Good Luck Ducks, Week 12: More Like...

Oregon faces their final road test of the season in their penultimate conference game. 

 

I probably say this every year at this time, but man, this college football season has really flown by. It's a relatively short season compared to other sports I follow, but you really get to go through the changing of the seasons as the weeks progress. We start things off in late August or early September in t-shirts and shorts and now, all of a sudden, it feels like winter outside. Autumn always feels like the shortest season to me, at least with Portland's weather.

Of course, I'm here to talk about college football, not the weather. The Ducks are flying high after another win last week and take a 10-0 record to Badger territory this week. Wisconsin has had an up-and-down season and for the most part hasn't really been in close games. They've been on both sides of a lot of blowouts. If the trend holds, let's hope that they're on the wrong side of a blowout tonight.

It's also the time of the season where the injuries have piled up, and the Ducks have their fair share. Oregon is still expected to be without ace receiver Tez Johnson this week, and there are a few other key stars that showed up on the injury report as "questionable" early this week: Marcus Harper and two Jordans (Burch and James.)

Here's a bonus card this week thanks to Dennis! This was sent to me in advance of the last meeting between Wisconsin and Oregon in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day 2020. The Ducks pulled off the big one point win in Justin Herbert's final game, and then it was all downhill from there that year as I recall. Let's hope that there isn't another worldwide health crisis coming after this one.

Notes and such:

• Bucky Badger has to be one of the weirdest looking mascots in the game. To be fair, though, he is a badger. Badgers are really something.
• Do they have any history at all? The all-time series is tied at 3-3. Aside from the aforementioned 2020 Rose Bowl, Oregon also beat Wisconsin in the 2012 Rose Bowl and in a season opening match back in 2001. Wisconsin had won the previous meeting in 2000 and before that it gets a little fuzzy.
• Ducks ranking this week: 1.
• Dillon Gabriel Heisman Watch: The Ducks just need to keep on winning and see what happens. There aren't a lot of bad choices for the award this year.
• Game time is 4:30 PM PST on NBC in Madison. Go Ducks!

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 10: Buffalo Time

The Ducks look to hold their position as they hit the road for the second week against a struggling Colorado team. 

 

It's Ducks time again, and they're in Boulder this week to take on Colorado. The Buffaloes were once a storied football team and I'm sure it made sense at the time to add them to the conference when the Pac 10 was looking to expand. In the current times where schools are always looking for a better deal for their football cash cows, it starts to feel more like a cautionary tale. While Utah has recently stepped it up to become a conference power, Colorado has only won 43 games (including nonconference!) since joining the conference in 2011. I don't think you need to be a math major to know that isn't good.

Of course, on any given Saturday, a talented football team can meet their untimely demise, and that doesn't exclude these Ducks. Oregon suddenly finds themselves a bit thin at wide receiver, with Seven McGee entering the dreaded transfer portal and other injuries painting a murky picture. (To be fair, I'm mostly disappointed about McGee leaving because I really liked his name.) Fortunately, Bo Nix continued his... dare I say it... Heisman-esque season with another stellar performance last week. Even with some sudden wide receiver shortages, it seems like only the defense can cap this team's potential. Let's hope that they are able to work on some things against the one-win Buffaloes today and turn it into a positive.

Notes and other things: 

• We're in the time of the season where rankings start to feel important. Oregon at #8 seems about right. It seems very unlikely that they would get steamrolled right now if they played Georgia again, although a win over them seems a bit far-fetched. The other undefeated teams, on the other hand... well, I'd love to see them play each other!
• The Ducks will dodge another weather bullet this week it seems. If the game was in Eugene... well, let's just say that it's been stormy in the Willamette Valley. The worst would have probably been over by kickoff time, but it was still something to think about.
• I just acquired a Sega Dreamcast console to replace my original one and tried to play an Oregon vs. Colorado matchup in College Football 2K2 in honor of this game. It went so poorly that I hit the reset button shortly before halftime.
• I'm glad that this game will be over before game 6 of the World Series kicks off. It's been one of the most boring playoffs that I can recall, but the World Series is finally trying to make up for the short series abundance and occasionally lopsided games.

Game time is 12:30 PM PDT on ESPN in Boulder. Go Ducks!

Featuring Kevin Kolb

Ducks, Blazers, Eagles and maybe even one Cardinal card headline a package of things received in December. 

 

While I may not be buying new (Topps) baseball cards for the time being, there's still plenty of things to show off here on the blog. From the country up north came another great package from Sportscards from the Dollar Store that, as usual, featured cards from all the sports.

Second year cards of Justin Herbert have naturally been a bit easier to acquire, but I still don't have a ton of them. I stopped signing up for the Chargers in group breaks once Herbert had passed his rookie year, and the prices were starting to get out of hand.

This NBA Hoops Rookie insert of Jermaine O'Neal is really nice looking card for such a budget brand. The "rookie" lettering printed on the card is embossed.

Here's a pair of Bowman Sterling jersey cards from Jonathan Stewart's rookie season. The green parallel on the left is numbered to 299.

And yes, here is Kevin Kolb! If the black borders and block lettering seem familiar, it's because this is from a 2007 set, and Topps used the same basic design as baseball for the other sports. I honestly haven't thought about Kolb in quite awhile, but it's a fun card.

It's too bad that The Original Whizzinator will always be Onterrio Smith's legacy, because he was a terrific running back when he was actually on the field. It looks like the Whizzinator is actually still a thing. There's a website! (I'm not gonna link it.)

I'm going to have to remember to go back and try to fill in my collection with as many Penei Sewell cards as possible from 2021, because offensive linemen don't typically get a lot of cards beyond their rookie year. This is a really nice one, although all of the different colors tend to clash with Sewell's Ducks jersey. Look for Penei's brother Noah to join him in the NFL at some point. He's pretty good as well. I believe there's four Sewell brothers in all.

All of the stars and glitter give this one a bit of a holiday or winter feel.

Here's the lone Cardinals card of the lot, but it's a good one. I'm a big fan of high end base cards, which I know are the source of disappointment for anyone who likes to spend big money on boxes of just a few cards.

Finally, in his fifth season in the league, I have my first Chris Boucher card. He was a favorite of mine at UO. He never got a proper rookie card as he was still injured when he entered the league and went undrafted, and his first official card ended up being in a Panini Instant set that commemorated the Warriors title that year.

From the most recent Panini Chronicles Draft set comes this triple jersey card of the Blazers second round pick. It's a blue parallel that's numbered to just 99.

And here's the Blazers other rookie on a similar triple jersey card. This is the base version, so it's unnumbered. Portland entered the draft with zero picks, but ended up trading their way into Greg Brown, who is a raw prospect but a terrific dunker, and then signed the undrafted Trendon Watford. Watford played his way into the team's rotation before they ended up tearing almost the whole team down about a month ago. Watford even recently signed a long term contract, which is a huge deal for a dude that didn't even get picked.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 4: Wildcat Fever

Oregon opens conference play with some #Pac12AfterDark action. 

 

The only real Ducks-related drama last week was when starting QB Anthony Brown Jr. didn't come out to start the second half, having taken a couple of shots near the head on the final drive of the first half. Two of their three highly touted freshmen ended up under center in the second half, but in the end it wasn't a factor and Brown is expected to start tonight. Oregon didn't show a lot against Stony Brook but didn't have to.

Tonight is the conference opener, which sees the Ducks face off against Arizona at Autzen Stadium. The Wildcats dropped all three of their nonconference games this year, including an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks last week. They are also owners of the nation's longest losing streak (15). Still, this is a conference game, and any matchup against Arizona shouldn't be taken for granted. Crazy things can happen in the Pac-12 in the late timeslot. We all know this.

Oregon still has some injuries to deal with, especially on the defensive side. Will Kayvon Thibodeaux return to the field? The outlook is hazy, but apparently he's launched his own cryptocurrency, so that's... something. Look for the third-ranked Ducks to open up the playbook a bit tonight after keeping things pretty vanilla looking in two of their first three games.

Series History: Oregon leads it 27-17, with a 34-6 win in their last meeting two seasons ago.

Opponent Talk: Wildcats fans are predicting blowouts of several flavors.

Justin Herbert was nearly perfect (go figure) in the last meeting between these two squads.

Game time is 7:30 PM PDT on ESPN. Go Ducks!