Good Luck Ducks, Week 11: Turtle Power

 

Oregon hosts an unfamiliar foe as the season officially enters the stretch run. 

 

It's been quite a season! While it still feels like it was just summer around here, especially coming off of a week with a string of 60+ degree sunny days, time is winding down on the 2024 college football regular season. The Ducks enter this weekend with an unblemished record at the top of the class, but there are still a few tests awaiting them before a potentially huge B1G championship game battle.

Next up on the schedule is a home game against Maryland. The Terps were coming off of a decent 2023 season that saw them win big in a bowl game and lose by just one score against the eventual national champs. They started off 2024 decently enough, but have been up-and-down for pretty much the whole schedule. Still, Maryland was 3-1 at one point and are coming off of a bye week, so it would be dangerous thinking to take them lightly right now.

Fortunately, the Ducks are still firing on all cylinders (I need to come up with another metaphor) despite losing their #1 option at wideout in Tez Johnson last week to an apparent shoulder injury. I was pretty convinced that Tez had broken his collarbone during the Michigan game, which was tough because he's the most exciting Oregon player this season in my eyes. (No offense to Dillon Gabriel, who is kind of... boring... because he's incredibly accurate and dare I say robotic in his efficiency at this point.)

I'm guessing we won't see Tez anymore this month unless he happens to make a surprise pop-up appearance against Washington somehow, but there are plenty of other reasons to be excited about the Ducks on both sides of the ball. Jordan James and Noah Whittington make a fearsome rushing tandem while still feeling like they've been underutilized. Having fresh ball carriers in November is definitely nothing to sneeze at. Terrance Ferguson is back wreaking havoc alongside newcomer Kenyon Sadiq, making a pair of tight ends that might not be rivaled. And Gabriel still has a plethora of talented targets on the field while we wait for Tez to return. Yes, it's a great time to be a Duck right now. There's still plenty of work to be done this season, however.

Notes and such:

• Maryland is trying to get in on that uniform game. There's only so much you can do with traditionally white road unis, so I respect this a lot. At least it's a lot better than some of their flag-based uniform designs.
• Do they have any history at all? Nope! This will be their first meeting.
• Ducks ranking this week: 1. The first CFP rankings came out this week at a very unfortunate time. Oregon is on top. No further questions.
• Dillon Gabriel Heisman Watch: I think it's down to Gabriel vs. Cam Ward depending on how the rest of the season schedule plays out. Both have been playing college football for approximately 34 years. If Miami wins out, well, people seem to be more excited about Ward despite Oregon probably being a better team at this point, at least based on their strength of schedule. I don't see the Colorado guy or Ashton Jeanty winning this because of how heavily weighted this usually is towards QBs for top ranked teams.
• Game time is 4:00 PM PST on the B1G Network in Eugene. Go Ducks!

Printing Plate Surprise

Hoopsters, a stack of Heritage baseball needs and something unique from a long time trader. 

 

It's been a pretty good year for me as far as my basketball card collection goes. It was never a big focus of my overall goals, but once they really took away the opportunity to buy basketball cards in stores (thanks in large part due to hype over certain rookie cards), I've really appreciated the basketball cards that I am able to get. Thanks to fellow traders like buckstorecards, as well as online sales and TCDB trades, my hoops collection is alive and well. Let's look at the buckstorecards envelope that came over here back in June.

As basketball card prices continued to escalate, the Panini sticker sets continued to provide an opportunity to get the latest players at reasonably prices. I know stickers aren't for everybody, but I enjoy them. If only we could find some appealing way to display them in binders without peeling them.

The recent sticker packs also come with full-sized cards. This one is a bronze parallel and is numbered to 99!

The bulk of the package was a big chunk of 2022 Topps Heritage cards. I was able to finish off the non-SP base set long before High Numbers came out this year, something I am very proud of.

The finishing touch comes in the form of this printing plate of former Ducks star Reuben Droughns. Droughns was the lead back on the 1998 and 1999 Ducks teams that went to the Aloha Bowl and Sun Bowl, respectively.

The card is a yellow plate from the 2005 Topps Draft Picks & Prospects set. I only own a few printing plates, so it was really cool to see this one pop up in the mail as a surprise.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 1: Do Something

Off we go, with a new coach in tow. 

It sounds absolutely crazy to me, but this is the tenth year that I've been blogging (tangentially) about sports cards here. This also means 10 years of Good Luck Ducks posts. This is the beginning of the few months where I talk about a different sport and a different team, generally boring to death the 80% or so of the people that come to this blog because of the banner and the title. Year One was Mike Bellotti's final year at the helm of the Ducks football squad, the coach who took an unlikely bunch that was coming off of a surprise Rose Bowl appearance and turned them into serious contenders. Year Two was Chip Kelly's debut, and Kelly only lost 7 (!) games in his 4 seasons in Eugene.

Mark Helfrich succeeded him and ended up losing 8 last season alone. That's not to diminish what the team accomplished in the Helfrich years, of course. A national championship appearance with, I don't know, Gary Andersen at the helm may not have been possible even with Marcus Mariota at QB. Year Ten brings us the first head coaching hire from outside of the program since long before I was alive in Willie Taggart. Taggart has been all up in everyone's business all of the time since taking control, which has led to phenomenal results in the recruiting department. With Taggart, we go from Win The Day (Kelly) to, uh, Keep Winning the Day? (Helfrich) to Do Something.

That's Taggart's slogan. Do something. Play football, I guess. I don't know, just do something. Draw a picture. Pretend you're not being exploited as part of a billion dollar industry where everybody profits off of your successes on the field and the hard work you put in as an unpaid (except for that pesky education) athlete. Just, do it, whatever it is. Something. The slogan might be the most ineffectual and uninspiring thing to come out of social media hashtaggery, but I'll give the coach the benefit of the doubt. Like every first college football weekend in September, today is a total reset for expectations. I may not expect the Ducks to win more than 2 games this season, but they could also win a whole bunch of them. That would be great. You never know until they hit the field, and that's what's exciting.

And now, here are some links for you to peruse at your leisure.

• Oregon's best receiver missed the national championship on his first strike. His third strike got him kicked off of the team, only to land comfortably on a conference rival.
• Justin Herbert, starting sophomore quarterback who looks all of thirteen years old in many of his press photos, has started embracing the campus stud role.
• Know Your Opponent: The Southern Utah Thunderbirds are a team I've never heard of before, but I enjoy their nickname. It makes me want to drink fortified wine, maybe.
• The Unis! Green and yellow, the best colors and probably their best combo in at least a couple of seasons. Taggart has hinted at toning down the uniform craziness (next week notwithstanding), but you never know.

The parting (video) gift: 

Game time is 5:15 PM PDT. Broadcast channel is the Pac-12 Network. Your scheduled broadcasters are JB Long, Jill Savage and Yogi Roth. Go Ducks!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 4: Cougars Gonna Coug

Oregon faces their first conference test against a team leading the nation in passing yards.

Coming off another perfect non-conference run, Oregon makes a run up to the Palouse tonight for the first time since 2010. Last week's win over Wyoming was pretty comfortable, if not quite the rout that the gambling folks were predicting. Wyoming may be tougher than people realized. It could also be a sign that the youth and inexperience is starting to show up on the field for the guys in the green helmets (or whatever color they're using this week). More likely than not, however, is that I'm probably concerned about a whole lot of nothing.

The Ducks have a legitimate shot at #1 in some polls after this weekend is over thanks to a serious upset alert down in Florida. Florida State will be missing their super-sketchy Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback due to suspension and will be doing it while facing a ranked opponent in Clemson. While an Oregon victory over Washington State tonight isn't exactly a résumé-builder, there is always a war of attrition at the top of the football table.

Tonight, the Ducks face Conor Halliday's Cougar Air Raid Attack (Cat Raid?). Halliday has already passed for 1465 yards in just three games, though they lost two of them. (The one game they won was against FCS Portland State.) Still, Halliday lit up the Ducks last year in a record breaking performance that Oregon certainly isn't likely to have forgotten. Oregon won the game, but many of the yards were piled up in garbage time, something that stuck in the craw of now retired Defensive Coordinator Nick Aliotti. Halliday could and likely will burn the Ducks secondary tonight, but Oregon has the talent to give up some points and still come out victorious. Honestly, I'm pretty nervous about this one and am not sure what will happen. The Ducks haven't lost to the Cougars since 2006, a season in which they finished 7-6 and unranked. This doesn't seem like it will be that kind of season.

Highlights of last season's matchup with Washington State, with a spotlight on one of the nation's top defensive backs -- Ifo Ekpre-Olomu. Pink helmets, yikes!

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

Good Luck Ducks, Week 7: Something to Prove

Every week in college football, you could argue that there's "a lot on the line" for any team hoping to achieve some level of success - a bowl game, perhaps. Bust out any of those tired cliches and they will apply here. The Ducks are trying to remain in contention for a BCS bowl (or better) while the Arizona State Sun Devils, #18 on the charts depending on who you ask, basically have the Pac-12 South locked up already and have a legitimate shot at a conference championship.

The Sun Devils are led by Vontaze Burfict, a linebacker who (again, if you listen to the cliche spouters) is Godzilla, Superman and Jesus all rolled in to one football sized human. He's also kind of dirty. Go ahead, just Google him. It won't take long. However, if the Ducks allow just one person to take them out of their game plan, it doesn't say much for their chances at greater success this year. Meanwhile, ASU's starting QB Brock Osweiler makes his second career start at Autzen Stadium. His last visit saw him as a freshman fill in for an injured starter before he was forced to leave the game himself due to injury. He's tall and can throw.

The biggest story is that the Ducks will almost certainly be without LaMichael James, barring some sort of Willis Reed-esque surprise appearance on the field, something you don't really see in collegiate sports because there's too much at stake and the players aren't being paid to be heroes. LaMike dislocated his elbow in the last game, but there is some hope that he won't miss a lot of time. Oregon has plenty of talented backs to carry the ball, but James just has the explosion thing that you don't really see in anyone else.

Above footage from ASU's 2009 visit to Autzen Stadium.

Game time is 7:15 PDT with national coverage on ESPN. Lee Corso's into it; what about you?

Good Luck Ducks, Week 1: Revenge

It's that time again! After listening to nearly an entire summer of college football talk, all of the endless amounts of speculation, anticipation, conjecture, rhetoric, hype, tempering of expectations, bravado, humility and borderline insanity culminate in a football game played between two teams that hate each other on a field painted in the wrong color in a state known primarily for its potato exports. Do I care to make a prediction? More than any other sport I follow closely, a team's college football season simply cannot be predicted until the team steps out on the field. There's far too much player turnover, and in Oregon's case this season, even a new head football coach.

Oregon's opening game against Michigan State 11 seasons ago, to me, was one of the biggest turning points in their program. Many point to the unlikely Rose Bowl appearance in 1994, followed up by a (better) Cotton Bowl team in 1995, but those teams couldn't score. Without having any real expectations or any idea of how this team was going to perform, Ruben Droughns and Akili Smith flattened a highly touted Michigan State team at Autzen Stadium in 1998 and have been known for their offensive prowess ever since. It was a jaw-dropping game to me, seeing a junior college transfer run around like they were playing 11-on-6. Droughns suffered a major injury later that season, but rebounded for a solid senior season and has hung around the NFL ever since.

Tonight's game is a bit of a revenge game. Boise State took a couple of cheap shots at the Ducks, giving QB Jeremiah Masoli a concussion in the process and generally smacked the team around on their own field. Hopefully the Ducks will get their revenge on the scoreboard, and not in the dirty tactics that the Broncos use (though I wouldn't mind seeing these guys get hit a bit.) The game will be on national TV tonight (ESPN) at 7:15 PDT. And, yes, I actually took a vacation day to watch this as I normally work nights.

And thus begins another season of Good Luck Ducks. Admit it: you missed it, didn't you?