mikethehiker

I almost brought our defensive coordinator up yesterday and decided not to, but it's a valid perspective. I remember last year we thought the defense was going to carry the team based on the most impressive front 7 Oregon had ever assembled on paper. It wasn't that it wasn't as good as we all wanted, it was the reality that we didn't see the improvement we should have seen over the course of a season from a defense with an outstanding coordinator who could diagnose issues and mitigate shortcomings with great scheme.

I usually don't boo, but sometimes there are circumstances leading up to a game that warrant a fan's boo. Maybe it's a taunting player, a condescending opposing coach, or a team leaving a conference for more money 😁. I would not applaud or in any way make a visiting team feel welcome in our stadium, unless they have a) no chance of winning or b) no fans that showed up. Usually they have their own smattering of fans to cheer. Remember, that team is running out onto the field to take something from you and your team - a victory. I see no reason to encourage them in any way until the decision is final.

Great article Josh! With so many great QBs and offenses in the conference this year, points will swell as teams try to keep pace with each other. The 30-10-10 number should be easily reachable, especially if they pile up a few in the OOC games. Last year, that dilemma also caused some poor 4th down coaching choices as one stalled drive could cost you the game. Coach Lanning will face more of those choices this year, but hopefully an improved D will give us a little more confidence to get stops. So glad it's finally kickoff time! Everyone has hope! The best part of each year!

I wonder if Dante Moore is rethinking his commitment to UCLA now that Oregon is joining B1G. In Oregon, he likely gets the brand he wanted and still get to travel near home for B1G road games. Don't be surprised if any shakeups (bad season, injury, coaching change, NIL opportunity) cause him to land back at Oregon in the future. That being said, I still loathe the new penalty-free transfer rules. Players and coaches should have to sit out a year if they "transfer" from one P5 team to another.

Last year our leadership was supposed to come from the linebacking corp, but they simply didn't produce and couldn't get their job done. It's hard to expect more from everyone else, when your position group was being exploited all season. Hoping for a much different outcome this year from on field leadership.

Prior to Nix's injury, Oregon was simply unstoppable on offense last year after the Georgia game. There's a strong argument that they could have returned to the playoff over TCU had they run the table. Oregon State may be the only team to field a defense in the PAC12 this year to slow down Oregon and we get them at home. Ducks will see the most upside on defense this year and hopefully it will lead to just enough stops. The conference will be brutal this year, and I don't think anyone finishes unbeaten. However, if anyone can run the table, it will be Oregon for the first time since 2010 (the only time it's ever occurred in the nine game format). Wow - so much rich history for this conference. The fall of the PAC12 is such a tragedy! Let's leave a lasting statement on who owned the conference when we all left.

Great article! Unbelievable that the BIG 12 had no revenue sharing disincentive to keep badgering another conference 😡 I would like to understand more why CBS and NBC were never an option. We know they pay for SEC, Notre Dame, and the NCAA basketball tournament. They could have brought both linear and streaming options to the table with CBS/Paramount and NBC/Peacock.

Thank you. That would make a lot more sense to target those 12:30pm and 4pm (Pacific) timeslots. I guess it's going to hurt the teams flying back east even worse. West coast teams could be home by midnight or 1am that night. Teams flying back home to the east will get home at 4am-5am or require 3 full travel days.

And a terrible collection of presidents with their heads buried in the sand from the least to the greatest. While commissioners in other conferences did the bidding of their members, PAC12 presidents outsourced the media rights strategy and negotiations to the commissioner due to constant turnover, campus politics, lack of understanding, or because they simply didn't want to deal with it. OSU and WSU share just as much of the blame living fat and happy for years knowing LA schools wanted more. I do agree with the lower-stakes sentiment for this new west coast conference - whatever that looks like. It's a great time to test a streaming partner, maybe in combination with ESPN. Prove the concept and take it to Fox in the next round. If there is one region slightly more primed (pun intended) for streaming and ripe for cutting traditional cable, it's the west coast. Then again, we also make up a much less passionate football fanbase. But the future is a la carte streaming apps and services even if the suits couldn't see it.

Yes, they will play every year. The main thing FOX and B1G see in adding the west coast schools are 7pm+ start times. USC/UCLA should count their blessings that Oregon and Washington have joined. Otherwise they were staring down almost every single home game starting after 7pm, although there will be a lot of pushback from east coast fan bases having to stay up until 10pm before their beloved team kicks off on the west coast. That's a looooong time to maintain gameday energy - LOL. In turn, this will increase the number of 7pm+ and 9am (Pacific) start times for Oregon, Washington, USC, and UCLA. In addition to the travel, the game start times will have sharp contrasts. Playing each other every year helps reduce that and gives more opportunity for afternoon football games. I'm sure this is all part of the revenue sharing negotiations to help reduce travel costs. Another pro to this is that east coast will HAVE to pay more attention now to late games out west directly impacting east coast teams.

If I'm the remaining members, I'm going to try to hold onto PAC-whatever and maintain Power 5 status if the landscape will allow it. I wonder what the chances of PAC8/10/12 remaining through expanding with schools originally frowned upon. If Oregon St., Washington St., Cal, and Stanford all hold together and expand to include San Diego St., UNLV, SMU, Boise St., and Fresno St. You could reach out further to include Colorado St., Utah St., and Nevada. Although it's a longshot, holding onto Utah would be HUGE for PAC.

One would also have to think there is a lot of creative revenue sharing options being thrown around as well - at least over the next couple of years to hold the conference together. For some schools it may boil down to reduced revenue to keep the conference alive vs join the MWC. For others who may be threatening to bolt (Arizona, ASU, Utah), they may be allocated a larger share over a couple years to prove the streaming concept. There may also be carrots for reaching the PAC12 title game and the playoff. With the playoff expansion, the incentive is very real and the opportunity more likely in the PAC12 vs other conferences.

I know we give out pretty decent paychecks for FCS and Group 5 teams to come to Autzen. I wonder if we get discounts or pay $0 for the opponent in this home and home scenario. Gets us a free, higher quality opponent? I agree, I'd rather have a big name B1G, SEC, or ACC opponent, but I'm not sure we want 3 of them. Just thinking out loud...

I'm really looking forward to seeing improvements on defense this year and seeing more intangibles from our grizzly veterans and new transfers. This conference is wide open to a team that shows up with a veteran defense playing with great instinct under a solid scheme. That has been Utah in the recent past and shifting to Oregon State last year. Let's hope Oregon take a huge step forward this year!

As much as I hate to see it, I don’t see how this keeps from spiraling out of control. Any additional signs of instability just crushes any negotiating leverage GK thought he had. It’s a desperate situation now and PAC12 will sell media rights for pennies on the dollar which will scare more members out. There has to be a counter move now!

Thanks for sharing this insight regarding Tez Johnson. Perhaps this is the possession receiver we so desperately need, which in turn takes more pressure off Nix having to run for first downs.

I think Ty is likely a great talent and hope he excels at whatever and wherever he chooses. It has to be 80-90% mental for Ty and only he knows where his headspace is. The coaches have to discern and decide. Many times, it's extremely difficult to overcome those mental hurdles and bounce back from previous experiences without a drastic change of scenery.

I hope you're right, but I have 3 question marks. Team speed on offense, a go-to possession receiver, and QB depth. 2012 and 2014 were extremely fast teams (not just tempo) with quick, agile lineman and breakaway speed at skill positions. At the receiver position, we need a man among boys to go get the football and move the chains even when scheme is covered. I hope this receiver is on hand now and will take huge strides this year. We all understand the QB situation and I hope Ty has a breakout year. Our 2011 team had Darron Thomas, Brian Bennett, and Marcus Mariota all on the same roster.

Appreciate your thought Jon. Although we’d all like to see aggressive opponent scheduling, I have a feeling this new format will lead to conferences trying to minimize conference losses. Unless all conferences go to 9 conference games, this number will reduce to 8. And why play a conference championship game and give your 2nd best team an additional loss? Now that automatic qualifiers are in place, the goal isn’t one playoff team, but 2 and possibly 3 teams from your conference. This could backfire on the super conferences where it gets more difficult to crown a sole champion without a championship game.

This is spot on. I'll never forget Oregon already up 7-0 on tOSU and absolutely rolling coming off the FSU game. Had to lean on freshman Charles Nelson who dropped a HUGE, wide open, 3rd down pass on the 2nd drive. That play always stuck out to me as our biggest missed opportunity and huge swing in momentum. Ohio St. went on to score the next 21 points and then played keep away from Oregon.

Glad Dante is returning for another year and I hope more Ducks follow his example. Is it just me or did the offense seem to loosen up quite a bit without Dante and Richardson in the NIT? Many have pointed out Richardson's struggles during a tough senior season, but I'm not convinced that Altman has had much luck incorporating a "big man" into the offense who struggles to shoot with range and stretch the floor. In rhythm, Dante has excellent footwork in the post and a smooth finish. He's more polished offensively in the block than any big I can remember, but not quite as athletic as Jordan Bell or Kenny Wooten and can't stretch the floor like Chris Bucher or Bol Bol. He's a unique player for Oregon and could be the premier post play in college basketball next year barring another injury. I love watching him play and hope he really takes a leadership role next year. That could include keeping the offense moving around him by making quicker decisions, becoming a better passer out of the post, and demanding the ball when he has an advantage.

Welcome! I have loved my visits to Costa Rica (7?), but there's still so much I want to see. I bet it's difficult to watch as much college football there as you would probably like to with regional programming. Maybe you have a way around that. Getting a home and home series with any Power 5 school is essential to for non-conference scheduling. I'm leery of taking on the top dogs early in the season with our current defense, but you can't make a big splash unless you schedule the game 6-8 years out. I'd love to schedule more traditional powers who may be struggling, but the game itself creates a lot of buzz. Teams like Texas, Florida St., Texas A&M, Auburn, Penn St., Tennessee, South Carolina, & Florida would all be great additions to the schedule. However, the PAC-12 still needs to address equal number of conference games played with the other Power 5 conferences. I don't think enough people realize the significant impact this has on overall conference perception. We've seen year after year when a stellar PAC-12 team gets knocked off on the road playing a tough 4-5 games stretch, Alabama/Auburn get a week off playing Directional State. Half of the PAC-12 has 1 extra loss each year. In the end, the middle have of the SEC has 2-4 losses each and STAY in the Top 25, while the middle of the PAC-12 has 3-5 losses each and MISS the Top 25. Winning head-to-head on the field is job 1, but the number of ranked teams in a conference also has a significant impact on perception of conference strength.

I'm good with Altman sounding off here. The Ducks put in a great NIT effort and should have been rewarded with fans to cheer them on. Understand the year long issues, but I thought he was also speaking to the athletic department, ticket sales, social media, and promoters. That's not Dana's job apart from leading a pep rally. Oregon athletics should have found a way to get fans in there, especially with Wisconsin in town.

Proud of the overall NIT effort! Our downfall last night were year long issues mentioned in this thread. Ducks were playing vanilla man-to-man defense through NIT for the most part due to lack of experience, leadership, and communication. Anytime Altman tried to switch it up, the wheels came off the buggy. We have a lot of players who aren't true position players other than center. We typically don't have true centers. Last couple of years we've had no true PG. Shooting guards who don't create their own shots consistently playing point. Our small and power forward wings have been problematic, lengthy, athletes for years and they've played with an edge. No one knew what to expect from anyone on the roster this year outside of perhaps Dante. Always look forward to next year and hoping the team gels on defense in December rather than March.

I watched the NIT game last night against UC Irvine. The arena was mostly empty and you could hear everything a small, immature, section of students decided to yell and chant throughout the broadcast. It was embarrassing, childish behavior, but it's also not unusual for brains that haven't fully developed. Cheer on your team, yell in frustration at the refs, and boo the opponent, but endlessly heckling and impugning opponents and officials in demeaning and personal ways shows poor character and sportsmanship. Please put yourselves in your team's shoes if they were a visiting team in another arena. I don't think legislation is the answer, but maybe ADs could be more proactive in fostering high expectations of sportsmanship. I wish we had higher expectations of ourselves.