights card from the 2023 Topps Heritage set. They don't really fit together at all, but what the hell, I was saving some space.

The last card featured here is a Cards card (hey, that's the blog!) Kolten Wong had a decent run with the team and will always been linked with the Mike Matheny era, for better and for worse. I think most of us would welcome something on the level of the Matheny days right now, considering the current state of the team (ahem: mediocrity.)

Good Luck Ducks, Week 3: Gone Huskin'

Oregon faces a B1G test. 

Most college football seasons get incrementally tougher, and that's how it's going to be for the 2016 Oregon Ducks. Fresh off their second straight non-conference win over an inferior opponent, Oregon travels to Nebraska to take on the former longtime Oregon State coach's current school. Non-conference games against quality opponents have become a lost art in today's game, but Oregon has managed to schedule home-and-home matchups with some noteworthy schools in most years. Let's hope this continues, because it seems like more and more the SEC-style path of least resistance when it comes to scheduling is the new norm.

Despite a slightly narrower margin of victory, Oregon looked better on both sides of the ball last week against Virginia. The final tally seemed more of a result of the Ducks pulling their punches earlier and thinking ahead to their next opponent than some slippage in their performance. No, the defense didn't suddenly get great overnight, and some freshman mistakes were glaringly obvious. The Cavaliers certainly felt the wrath of Rolls Royce, with Freeman placing himself in the Heisman Conversation (tm) as early as Week 2. (Unfortunately, staying in said conversation pretty much requires being a playoff contender, something that is not expected of the Ducks at this time.)

Nebraska, to their credit, has scored even more points than the Ducks and given up fewer. Nebraska still remains outside the Top 25, but they are favored by a field goal at home and that seems like it could be a bit on the slight side. Last week, the Ducks showed they are explosive on offense and shouldn't be counted out, but they could very well be set up for an ambush here. On the other hand, they haven't lost to a Mike Riley coached team since 2007 and will be looking for their eighth consecutive win over one of his squads. In any case, a win today would give Oregon a big impression heading into conference play.


Oregon destroyed Mike Riley's team in their last meeting, back in 2014 in Corvallis.
Game time is 12:30 PDT with national coverage on ABC. Go Ducks!