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I'm just glad that we did not have to look back on the Justin Wilcox years.

The camp visits are rebroadcast on BTN and available on the BTN App. Visits before Oregon: USC, UCLA, Wisconsin, and today's visit to Penn State.

I appreciate the perspective but I'd argue the Beaver obsession was an AD not seeing the forest because of the trees; and, basically letting the inmates run the asylum. In 1970 and 1971, while losing two games to the Beavers, Oregon did beat USC twice, an 8-3 UW team, and UCLA down in LA. The 1970 team had finished second in the Pac-8. Signs of things going the right way. Of course it is hindsight, but Frei clearly had put together an excellent, borderline historical, young staff. He also had brought in a bunch of talent: Fouts, Rashad, Newland, Blanchard, Tom Drougas, John McKean, Bill Drake, Lionel Coleman, Tom Graham. Picking two head coaches that drug the program through 4 years of 11-33 after four previous years of 20-21-1 was a massive step backwards. 11-33 included only one win over a team that finished with a winning record (6-5). Its 11 wins were over teams with a combined record of 30-91 and 7 of 11 of the teams it managed to beat won 3 or fewer games). He did go 2-2 against OSU as AD with his coaches, beating a 2-9 OSU team in 1972 and a 1-10 OSU team in 1975; but, honestly, not so much to hang one's hat on. We don't really care if the trajectory is right into the ground as long as we beat the Beavers? Oregon football history: 242-216-28 (5 decades before Ritchey) 11-33 (4 Ritchey seasons) 4-7 (last year under Read) 40-66-4 (Brooks first decade) 51-43 (Brooks last 8 years) 116-55 (Bellotti) 173-50 (Post Bellotti) Oregon sort of has the reputation of being horrible for most of its history; but, since 1920, if you separate the 5 Ritchey seasons plus 10 years Brooks took to dig out of it (15 years) you get: 1920-1971 plus 1987-today: 582-364-28 = 0.612 (would qualify for tied for 26th all time) 5 Ritchey seasons plus first Brooks decade: 55-106-4 = 0.345 (would qualify 136th out of 138 active all-time) And again, I understand how boosters at the time might have pressured the young AD over the Beaver losses; but, only 2 of the 8 losses weren't close, by: 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 15, and 22. A somewhat forward looking AD should have seen talent and a trajectory; or, at least, understood there would be no guarantee a 37 year old HC with two years of position coach experience was going to be any better. In a sense I guess he was fortunate OSU finally went in the tank, but so did Oregon.

This morning on the DSC Inside Read a 3-2-1 look following Oregon’s first week of fall camp: Three observations. Two questions. One prediction. What stood out after Media Day and the Ducks’ first three practices. https://www.ducksportscentral.com/2026/08/dsc-inside-read-3-2-1-after-oregons.html

Just going to shamelessly plug an earlier Marsh Duck article. https://open.substack.com/pub/marshduck/p/chris-hampton-is-the-next-evolution?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8foswi In the post practice interviews I would say that both new coordinators feel like they understand the problems they need to fix from last season. Hampton said Red zone defense was a problem last year and Mehringer effectively said the offense needs to not stall out. Those interviews usually don't give us much to work with but in addressing those concerns they are telling us they are aware of them. Ow can they fix them? We'll find out.

No. 1 bold prediction is cold. 🥶 The 2nd is gold. 😍 https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2026/08/10/college-football-predictions-2026-season-hot-seat-national-championship-odds/91148484007/?utm_source=usatoday-sports-strada&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign

Oregon Ducks projected depth chart after first week of fall camp https://duckswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/ducks/football/2026/08/10/oregon-football-projected-depth-chart-fall-camp-2026/91226386007/

Oregon Ducks earn highest preseason ranking in FWAA-NFF Super 16 pollWith so many veteran players back for another year, the Ducks have legitimate national championship aspirations this year, and we're seeing that when looking at preseason polls ahead of the season. Over the weekend, the 2026 Preseason FWAA-NFF Super 16 Rankings came out, where Oregon ranked higher than they ever have before, landing at No. 2, just behind the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Ducks' previous highest preseason ranking in the FWAA-NFF Super 16 was No. 4, back in 2024. https://duckswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/ducks/football/2026/08/10/oregon-football-fwaa-nff-preseason-ranking/91240801007/

Questions for the Coaches Poll top 10 - On3The most pressing question for every Top 10 team in colle...Every team in college football has a perceived weakness. We analyze questions for every top 10 team in the preseason coaches poll.

AD Norv Ritchey was in a no-win situation in 1971. Jerry Frei in his five years as the Oregon football coach lost all five games to the Beavers. This was Oregon's 8th loss in a row to the Beavers, and the Ducks had only beat them 4 times over the past 23 seasons. The Portland boosters were out for blood. There was no Nike yet, and the Portland booster support was critical for financial reasons. The Ducks needed money and recruiting. Dick Enright was the junior coach on the Oregon staff, but he was popular with the players and boosters, and he had connections to southern California for recruiting. Enright was a failure as a head coach, but he had one major success, he beat the Beavers in 1972.

Big Ten Conference Prediction, Odds for 2026 College Football Season (Oregon Will Come Out on Top)SIBig Ten Conference Prediction, Odds for 2026 College Foot...For as long as I can remember, the SEC owned college football, but the Big Ten has made a big statement the past few years, winning three straight national cham

The Tailgating experience at Autzen Stadium can’t be beat, and the best kept secret of West Coast football is later kickoffs meaning more time for food, friends and fun in the lot outside the stadium. Addicted To QuackHow you get to Autzen Stadium is what makes attending a D...Your best source for quality Oregon Ducks news, rumors, analysis, stats and scores from the fan perspective.

The preseason AP Poll will be released on Monday, August 17th. On3 predicts the poll, like the Coaches Poll, will have Ohio State 1st and Oregon 2nd. On3Preseason AP Poll Prediction: Projecting first Top 25 ahe...The preseason AP Top 25 poll projection from On3 is here, with just a week until the official Associated Press rankings are released.. Curt Cignetti has a history of producing All-Conference QBs; Hoover comes to the Hoosiers from TCU with more experience than Fernando. Indiana was 2nd in transfer portal rankings. With players who were on the 2024 roster having a fifth season, the already deep D-line returns last season's top tackler, who missed the 2024 PO with injury, and another very good D-lineman. I imagine Cig won't use this ranking to fire the team up, right? Historically, No. 6 is a low ranking for the past season's champion. Indiana plays Michigan and UW on the road, but gets USC and Ohio State, (the same quartet as Oregon in opposite venues) in Bloomington, where Cig has not lost a game in two seasons.

Interested to see our offensive tackles get after it. Crader, Bennett III, perhaps sprinkle in some youth at times with Iheanacho, and/or Tofi. With our defense loaded, I really want to see how they use Koi Perich. This could be a fun year for this guy..I mean who wouldn’t want to play safety on this defense…

Oregon started strong in 1987 behind a hot freshman quarterback named Bill Musgrave. In a bit of foreshadowing, Oregon AD Bill Byrne told officials at the Sun Bowl after the win over OSU that Oregon would guarantee the sale of “any number of seats they need, within reason.” And Sun officials acknowledged that, thanks to some untimely upsets of teams that had been considered locks for bowl bids, Oregon was a “serious candidate.” For one day. On Sunday morning, West Virginia (6-5) got the Sun Bowl bid against Oklahoma State (6-5). The Sun Bowl chairman explained “our decision was based on the East Coast television market.” http://www.benzduck.com/journal/2011/3/20/circling-the-bowls-1964-1988.html The Ducks flirtation with mediocre was a barrier. Too many near .500 seasons in the Brooks era. 1984: 6-5 1985: 5-6 1986: 5-6 1987: 6-5 1988: 6-6 1989: 8-4 with Byrne closing the deal for the Independence Bowl 1990: 8-4 1991: 3-8 1992: 6-6 1993: 5-6 I can't remember all the circumstances of why the program wasn't able to take advantage in 1991, 1992, 1993?

I guess the point was about good coaching hires changing the trajectory of the program? If the UO had stuck with Frei and held onto a couple of his young coaches (like Seifert or Marshall) to take over (or hired Coryell or gotten Walsh or even Mora), might the program have built up to 8-3/9-2 type seasons sooner? Might having an AD willing to invest in football paid off in dollars behind those winning teams rather than deficits behind those losing ones? By the mid-1980s when Nike really started to take off, might Phil have gotten more invested about a decade earlier? Might the 2010 breakthrough years have possibly happened 20 years sooner? 🤷‍♂️

Always good to start the week with a sweet M&M. 👍🤞❤️ Good call on Matayo. He is better than last season's six sacks. His strip sack and fumble recovery against Texas Tech was All-World. I'm also anticipating Teitum Tuioti bringing the heat on the other side of OBD's stellar 'Bronesian' D-line. Teitum was disrespected last season, with 9.5 sacks and only 3rd-team Big Ten recognition. The 2025 defense finished 108th nationally in red-zone defense. Not nearly good enough considering the talent on the field. A surprising stat for a D that finished 21st in sacks. Tosh was a great recruiter; I hope Chris Hampton will produce better on-field results. No more unacceptable and frankly puzzling second-time-around blowout losses. These losses are Dan's low-water mark. The UGA loss is excusable, but ... Dante, please don't disappear in the biggest games, B1G and otherwise. Three new starters, but I'm hoping for another Joe Moore finalist O-line. Thanks again, David. Beat Boise!

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11th, the Big Ten Network (BTN) will be in Eugene for Oregon's Fall Camp visit. Correction: BTN - 8 AM Pacific. The UW visit will be broadcast later in the day on Tuesday.

Thanks, Mike, for terrific insights on OBD's biggest threat to West Coast dominance, USC. In addition to the SEC, I'd add the NCAA to the group that took down SC, plus the lack of respect for the Pac-12 that kept sending Oklahoma teams with records similar to SC's to lose title games to SEC teams. AD Jen Cohen and GM Chad Bowen have aligned the football program from the top down, and the boosters finally realize that SC cannot get by on reputation alone. The recruiting effort and NIL are both well funded, and Riley was told to get off his posterior and reach out to SoCal high school coaches and to focus recruiting on California. He has done this while maintaining a national recruiting reach. You have to have more than reputation today. You have to have and spend money. They 'get this' in Columbus and Austin; Ohio State and Texas, after floundering in Texas's case, are among the largest spenders on football every season. And it's not just the recruiting effort that's better aligned in South Central; the new practice facilities are state of the art. And Los Angeles is still a draw, especially for college-age recruits. After three warm-up games, the Week 4 game in LA is a program-defining moment for a team that was undefeated at home last season, including impressive wins over Iowa and Michigan. This season, Oregon, Washington, and Ohio State visit LA. Two tough road games at Penn State and Indiana. With this schedule,10-2 SC is a PO lock. I respect SC for ignoring the Trojans being reamed for interrupting the Notre Dame series and winning the argument that the series would not resume unless ND was willing to play earlier in the season. There are two programs in the Mountain and Pacific time zones with Blue Chip rosters, OBD and USC. Oregon will have a talent advantage vs UW every season, but not SC.

Don’t disagree, in fact I posted I consider them a rival in this thread…but it’s been 16 years since PC escaped, and they haven’t made any version of the playoff since. That’s the joke imo, the OG Blueblood of west coast football hasn’t made the playoffs in a full generation. USC is fairly unique, they could get back fast in a big way, like few others could. Until they breakthrough with the right coach, they’re kind of giving off Nebraska vibes until proven otherwise 😆

Happy Monday! Here is this week's Marsh Duck Article. Enjoy. https://open.substack.com/pub/marshduck/p/five-ducks-im-exited-for-in-2026?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8foswi

Bellotti had a ready answer when Phil Knight asked him what he needs to succeed. An indoor practice facility appeared and Knight became Uncle Phil.

An always interesting fan question about the rise of Duck football, was Oregon poised to begin the jump back in the early 1970s, but missteped and mishandled its chance through a series of bad decisions? Starting in 1972, Oregon had gone 242-216-28 over the prior 50 years (with only one losing decade). Oregon head coach Jerry Frei, a 17 year member of Oregon's staff and 5th year HC, had gone 22-29-2, but 11-10-1 the previous two years behind the likes of Fouts and Rashad (including beating USC in 1970 and 1971 and being generally competitive outside a couple of paycheck games). The story goes the boosters club pressured the new AD (Norv Ritchey) to fire all but one member of what they considered Frei's 1971 "incompetent staff", after losing to the Beavers for a 5th straight time. Included in those they wished to dump from Frei's young staff were DC George Seifert (two Super Bowl rings as head coach, retired with the second greatest win % among NFL coaches with 100 wins at the time), John Robinson (two National Championships at USC and member of the College Football-of-Fame), John Marshall (who went on to coach for 30 years in the NFL including two Super Bowl wins), Gunther Cunningham (who went on to coach 34 years in the NFL), and Bruce Snyder (15 years as a Pac-10 HC at Cal and ASU). Frei refused and resigned. At the time, due to changes in how San Diego State was handling JC players, then head coach and future NFL Hall-of-Famer Don Coryell (who had gone 104-19-2 there) was looking for a way out of San Diego State (as he had relied very heavily on JCs and was unhappy with the changes). There was a push at the time to hire Coryell away but influencial boosters and Ritchey wanted young Oregon OL coach Dick Enright to have the job. Coryell sticks out one more year at SDS (before moving on to revolutionize NFL offenses) and Enright goes 6-16 and is fired in two seasons. Oregon passes over keeping Frei (who went on to coach a decade in the NFL), or maybe Don Coryell, George Seifert, John Robinson, John Marshall, Gunther Cunningham, or Bruce Snyder to hire a 36 year old OL coach with only two years of major college position coaching experience. Having another swing at it, Ritchey quickly internally promotes Don Read, who goes 9-24 over three seasons. Now stepping up for a third swing, Oregon in 1977 (under a new AD) pushes very hard for Bill Walsh (who was returning to college after feeling being "black balled" by then legendary but famously ill-temper Cincinnati HC Paul Brown). Walsh decides on Stanford over Oregon so Oregon targets UW DC Jim Mora (who eventually goes on to be an NFL HC for 15 seasons); but, he declines the job to stay for another season at UW (before becoming the DL coach of the second season of the Seattle Seahawks). Brooks goes 24-49-4 his first 7 seasons at Oregon trying to dig out of the Ritchey, Enright, and Read hole (not helped by the scandal plagued early 1980s), yielding a 12 year run of 38-89-4. Brooks finally goes 28-28 in the five year run up to the 1989 Independence Bowl (finishes 91-109-4 in 18 years at Oregon). John Robinson, George Siefert, Gunther Cuningham, John Marshall, Don Coryell, Bruce Snyder, Bill Walsh, and Jim Mora coulda been. A sort of point of controversy (or at least against the common narrative) when Oregon AD John Caine hired Brooks, he also significantly increased the program resources at the time. In Brooks first couple seasons, he had one of the highest paid staffs in the Pac, and a greatly expanded recruiting budget (not to mention a still pretty new Autzen to recruit to). Caine perhaps is most well known for angrily resigning rather than accepting a demotion to fund raiser after running up a then controversial $375,000 in athletic department debt (losing money 5 of his 6 years in the position).

College Sports Bill being bloated with amendments. . . 1) a cap on ticket prices. 2) exempt Miami & FSU from the 5-year must be independent if switch power conferences. 3) tying passage to the voting rights bill. The NCAA begged Congress to fix its problems. Now it's paying the price as Washington politics take over. - Yahoo Sports

College football's biggest fall camp risers: Ohio State, Alabama players surge after first weekWith the 2026 season fast approaching, these players are off to fast starts at camp Nasir Wyatt, LB, Oregon From failing to bulk up early in his career to now tipping the scales at a muscular 245 pounds, Wyatt finally looks the part as one of the Ducks' outside linebackers. Defensive coordinator Chris Hampton said after Oregon's second day of fall camp that Wyatt has a chance to be an "every-down player" this fall, which speaks to his offseason body makeover and what he's shown on the field early. That level of consistency must continue, Hampton says, to warrant extended reps at an uber-talented position group for one of the Big Ten's frontrunners. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-fall-camp-risers-ohio-state-alabama/