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Dan Lanning's is going to need every bit of his sports psychologist's abilities to keep this team engaged and motivated now that we have nothing to play for other than a bowl game. No more "We still have all of our goals in front of us" to remind the team to get back on the horse. Every person on this roster that stuck around an extra year to win a Natty is going to have to dig deep realizing that at the very least they are still playing to save their draft stock. Perhaps the silver lining will be checking sports media seeing that nobody is covering us anymore now that we are irrelevant. No more rat poison at least.

"Either he has assembled an offensive unit of fake 4/5 star players or he has assembled a fake offensive coaching staff." Exactly. There's only Door #1, or Door #2. There is no Monty Hall (just to show my age there) offering a Door #3.

As Ducks, I'm afraid that the closest Phil, and likely even me, will ever get to the National Football Championship, is when we lost to Auburn in heartbreaking fashion in 2011. That one still stings.

Agreed. 10 points with a roster full of 4 and 5 star players against the statistical 90-100th ranked defense in the country that played FCS G5 and B1G teams. In the words of the great orator Clark W Griswald: "WORSE! How could it get any worse!?...Take a look around you Ellen! We're at the threshold of Hell!" I think we can only improve by putting someone else. I'm hopeful of this. Illinois replaced their DC, and even though our O is trash I doubt they played worse than before.

Geeze. What an abysmal Saturday that was. After a surprisingly easy first drive TD against the 90th ranked defense in the country, the Ducks proceeded to enact every negative offensive characteristic that they've displayed all season up to this point. Discombobulated O line, check. Confused and flustered QB, check. Drive killing whack a doodle play calling, check. The classic third and nine two yard pass so common that everyone called it pre snap time and time again, check. The people of Illinois should thank the Ducks for allowing that retro reenactment of the 85 Chicago Bears defense to take place on their home field. Lanning is going to have to address one of two elephants in the room. Either he has assembled an offensive unit of fake 4/5 star players or he has assembled a fake offensive coaching staff. Every QB the Ducks have put on the field this year has looked atrocious. Is that because two five stars and a three star have forgotten how to play or is it that a former tight end with no QB position coaching experience has no idea what he's doing? Are all the 4/5 star guys on the O line all frauds or does the O line coach not know how to teach the position. The success of O lines past has come from experienced portal guys coming in or pre Terry guys already on the roster. His pre Ducks OL coaching experience was a whopping one year at Hawaii. Is the entire offensive unit just not getting the genius of OC Mehringer or could it possibly be that he is truly the worst OC in the country? This morning Coach Lanning will have to make this assessment and act accordingly. He either blames his players and keeps his coaches or blames his coaches and makes changes. If he keeps his coaches and blames the players then they will all just tune out and start planning their post Duck futures and rightly so. If he acknowledges his own staffing failures and acts on it, he lets the players see him take accountability with a plan to course correct next season. This year has gone up in the biggest what if inferno since Dennis Dixon went down. The fan base can either still root for accountability regardless of outcome or will tune out denial as more 3rd and 9 two yard passes stack up. The choice is Lanning's.

The defense is working about as good as the MINT scheme will let it. Hampton has a (short) prior record of success as a DC. What specifically are you seeing at this point that would warrant him being replaced with someone else? I get that the first 2 games they were trying to find their own motivation, but since then they've played pretty good.. The Illini changed up their play calling in the second half to attack the edges and use their bruiser RB up the middle. As a team that offense isn't exciting but they are incredibly consistent and don't shoot themselves in the foot. Their QB was good enough to help his team score. I specifically saw Lanning with the defensive play call sheet in his hand before the 75 yard score. So that one is on him, and maybe you could argue that if Hampton was good enough DL wouldn't have to be helping him, but he was always helping Tosh too, so by that measure you wouldn't want Tosh back. Dan needs to change his scheme on defense, but the coaching staff at every level is good enough to give us a championship caliber defense. The offense is obviously a disaster. The only coaches to retain there are the RB and WR coaches. We also need to replace whoever backfilled that personnel manager Stein took with him, because we whiffed in the entire portal roster while Kentucky knocked it out of the park like we used to do.

Which is it? I think both coordinators need to go, plus several position coaches, especially the interns turned paid assistants. Does Lanning have that in him? That I don’t know. The problem is the coaching. That is what determines attitude. OC and DC are both over their skis. The others are just incompetent and that is on Dan. All of this has been said…on the field we are done. Northwestern is going to boat race us, then Columbus, we just lost to a freshman QB what’s one more, and we ain’t scoring on Michigan. This looks like 4-8 or 5-7. Then the pressure really builds on Dan, transfers hit us and recruiting really takes a hit. This is a mess. Lanning needs a couple of coordinators…Mike Norvell, Justin Wilcox. Lupoi may be available, he is sucking wind at Cal. He is a lousy HC, I knew he would be. A lot here and it ain’t pretty.

Certainly, you are not alone in that. I enjoy recording an entire year's games so that at season's end I can go back and evaluate game strategies, play calling, player performance growth, tactical approaches toward different teams, etc. Last night I just erased all of this year's games as easily as the team, for 90% coaching reasons, erased my interest. I, as many of us have for over a year, been harping about lack of portal help in support of the O-line and backers. The only conclusion one can draw from what DL and the coaches did was to hugely mistake the needs that we (including my baby great grandson) had at those positions. Top that off with incredibly terrible coaching up of players and development of game plans and we have one lovely mess of a team. This is not a mediocre team. It is so much worse than that. This is like watching some football version dream of the Three Stooges. And yet, I am a dyed in the feathers Duck fan. So, I keep hoping someone will wake me up from this nightmare.

Im a bit disappointed in Mullins for allowing Dan to not go after a seasoned OC. With the talent that decided to return you would have thought we got to get the right guy? Maybe Phil didnt go along as he extended Lanning and spent a ton of money already on players.?

Could it get worse? I would argue that if you ran the ball on every down in that game between the tackles with no game plan, you would have ended up with more than 10 points.

I agree. In fact I really wonder if we will ever see him in an Oregon uniform again.

I’m just thinking out loud here. I wonder if it takes a very special coach to handle all of these thoroughbreds and turn them into a special team. I’ve lived in Boise (yeah, I was in Eugene to watch Dan Fouts at quarterback and Bobby Moore being Bobby Moore… I’m old) for years and was in the stands when a Boise State team with two and three star players took down mighty Oklahoma. The program also beat Georgia, Oregon, Washington, Virginia Tech, Arizona, Arizona State and TCU. Not a single five star on the roster. I wonder if a well coached team of three stars who all have something to prove beats a decently coached team of five stars who have already proven everything (in their own minds) and are mentally just treading water until NFL draft day. It’s the team of three, four and five stars who are very well coached and have fully bought into a program and play with chips on their shoulders that end up raising the trophy at the end of the season. When I watched the UCLA, Nebraska and Illinois games I saw a lot of impressive individual performances but very unimpressive team performances. The talent is there, but the attitude doesn’t seem to be. I think that’s coaching. But not just on field coaching. It’s coaches on the recruiting trail who have the insight to judge recruits based not just on the stars after their names, but the grit in their hearts. Oregon is my first love. I’m a Duck to the core. But I sure do admire Boise State. That team has DNA, culture and tradition going back 20 years that would result in many impressive seasons if it could be replicated in a place like Oregon with all of our very considerable advantages. I don’t think one coaching hire can do it unless that coach imports a culture like Cignetti did at Indiana. Bottom line: Oregon needs to do some soul searching.

There will be some really good OCs available by the end of the year, like Norvell. Locksley was the OC at Alabama before getting the Maryland job. He’s gonna get fired.

I fully expected to wake up this morning to the new that Meh' has run out of town. Doesn't look like it has happened. I can usually sleep it off but woke up angrier than I went to bed. I have a feeling I am not alone in that.

Who would have thought Mari No O would be number one? Oregon Ducks On SIAP Top 25 Poll Prediction as Five Top-Ranked Teams FallThe chaos of week 7 was historic for college football, and the ensuing week was always going to struggle to match the amount of upsets that took place. However,

Number 9 in the BIG 10 may be too high for the Ducks. https://duckswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/ducks/football/2026/10/25/oregon-football-big-ten-power-rankings-week-8/92420425007/

That’s the other draw. Still relatively young but a wealth of experience to draw on including making it to the national championship game. Not to mention he’s a good QB coach.

It would be interesting to see what Helfich might cook up in 2026. Hard to believe he is only 52.

I don’t think Chip will leave a good thing going at Northwestern. They’re doing well and he probably has wide latitude to do what he wants. I do think Helfrich would be a better choice given his experience, availability, Oregon roots, and high football IQ.

Oregon should “kidnap” Chip when he’s in town next week and strap him to the OC booth seat with a headphone/microphone on his head…

Because I’ve been around long enough to see coaches learn and develop, make hiring mistakes and correct those mistakes. Where would Oregon be today if they fired Coach Brooks or Coach Bellotti after a mediocre season? Coach Lanning is a young coach who is learning on the job. It took Coach Saban and Coach Cignetti many years before they won their first national championship. Do you remember the last head coaching job search? Oregon is not the destination job that many Oregon fans think it is. Yes, the program has great facilities, NIL money, etc. but it is far from recruiting hotbeds. I’d rather coach at Texas, USC, Georgia, Ohio State, … I would only get rid of Lanning, if you had someone guaranteed to be better lined up, first.

I don’t think Raiola is a bust. He isn’t used well by the OC and the OL isn’t giving him a run game to get the passing game going. When he does pass the OL doesn't protect him. The offensive game plan was SO conservative and predictable after that first possession. If we had the OL and OC of two years ago Raiola would be much much better.

The offensive coaching and line were just awful. The OC has to go, and Lanning and Co have to understand either why they misjudged the OC talent or didn’t coach them to their potential.

QB an OL position coaches are B.A.D. QBs all show regression and OLs with multiple years in the program still don't know how to play.

I agree with firing Mehringer as a sign of accountability within the organization for results, and it's also a sign to the players that it isn't all their fault. I am not yet convinced our OL players and QBs are bad. Their position coaches have not done their jobs. Coaches like this are where players leave from to go rehabilitate their careers.