David Marsh

I hear that kickers, long snappers and punters don't train the same way and that can be a rub for some. The other side of it is if there are scholarships for kickers then wouldn't everyone just want to be a kicker? No... I think the vast majority of those who play football and grow up watching football don't look at the kicker as the person they want to be in the field. Again... As fans we want to be able to ignore the kicker, punter and long snapper for the entire game. We want them to be SUPER boring because if they do their jobs right we don't know they exist and if the game doesn't depend on a field goal to win the offense has done its job. No die hard football fan dreams of being a kicker. Beyond that only a handful of the best of the best specialists make it to the NFL. Then once in the NFL they do have long careers which makes it difficult for new specialists to make it to the NFL. Might as well give them a scholarship at college... Or maybe at the very least a partial scholarship... Give them something.

I'm also getting real interested who is being targeted for the coaching positions on offense. It looks like we have our OL coach.... But what about the others?

I think there were a few major factors at play beyond just whatever was going on within the Oregon football program in terms of relationships with the other coaches. 1. Surgery was serious enough that it seems to have shaken him. Oregon is a pressure cooker with expectations and recruiting and JoMo could see this has something negative to his health going forward. 2. With health being a concern bring closer to home and family would be a plus. He is also on the older side and has made enough money to retire whenever he wants to. 3. He wants to be a head coach again but due to his health he doesn't want to have the pressures of a power five program. Akron will be thrilled with him if he just shows progress, this is not a pressure cooker job. If he gets to bowl games and wins them then he is set at Akron. 4. Family... He has a family and I am sure he wants to spend time with them. A power five school really doesn't allow a head coach or an OC to really have that much down time. At Akron he will not be recruiting nationally, he won't have the resources to do so for starters, so he will have more time at home. I do think everything is linked with this health and his family, in response to his health. Akron at this point in his career looks more like a job to take to retire from rather than a stepping stone job. I wish him the best, he made Oregon a far more watchable team this year than the previous few years and I thank him for that.

What bowl game? Oregon didn't go to a bowl game in 2016 and certainly not an Alamo Bowl Game ... and if we did go to such a bowl game I would have forgotten all about it.

From what I have heard he was cleared of any wrong doing which is good. Though hard to clean up the reputation damage that it might have caused.

Absolutely and that was mostly because of Dillon Mitchell who made it into the NFL, this NFL speed. No idea how well he is doing now but I know he isn't a big name in the NFL so hasn't made the transition.

Also a credit to Lanning and Moss for opening up a dialogue as quickly as they did. Moss was going to sign but postponed the actual signing which opened the door for Lanning and Oregon.

I'd say Travis Dye makes the list for this season. In 2019 I'd say it was Herbert and Troy Dye. Those Dye brothers are just brutal competitors... They also like winning in Seattle. Troy played with a broken thumb and Travis had potentially his best game in an Oregon uniform.

Well.. I won't entirely be like 2021 if Nix is the starting QB... our defense WILL be better under Lanning ... so at the very least we will probably win by more than one score... but the scoreboard might look something like... 21-3 Oregon. Though I do feel Nix is completely a safety net for this coaching staff. He has worked with Dillingham and Lanning is familiar with him because Georgia has played Auburn so he has studied Nix's tape for his own DC purposes. Lanning and Dillingham don't actually know the roster terribly well besides who's on it and the depth chart and maybe Dillingham has seen a little bit of practice but in truth it is all a mystery to them. Especially when they are not inheriting a starting QB. Taggart talked a lot about how there was an open competition at QB when he took over but everyone knew it was going to be Herbert. Then Cirstobal took over and knew Herbert was the starter for the first two years... and then no need to go into the last two years we all know what has happened there more or less.

Pittman is going to FSU. Good for him, wish him the best and he gets a chance to play against MC next year.

Oh yeah, absolutely agree as well. This last season we had way too many games that ended with the defense needing to hold off one final drive to win the game.

Haven't heard about him building a relationship with Dillingham.. but if true I wouldn't mind getting him back. After all we did just lose TMac from the 2022 class. Pittman isn't bad.. the scheme relegated every receiver to the sole role of a blocker. Receivers should be blockers but they should also have opportunities to have fun and catch the ball.

Only because the Cristobal offense loves to give the ball over to the other team at the end of the game and put it on the defense to win it with a final stop.

But... Are they a FishDuck member? This is after all where the real hardcore fans come to discuss the ducks.

Not sure how much more he could have done honestly. He was not allowed to contact recruits on behalf of Oregon until last Monday when he was officially hired. Lanning also couldn't have been officially hired before Monday because there is an Oregon law for any state job that the job must be posted for a week before hiring can take place... And Monday was exactly a week. Then once Lanning was hired the recruiting dead period had already started. A recruiting dead period means no visits onto campus and no in home visits and basically any in-person visits are prohibited. However, phone calls and zoom calls are permitted. There has been a lot of fuss made about Lanning not being on campus... But in truth it's irrelevant because he can use a phone to call recruits from anywhere. Georgia is going to play in the playoff and that gives Lanning a unique opportunity to get some more playoff experience which is something we as fans WANT our head coach to have. I am sure he is spending every non- Georgia waking moment of the day recruiting... Whether that is players or future staff members. And even if he was solely in Eugene there is only so much he could have done anyways and for the current recruiting class there really isn't anything more he could have done besides sell something that isn't him or the program he wants and we don't want that from our new HC anyways.

Loads of potential... really looking forward to seeing what he puts on the field next season for Oregon. I know the FSU numbers suck... but FSU has been an awful program since 2016 when Jimbo Fisher fled FSU for Texas A&M while leaving FSU on fire.. Then Willie Taggart added some gasoline to that fire while finding new ways to break it... and only now is FSU finally heading in the right direction. So I'm willing to give Dillingham the benefit of the doubt here.

I think this is the case with many programs... However, not every program is has the goal of reaching the playoff. Hell, most programs don't even have the goal of winning their conference these days. Let's take a look at our Beaver friends ... This is the first year they have made a Bowl game since 2013! The goal for the Oregon State program right now is get to a bowl game. Jonathan Smith has done that! The second goal is win a bowl game... we will find out how that goes this year. The third goal is repeat the first two goals. The fourth goal is to start making a play for the Conference Championship. The goals at Oregon are completely different than those at Oregon State. We were angry at losing a Pac-12 Championship. Beaver fans would have been sad to lose but they wouldn't have come close to the anger Duck fans felt with that loss. The standards at Oregon are different... as Duck fans our tollorance for Cristobal was starting to wear thin this year with the results and we are currently 10-3. Double digit win seasons are difficult to achieve and as Duck fans we are angry about that because we know this team could do better and should do better. It makes complete sense why someone like Justin Wilcox might not want this Oregon job. It might be his dream job... but stepping into the HC job at Oregon comes with expectations of making a conference championship game NEXT year. Jonathan Smith at Oregon State has a ton of love and loyalty from the fans and university... the Lanning Honeymoon is now, but how long is that going to last? I'm not arguing against Oregon's standards... just trying to put some perspective on those standards.

How about a QB who can pass a ball more than 3 yards down the field?

The basis of the argument is... It took Smart 12 years to get a big time head coaching job and Lanning is getting one after a much much shorter time period and needs more time to learn... also implies that Oregon has zero talent is not setting Lanning up for success. An interesting take and Lanning will probably have to learn some hard lessons next year. However, every single coach learns hard lessons when they become a head coach. Smart doesn't have things all figured out... I mean he did lose really badly to Alabama and Georgia's offense is based around their defense dominating. Maybe Lanning has already learned that lesson which is why in hiring Dillingham he is hiring the guy who was the OC when Auburn put up 48 points against Saban in 2019. It's a risk... but I think it is a risk that Lanning and Oregon are willing to take. Lanning doesn't seem like a typical coach from just listening to him speak and reading about his coaching story. He seems like he is a fast learner... perhaps faster than Smart... and delaying the Head Coaching opportunity for him might not help him develop much more, or at least not allow him to develop and grow much faster.

I guess I'm still not fully sure what a football chief of staff is... Also why haven't we had one? Have we had one and I just didn't know?

What made them so deviating is the lack of a consistently explosive offense. We had more false starts in the Kelly-Helfrich era and they rarely hurt the scoreboard... Let alone were game changing. The offense either needs to avoid all false starts to stay on schedule .. or have a scheme that allows for some big chunk yards to make the occasional false start irrelevant.

Third-and-long not being converted by the opposing team. Really don't want to see a 3rd-and -13 be converted for a first down on a shockingly regular basis.

I don't think there can be much of a back-up plan... besides having a list of potential replacement candidates ahead of time. I mean I guess if there is someone on the staff that is the heir apparent then that is the back-up plan of sorts... Brooks > Bellotti > Kelly > Helfrich ... Taggart > Cristobal But that back-up plan only has value if there is a long line of institutional loyalty... which there really isn't... any pretty much every program now. By the way... shameless self promotion time... Might be worth reading my article on FishDuck tomorrow concerning coaches and loyalty.

So far it hasn't been a crazy big number but it is growing every year. The transfer portal is going to be a disaster for players.

And as we have seen with Lanning's contract... he isn't getting paid that 7million... at least not yet.