Haywarduck

Exactly, act like you expected it, not something you might not be able to repeat. Get beat, try harder, smarter next time. Thank the guy for taking you to school, and do the homework!

A couple quotes, "IF MARIO CAN'T DO THIS, PACK UP THE PROGRAM!!!Because we're about to have everything we need. If the play-calling/coaching is halfway decent WE BACK." and "He would have to make god-awful hires at OC/DC to fail."

Been thinking about the decommit concept Charles brought up. I think it is a deself process. A coach has to get the student athletes to begin to see the team as bigger than themselves. That isn't an easy process with these kids who have been told it is all about them for many years. Welcome Mr. Florence, enjoy the process you will be going through under Coach Lanning. You will learn to love the hate, and hate what you loved while questioning everything that brought you to this point, enjoy it! It is all part of growing up and becoming what is deep inside you!

A draft for high school products would never work, if there is academics involved, which I think there has to be. Maybe the new USFL will allow the dumb jocks to go straight to the pros, but there has to be something to the student athlete element of college sports. If so, then choice has to be part of that. It is going to be a crazy time, but there can't be a draft of high school kids, can there?!!!!!!!

The celebration of making a great play should be the players running over to help you up. A pat on the back while helping you should be the extent of it. Hopefully the focus of the program will be creating student athletes who are an asset to our great society. I think this speaks to the whole opportunity a coach has to help mold the individual, not just the football player. It isn't just an opportunity, it is part of Dan Lanning's job. It is nice to hear he takes that seriously. The trick will be how he can functionally do it while creating a winning program. Goals are easy, reaching those goals is where the bumps in the road occur, as many have pointed out with our Mario experience.

Built for parity maybe, but without college athletes moving on you still have dynasties. From 2002-2019 New England was in over half the Super Bowls and won over 30%. A player like Tom Brady can't effect the college game like he did the NFL. The two football systems, the NFL and the College Game, will always have their differences, but until there is a respectful agreement between college programs it is going to get ugly. What Texas A & M did with recruiting this year is only a hint of what is coming, unless they can agree on rules. I think what we are actually seeing is more of a parity of qb's in the league. You have Aaron Rogers, Mahomes and others all playing at an extremely high level. That is what is creating the parity, more than anything being done differently by the NFL. The NFL has, for the most part, been a controlled play ground of the ultra rich where they know rules are in their best interest.

The NFL is a billionaires club, where they know the game is Russian roulette and everybody has a loaded gun. With that is mind they all agree to let one commissioner ensure nobody fires their weapons at each other. The sub game is controlling the players and feeding the fans so the owners can all stay fat and happy. The NFL has the perfect synergy going on with a controlled power structure. The college game is a bunch of billionaires, suddenly turned loose with little of the structure the NFL has. Creating that structure with differing commissioners, differing perceptions about what is best for themselves is going to be messy. I think it will all come down to college programs beginning to also see the programs in a game of Russian roulette and wanting to preserve themselves while respecting others. The problem is I don't think too many programs in the Pac-12 deserve or can demand respect from the SEC or really any of the elite programs. If the whole NIL and portal situation plays out as it seems to be going I think Oregon and SC and maybe a couple others will need to seek alliances with the elite programs and create a super league. Maybe it can be created like English soccer where you earn the right to stay in the premiere league every year. If you don't spend, the allotted money well you go down a league, others who compete move up. What I see is, in college football, and probably basketball there needs to be super leagues where there is a real playoff, and continues to be one in college basketball. There has to be big money created to fuel what is coming. The big money is only going to be sustained with bigger playoffs and that structure will be anyones guess, but the conferences as we see them now in football are ending, if my view is anywhere close to being correct. Turmoil and craziness is the only thing I am sure of.

Completely agree the firing of Diaz was poorly done and completely unnecessary. Manny didn't deserve to be fired, and the impatience shown by the Miami program wasn't just impatience it was a complete lack of understanding about what it takes to create a program they want. They have now hired a head coach who can't even get coaches, wait until they see how those coaches game plan, deal with in game situations, along with off field situations, the Mario formula. The promise of Mario will be like the promise of a new stadium, over sold and underperformed. The wrecking ball will hit Mario way before it ever hits the school the big donor promised would come down to build a stadium.

I wrote about what Urban did with the black stripe on the Ohio State football helmet. This is a very explicit attempt to get the players to buy into the process a coach is trying create. I wonder what Lanning has up his sleeve. As far as the showboating, this is another extremely important way to create the right culture. Team is more important than player is the number one item. We have the players, we don't have the team, yet. With these two directions the team just might come together. It won't be an easy path for a young and new head coach. He will need something like Urban created or just an incredible will power. We have talked about scheme for a few years, it is nice to see the culture issue get the focus it needs. Elite, enabled individuals may never have experienced a culture like Georgia's. What was interesting about Georgia was the amount of tranfers within the elite talent pool. This seems to be another element we are going to need to get used to in this new era. Some of these prima donnas aren't going to take real well to learning they aren't all that and a bag of chips, anymore. Recruiting hungry, talented, coachable 3* and 4* star players will be critical to this mission. Execution as a team is difficult, execution of these team goals will also be difficult from a young new coach. They are easy to talk about, I will be interested to watch the implementation of these goals and the process of accomplishing them. This will be the much less visible battle we will all want won before the season begins and as the season progresses.

There are three important areas, Offense, Defense and Special Teams. Special teams was a weakness under Mario. It is nice to see Lanning show an interest in shoring up one of the weak areas. There is definitely more work to do in this area!

The interesting thing is Ken Dorsey may have been the best choice, as head coach. Instead the hurricane alumni went after Mario and all the promise of what he did at Oregon, recruiting. The main problem, recruiting was, and will never be the issue at Miami. They needed a guy who can coach, bring discipline to the program. Maybe they will go after Dorsey once Mario stumbles. By then no one in their right mind will want to go to Miami, except for the money. What we are seeing is how a program should be built, and how not to try and build a program. Oregon is going after the future, while Miami is trying to rebuild the past, never a good plan.

Say what is up? Love to, the future at Oregon, don't let it pass you by, commit. By commit I mean commit to becoming the best player and teammate you can become. That is the Oregon way, you win and we win, but it is a tough road. Learn to love the journey, and all it's difficulty, not just the moment. So if 'you want to see the love' it will be there, you just have to earn it, and the love, it's tough love. This is football, not the prom, or a family reunion. There may be parties and reunions, but the love there will be from the memories of the battles won on the journey fought. Love and respect are earned through learning to enjoy the becoming the best student athlete you can become. Don't fool yourself, that is what you would be committing to become at Oregon.

If he gets generational talent to go to Miami that wants to do it his way, then he may just do it, TIMEOUT! He won't get the next Derrick Henry, and it isn't going to happen. Mario is sitting on the a one legged stool. The other two legs are development and scheme and he doesn't have those abilities to keep his stool standing.

The Florence visit reminds me a bit of the DAT visit. Not saying Florence will have the impact DAT did, but the last second visit is of interest. The coaches definitely seem to be working hard, love it!

3* High School Player, and Outland Trophy, Bednarik award, Lombardi award winning, very lightly recruited, and still only 13th pick in the NFL draft, Aaron Donald. “He was not a highly recruited kid,” “He was wrestling then. In our scheme, any guy who was a wrestler I always thought that was a nice intangible for a football player. You saw his quickness and stuff, but it wasn’t off the charts. He was perfect physically for what we were looking for as far as an inside tackle. We recruited him, and it all worked out.” 3* High School Player and Outland Trophy, Bednarik award winner Jordan Davis. Played at Georgia so Lanning is familiar with under the radar guys who should get more respect than they receive from the recruiting services. Davis played basketball until realizing football might be his sport. There have only been three guys who have won these two college awards. Suh was the other and grew up in Oregon, but chose Nebraska for their engineering program. Suh is also one of those guys who was under rated at 4*. All of these guys have one thing in common, they didn't just play football. Suh played soccer, basketball and was all state in the shot put. My hope is like what was said about Aaron Donald we are looking for more than football ability. Other sports can show hidden ability which translates to the football field. The coaches need to know what physically they want and not limit those metrics to the football field. Georgia wouldn't have been the same team without Jordan Davis, might never have won the national title.

Dat was something, worth the price of admission that is for sure! The post Pete Carroll era where they wanted to put DAT on defense. What a joke putting that much talent on the defensive side of the ball. This is what has made Oregon great for decades, put the speed on the O side and let the D try and keep up.

I wonder if he got the Hayward tour? Bring on the speed Coach Lanning!

We would, along with WSU, have the easiest schedule out of all those matchups. The beavs are a once in a blue moon program, and the dawgs are merely intimidating preseason with the pundits never really understanding the last couple decades of history. I do agree we would need to be guaranteed at least one to two cali schools each season to fill out the 8 game schedule. I think going forward we should try and schedule Hawaii every other year too. The recruiting connections from the islands needs to continue. Playing a game there keeps us in the other islands consciousness too. American Samoa needs to know we are a poly friendly program! We should then try and travel around the south and midwest on occasion to fill out our schedule, or have those programs come to Autzen. Scheduling should really look at recruiting as the number 1 priority. Not a fan of Notre Dame either but for a school with less than 9,000 students they have an amazingly strong fanbase. With the Catholic connection along with the Irish connection the school has a massive wannabe fanbase. They actually have a better tv deal than Larry could have ever dreamed of creating.

Phil Knight is an accountant without the Oregon Track and Field Program. He is grateful as are we, success leads to success.

I could definitely see some coaches and programs not wanting a 3* because it may effect their program rating. I am glad that isn't the number one concern for this staff. We saw the film, understand you're a good student, and want to offer you a scholarship, love it! It also helped a coach was aware of the kid. I do think you need to go off more than film. I also think you have to go off more than the recruiting rankings, and what the camps he went to said. We would have missed out on the NFL rookie of the year if we had just gone off what the recruiting rankings had said. Fortunately the new staff is indicating they aren't obsessed with rankings anymore. A coaches recommendation is the most important thing, just like when Helfrich saw Mariota. The rankings didn't matter and I am glad they didn't. The old formula of doing the footwork and getting to know recruits matters again. We aren't just hitting up every top recruit and trying to sign as many as possible to appease the alumni on signing day. The day that matters is game day, and having the players with potential to become legendary Ducks! I want the Ngata's and at the Alonzo's on defense. I want the DAT's and the Barner's on offense. A legendary team is full of amazing stories before they become Ducks and after. It is nice to see this mantra becoming true again! Bring on the student athletes who have passion, potential and lets see it all come to fruition on the field, once again.

I like the recruits stated the coaches obviously studied their film and showed them more than the football facilities. One recruit mentioned seeing the academic side was a different approach from when he was recruited the last time. There was even mention of touring the Hayward Field, bravo! Seems like the coaches are recruiting the whole student athlete. Good stuff to hear about the Lanning Era. The Future looks bright and it will be fun to see the new Oregon Football Program under Head Coach Lanning and staff.

Kind of fun to listen to the dawg homers predict last season. I would use the Willy Wonka meme on this one, but have used it too many times. The dawgs like to fly under the radar, right.........! Listen to the dawg homer below predict last season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZn2pc7Lhow