Kurt Rambis

Meh. I've been involved with plenty of groups, through work, church, fantasy football, playing basketball, ex-pats, etc. Some had the type of people I personally bonded with much faster; others didn't. Didn't mean one set of people was good and the other bad. So he feels really comfortable with his new teammates. Good for him. Don't care. Hopefully we see him this season and Mr. Lanning gets to introduce a few of his guys to Dye - repeatedly, in the SC backfield.

Gotta be Medfield College - site of all those early Disney movies like The Absent Minded Professor and Son of Flubber. Boy, am I showing my age...

I'm fine with it. Football is so competitive, even the smallest edge may make a difference.

From #1 to #131... College football: Ranking all 131 expected FBS starting quarterbacks for 2022 season 247SPORTS.COM ... Some interesting opinions: #3 Caleb Williams #8 Tyler Van Dyke #13 Stetson Bennett #19 Cam Rising #43 Tanner McKee #49 Chance Nolan #51 Bo Nix #71 Tyler Shough

I have the feeling Henry Mondeaux will be on the street soon; the Steelers brought in a bunch of D-lineman in the offseason and he's looking like he may be the odd man out. Sucks - I love watching Ducks playing in the pros for my favorite team.

Look, I love my Ducks, but the reality is Oregon is a step below Georgia as a program and as a current team. UGA has a national championship in the last 20 years - Ducks don't. UGA has far more players who were 5-star recruits. UGA has far more players who are considered top 100 college players. UGA has an established coaching staff - Ducks don't. UGA plays in the SEC, and you can hate the SEC's arrogance all you want, but as long as titles continue to be won by Georgia, LSU, Bama, etc. it's hard to argue with their success - particularly compared to the Pac 12-minus-2. UGA finished their season by beating Bama - Ducks finished theirs with two straight blowout losses to Utah. The upcoming game might as well be a home game for UGA - Ducks will be 3,000 miles away from home, in hostile territory. So do I like when some fans of other teams are arrogant? Not particularly. But in this case, some of that arrogance and the predictions of an easy win are justifiable. Now, what will be absolutely freaking fantastic is if the Ducks overcome all of these disadvantages and beat Georgia...exactly the way they did last year to tOSU, which arguably had the exact same advantages over Oregon that Georgia has.

An important cut was Brett Hundley by the Ravens - good chance Anthony Brown is going to make that team now.

I was using YardBarker for a while and they had plenty of good stuff, plus tending to come out earlier with articles than most others - but they've gone stale recently. So this is really welcome.

I gave up panicking years ago. These are kids. Many will flip their commitments between now and signing day (including on signing day). Others will hit the transfer portal early (and maybe often). Some programs will have coaching turnover, a scandal, a horrible season, etc. and lots of their players will want an easy out. I find it likely we'll lose some recruits between now and signing day, gain others, etc. It used to be I'd give a huge sigh of relief on signing day (or be frustrated that some guy who looked like a recruit would flip to another school at the last second). Now with the transfer portal, it's the wild west all year 'round. Who thought we'd get DAT or Flowe unexpectedly? Who thought Dye would transfer or we'd lose that WR last year to Arizona? If I start worrying about any specific recruit or position group, I'm gonna be a mess. I love the sport, but no team is worth what tiny shred of mental stability I have left. 🤨

In the case of UW, it would be made of porcelain.

I'm going to guess that the untimely passing of Spencer Webb had something to do with this - maybe feeling there was more availability in the TE room, more opportunity, etc.

I actually really like the unis themselves - very clean. And what's wrong with "royalty"? The Huskies are sort of the Zara Tindall of college football - a nobody who is technically 20th in line to the British throne. (Which at least is better than being 20th in line to the bathroom.)

It's such a different situation in basketball than in football (although some of that is changing with NIL and the portal). Each starter is 20% of the players out there in basketball, but 4.5% in football. Football players know they're somewhere in college for a couple of years at least, and there's no G League to run off to. Basketball seems to contribute more to a prima donna mentality than football. Basketball lends itself more to hero ball, because one superstar like LeBron truly can take a mediocre team to the finals, whereas a superstar like Dan Marino still needs a team around him. I'll take almost all the 5-stars we can get in football. In basketball, I'm with The Kamikaze Kid - give me five talented team-first guys who want to be here for 3 - 4 years over an all-star team any day.

Yeah, and look at what most of these guys contributed to the program. Walker - almost nothing. King - not bad. Jabari Brown - nothing. Dante - not a ton so far; jury is still out. Troy Brown - pretty good for a year. Ware - TBD. Hairston - very solid. Evans - TBD. Cook - TBD. Bol - awesome for nine whole games. In other words, not a Ron Lee, Terrell Brandon, Jordan Bell, or Payton Pritchard in the bunch. It's just hard to get too excited about hoops recruits. The really good ones probably won't be here for long, don't pan out, or are prima donnas who want to leave the first time they hit a pothole on the way to the arena; the 4-stars and 3-stars probably will be here longer but don't tend to move the needle in fan excitement or get website headlines.

I pretty much see few reasons to criticize anyone for taking a different job. Now, there are some slimy ways to go about it (see: Taggart, Willie), but I'm sure all of us have departed one job for another at some point, without any members of the general public criticizing us for our decision. Could be preferring another part of the country. A more prestigious academic institution. Less influence from athletics. Better pay or benefits. Closer to family. Wanted to work at a private institution with no interference from the state. Just wanted a change or a new challenge. Good luck to him, and hopefully Oregon brings in a strong strategic leader.

Canzano just reported he's out the door for Northwestern.

One big difference is that those are long-term bluebloods, with a ton of success in years gone by. While it shouldn't, that does influence the talking heads. They can skate by on reputations. Oregon doesn't have that yet. If we had won in those two title game appearances, it would probably be a different story. I heard more than one comparison of Thibs to Dion Jordan. If Jordan hadn't been a gigantic bust, that would have been working in Thibs' favor, not against him. The media likes to take shortcuts. I remember hearing how Aaron Rodgers was dangerous to draft, because he came from Cal, and Kyle Boller had been a bust - therefore, QBs from Cal would be busts. It's incredibly lazy reporting, but having dealt closely with the media for 30+ years, I know how much lazy reporting there is out there.

Some things are worth fighting over, getting upset about, or even getting annoyed about. Then there's this dreck.

That list really shows how hard it is to develop QBs. How many underwhelming players and outright busts in the NFL were produced by those top 5 programs that were still listed as "notable": Landry Jones, Harrington, Tua, Sanchez, Baker Mayfield, Brian Brohm, etc. Out of the 24 QBs listed, probably 5 can be considered stars (Herbert, Carson Palmer, Lamar Jackson, and maybe Kyler Murray and Mac Jones). The rest were short-term backups (Dixon, Brohm) or mediocre players (Leinart, Bradford, Bridgewater). Given the poor success rate, can anyone be considered QB U?

I think the problem existed before MC. While the Ducks have produced some great pros (Herbert, Chung, Unger, Alonso, Buckner, Armstead), many of our high profile, 1st round draft choices are largely considered busts: Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, Dion Jordan, and largely Marcus Mariota. Even Sewell struggled the first half of his rookie season before settling down. Smith and Harrington were drafted by franchises that have ruined most of the QBs they've had, but even so, they're considered high first round busts. When we have more Herberts and fewer Harringtons, we'll probably have more buy-in from the media and more belief in the players coming out. Hopefully Thibs contributes mightily toward that.

Charles, it seems to me that the overall viewpoint is...neither. For most people, they don't offend. But they often don't particularly inspire, either. They're part of the game atmosphere like the fans and the band, and almost everyone here seems to think there's nothing wrong with including some tasteful cheerleader photos (I assume all photos on here will be tasteful; we don't particularly need to see a gruesome injury or some drunk fan barfing in the parking lot). But relatively few will be bothered if there aren't any. So it sounds like it's entirely up to you, and that most of us won't be particularly bothered one way or the other.

IMHO, as long as the pictures themselves are reasonable (e.g. not revealing cleavage shots), if anyone is truly offended by seeing pictures of women who choose to work hard to be on the sidelines of every game, encouraged by the university, then those readers have the right to be offended and not read that article, or not use this site - the same way any of us can depart if we're offended that you won't allow posts about religion or politics. Cheerleading is hard. At the high school level, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, cheerleading has the highest rate of catastrophic injuries of any sport or activity - more catastrophic injuries per 100,000 participants than football or hockey. A high school cheerleader has a chance of catastrophic injury that is 35 times higher than a high school basketball player. So these are far more than pretty girls in skimpy outfits - they are female athletes (not to mention the males who participate as well). Maybe they're not working at an activity some of us particularly value, but that doesn't minimize the risks they take or they work they put in to be there. As such, how is seeing pictures of cheerleaders any different from seeing pictures of a beach volleyball team or a swim team? Or sometimes even a tennis team? Competitive swimsuits for both male and female athletes leave far less to the imagination than do most cheerleading outfits. If you decide not to have cheerleaders on the site, I won't be offended. But they are part of the game, the same way the stadium, fans, the opponent, referees, players, injuries, and coaches are part of the game. So incorporating some shots of cheerleaders is, to me, a perfectly natural part of the game. As such, it is perfectly natural to have them on the site.

I think everyone loves to find a good bargain, whether it's a great wine that's also inexpensive, a bargain air fare to someplace fun, or a Patrick Chung or Justin Herbert who comes out of nowhere to be a star. But the reality is that the reason we love that is it's so rare. The simple fact is that the "hit rate" is far higher among 5 star players than among 4 star; among 4 star players than among 3 star, etc. The bargain approach is why I don't dismiss recruits who are only three stars - I figure the coaches know a lot more than I do and see a hidden gem, a great leader, a perfect scheme fit, etc. But I also know that if we want to compete with Ohio State and Alabama, we have to have the players to do so - and the percentages are simply much greater with higher-rated players. They're higher rated for a reason.

My biggest fear about the Ducks' season is that we'll waste a year finding out that Nix pretty much is who he showed he was at Auburn. Are Butterfield or Thompson ready? No idea. But if we don't have a reliable QB1, this season is toast before it begins. I'd rather have growing pains with one of the young guys and have a great QB for late in the season and next year, than spend much of the year watching Nix implode and then switching to one of the younger QBs when it's too late. Maybe Nix will start and be terrific. I just fear otherwise given what he's shown in his career thus far.

Is there such thing as a Freudian typo? Because with all the rumors about four more schools going to the B1G, four going to the Big 12, etc. - we may just end up with the PAC-1.