Slingin' Quack

Ifo Bomaye and I are back for our last scheduled episode of Addicted To Quack. We are going through the football roster and giving our year-end awards. We select our most improved, most under-appreciated, most fun, and breakout player for this year on offense and defense. We also give our prediction for who the breakout player will be next year. This isn’t a standard MVP-type award show where the answer is really obvious and a no-brainer. We take a pretty good look through the roster. The next signing day is coming up and we address some of the positions of need and what we hope to see. I have a policy of only mentioning the names of players who have signed letters of intent so you won’t get specific names of players who haven’t committed but are clear commits or are the favorites, just FYI. We recorded this pod last week before the weekend’s basketball games. I wasn’t able to get the episode up until the weekend. Ifo Bomaye breaks down the basketball season thus far and we give a quick shoutout to the women’s basketball team.

Ifo Bomaye and I are back after taking a week off and luckily not much happened. First, we talk about Mario Cristobal as our new head coach. We discuss the other coaches that were interviewed including Leavitt, Sumlin, and Harsin. No coach was a perfect candidate and we weight the pros and cons for each. Ifo Bomaye and I disagreed on our preferred coach when the search began but we both believe that right now we are in a best-case scenario given the circumstances. Following that we move to preview the Las Vegas Bowl against Boise State. I had just finished parsing through the advanced stats that you can find at Football Study Hall so was ready with some fun facts. Both of us think that Oregon will pull off the win and cover the spread. I have picked against Oregon in most games against the spread, so I’m feeling pretty confident about this matchup. Looking at some of the advanced stats like S&P+, IsoPPP, and efficiency ratings we see some pretty clear trends on how the game could go. Lastly, we take a look at what the Oregon men’s basketball team has shown the last two weeks during non-conference play. Ifo Bomaye has a pretty detailed rundown on what stands out to him thus far.  

Oregon put the Beavers in the dirt in the 2017 Civil War game. In all three phases of the game, Oregon looked completely prepared for anything that came at them. Special teams, offense, and defense, dominated all four quarters. With some of the talk coming from Oregon State athletes leading up to the game, and on the O in Autzen, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see some pettiness from some Duck players, in the best way possible. Players wore raincoats after the game when shaking hands and even Rob Moseley was making tweets referencing warm jackets that he was wearing in the press box.   It was also great seeing the players have so much fun. Big shoutout to the senior leaders for rebounding so well from last season and keeping the squad together through the rough part of the schedule. Mid-seasons like that can ruin team chemistry and it says a lot how well the team played when the passing attack was back.

fo Bomaye and I are back for a new bag with some of the most potent quack. Obviously, we open with our recap of the win over Arizona. Leavitt’s gameplan was executed phenomenally by the defensive line and the secondary. We liked seeing so much fire on defense, even though it sometimes led to penalties. One of the biggest takeaways we both had from this game is how no one on the team seemed to give up on each other. The last few weeks were full of moments that could have divided the team and I think it says a lot about the team leaders that the team stayed unified. Having Herbert back was obviously a huge change in offensive efficiency. The presence and continual threat of a deep ball opened up the entire offense. Freeman averaged over 7 yards per carry and had 4 rushing touchdowns. Taggart didn’t call too many more pass plays than normal. Something I didn’t get to on the pod was that the offense’s identity is all power running. On the 94-yard touchdown drive at the beginning of the second half, only 14 yards came through the air. The line is firing on all cylinders and the running threat is going to be much more potent at the start of next year. We didn’t cover the coaching carousel. That will probably happen next week. The logical transition was to go to recruiting. We took a preliminary look at the 2018 football recruiting class and covered some general takeaways without naming specific people. Any recruiting talk wouldn’t be complete without basketball’s number one ranking and Bol Bol’s commitment. Altman is on the cusp of being widely recognized as one of the top basketball coaches in the country.

The Ducks are back after a win over the bye week. We open the pod with the odds of Justin Herbert making the start on Saturday. If he doesn’t play then we can probably expect an offensive performance similar to what we saw against UCLA. If Herbert does get the start, what can we reasonably expect from someone who hasn’t played a game in six weeks? In order for Oregon to win we probably need to score 40. If not Khalil Tate could really take it to us. He’s going to be a Heisman candidate to start off the season next year and has already rushed for 1000 yards this season. He is the first quarterback in conference history to run for over 1000 yards and he hasn’t played every game this season. We talk about a few of the things Oregon’s defense might use to slow Tate down. Basketball has played two games and there’s a lot of promise to the season. Troy Brown has looked like the player people expected and has surpassed my expectations. The team has had their stretches of bad basketball but Altman has proven year after year that he will turn his teams into dominant forces in the conference. This is going to be a really fun team to watch. At the end we discuss the last, crazy weekend of college football before glossing over the rough weekend of games coming up.  

So Saturday’s game was very not chill. After a good start to the game a couple breaks went the Huskies’ way. There was a very small window of opportunity for Oregon to pull out the win without some serious help from PAC-12 After Dark. A red zone fumble and a punt return for a touchdown later and the game was out of hand. I do want to give a quick shoutout to the Honolulu Oregon Alumni Association. I happened to walk into a sports bar to watch the game Saturday afternoon to find that the alumni association in Hawai’i had actually reserved multiple tables in the place. It was great randomly meeting some great Duck alumni in the middle of the Pacific. Mahalo. Ifo Bomaye and I talk about some of the popular takes around Burmeister, the team, and what the trajectory of the team is the next season. I think it’s premature to make a definitive statement on how good Burmeister can be. A lot of growth can happen in just a few years and the list of great football players who were written off in their first season is very long. There’s a huge weekend of college sports coming up this weekend with Oregon basketball kicking off the season on Friday at 9 PM. AT NIGHT. I guess this game was going to be over early anyways so it doesn’t matter too much that people are going to tune out because of how late it is. This weekend’s college football slate is bananas. You’re going to need a couple screens for every shift. We run down the slate and talk about the playoff implications for each matchup.  

Ifo Bomaye and I begin the pod with recapping the loss to UCLA out in Pasadena. We talk about what we can expect from the offense and we have pretty different opinions of where the unit is headed. I talk about the play-calling but really think that the calls indicate something that runs much deeper on offense. There are a couple pitfalls we can have the rest of the season. One of the problems I brought up on the pod is that the defensive side of the ball could resent the offensive side of the ball. They get stuck on the field a lot and lock down the opponents until things fall apart in the fourth, when games are pretty well out of hand. All the pressure is on the defense to make things work, and with little help from the offense, some bitterness could arise. Going into the Utah game I think we have a bad matchup. The “Sack Lake City” defensive line could pose major problems for a quarterback with a 15% sack rate. If Oregon couldn’t get enough points to win against the worst rushing defense in the country, they’re not going to get it done against a slightly above average unit. Ifo Bomaye gives a few reasons why I’m wrong. We finish talking about the upcoming basketball season. I briefly start discussing the new SI article that largely goes after the school administration. We move on to discussing the new recruits that Altman has brought into the program, the opening couple weeks of the season, and what we can expect to see from the team, at least for the first couple months.

Ifo Bomaye and I are back after quite the weekend in college football. A lot of top-25 teams went down and there were fewer undefeated teams than there were the week prior. The PAC-12 results only lead to more questions now that we are over halfway into the season. How does Cal go from giving up 40 points to an Oregon team that was with a backup quarterback for three quarters of the game to shutting down an offense that had made good defenses look below average? USC beat Utah but then washington drops their game against Arizona State. How did the Sun Devils hold washington to only 7 points while Oregon scored over 30 at full strength?

Throughout this podcast both of us sound pretty negative at times. But we are actually pretty optimistic about the rest of the season.  We move on to recapping the game against Washington State. The strides that the defense has made have been nothing short of astonishing. Leavitt is getting paid a lot by the athletic department but he has certainly earned it so far. Troy Dye has been an absolute force in the middle of the field. Springs and Jelks have also caught the attention of Pro Football Focus. Ultimately, we have a true freshman quarterback who looked like a true freshman quarterback against one of the better defenses in the conference. He made some freshman mistakes and struggled at times but I think he’ll have a much better second game after simply having a start under his belt. The offense made it harder, especially the line by not getting much of a push on first down or on the fourth down tries. Washington State did a good job of making late shifts and stunts on the defensive line that were effective in causing confusion. Ifo Bomaye and I have a long conversation near the end of the podcast addressing the trend of fans leaving early from Duck games. We’re pretty understanding of the situation with night games and we do not believe in fan-shaming. This also leads into a short discussion about selling alcohol at college sporting events, which we disagree on. Lastly, we look to the upcoming weekend of football. There are a lot of games with double-digit spreads but will be pretty telling about the teams involved. Oklahoma plays Texas, West Virginia plays Texas Tech, and with San Jose State at Hawai’i capping off the night.

News broke yesterday (at the time of the recording) about four schools, apparel companies, and players, that are involved in bribery and other possible financial crimes. Ifo Bomaye and I talk about the implications of what the investigation means, the role of bag men, and what it could mean for Oregon. Obviously, we move on to the Arizona State game, which was not chill. Arizona State exposed a lot of the weaknesses that Oregon had. The Sun Devils’ identity was a bad matchup on paper, especially when there was a clear lack of execution by Oregon. I feel that the team was unprepared in a lot of ways. However, there is a lot of praise for how the coaches adjusted in the game, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Ifo Bomaye and I discussed some of the weaknesses last week but we go over them again and how Oregon can fix those this next week. We finish discussing Cal and how they are exceeding expectations this year. Cal looks like how I thought Oregon State would do this year. They have rough first halves followed by great second halves. Their quarterback is turnover prone and their defense ranks near the bottom of the country in terms of defensive efficiency, but they are a challenging team that will certainly give the Ducks more of a run for their money than the Vegas point spread indicates.

Ifo Bomaye and I are back after taking a week off. Due to my travel schedule I didn’t have the opportunity to get on a skype call. Luckily, (or unfortunately) we saw some of the same themes across both the Wyoming and the Nebraska game. We both agree that the issue is on the offense but we have different opinions of what that can be. I mention a few things I see on the offensive line and Ifo goes more into the play calling. The segment is wrapped up with a talk about the players that stand out to us, the positives and negatives so far, and what we hope to see in the next few games.    

THE HYPE MACHINE IS IN FULL EFFECT AND WE ARE ALMOST OUT OF KOOL-AID. The first rule of week 1 is that nothing is as good as it seems and nothing is as bad as it seems. Oregon beat Southern Utah by a lot, and Southern Utah is Southern Utah at the end of the day, but Oregon did what they were supposed to do. There are a couple takeaways from the game. A lot of what we discuss is relative to the level of competition. My biggest point is that the weaknesses we thought we had going into the season didn’t kill us, which means that we won’t be bad. The problem isn’t solved but it’s not going to be bad (again, everything is relative). One of the biggest changes to me is that the players looked like they were really enjoying playing. We go over what we saw was an offensive identity take shape and how that identity can be seen across multiple phases of the offense. Some of the stuff I talk about are parts of the playbook and how play calls develop over the course of the game that weren’t visible with the TV camera angles. On defense we go over the difference seen in the 3-4 and how much nickel the defense may actually be playing. The last topic of conversation from the Southern Utah game is the performance of some players. We talk about a lot of the guys on the defense including the freshmen and also some of the standouts on special teams. In the second half of the podcast we talk about the upcoming Nebraska line and why the point spread is probably so wild right now. Nebraska is coming off a close win over Arkansas State and I go over some analysis on why the Cornhuskers had a problem keeping pace. Neither of us see a situation where the Ducks are going to get blown out but I give an idea of what Nebraska could do well that could lead to a Cornhusker win.

Ifo Bomaye and I have the great fortune of doing a preview of college football game. A singular college football game. We open the podcast doing a quick preview of Southern Utah, and by that we talk about how Southern Utah’s experience could counter some of the youth and talent Oregon has. After that we go through the depth chart and pick out some of the notable additions and absences. There are some players not listed due to injuries but Brendan Schooler listed as a WR along with eight others is indicative of how much the position has to grow this season. The linebacker that weighs less than our safeties does cause some concern, but he’s already started multiple games and the inside linebacker position has gotten smaller over the last ten years to keep pace with opposing offenses. Near the end we pick some breakout players for the season. We have different players on the offensive side of the ball but we both think one guy will really break out on defense. For this game we are both excited to see what the offense and defense looks like against teams that don’t have an O on their uniforms. This way we can get a more accurate gauge of how each group is doing and we will see more of the offense and defense that fourteen spring practices couldn’t get accomplished. I would like to see the defense force turnovers and keep the Thunderbird offense from scoring when the 1s are on the field and I’m looking to see if a receiver can stretch the field vertically. Lastly, we have a few hot takes for the weekend. In the comments we want to hear your hottest, scorched-earth take for week 1 of this season.

  Rusty and Ifo Bomaye return for a new episode of Slingin’ Quack to break down the roster. We use some loose depth chart projections by the Oregonian and what we read in the practice reports to get a feel for where things may land. We start on the offensive side of the ball. The backup quarterback is where the question marks come in. How could the winner of the backup spot impact the rest of the roster this year and next? We both believe that Kani Benoit will be a breakout running back with the new offensive rushing strategy. Brooks James will be a a much bigger big-play threat as a secondary option if the defense overcommits to stopping the runs between the tackles. Wide receivers and tight ends, like the linebackers, are going to be the most fluid positions and where we are going to see the most progress this year. It sounds like many receivers are raising their game but nobody is breaking out to be a star just yet. The offensive and defensive lines are where we have seen the biggest growth. Each offensive lineman on average has gained 20 pounds and the defensive line is going to be having freshmen take significant minutes. Ifo Bomaye thinks that Tyree Robinson will play well in certain roles on defense. To put it mildly, I’m a little more skeptical. Arrion Springs and Thomas Graham Jr. seem to be the real standouts on defense with Ugo Amadi sharing time with Graham or playing the slot receivers when three cornerbacks are necessary. The beat we talk about at the beginning has a bad word in the title so I’m not going to link it here, even though I said I would. If you want to find it just look for C-Murder instrumental in youtube and I’m sure you’ll find the NSFW song at the very top.

Ifo Bomaye and I return for the second division in the PAC-12 conference, the south. The story of this division is that USC is the king of the hill and the rest of the teams are toss-ups. Each school has a big question mark that will be the deciding factor for their season.  

Ifo Bomaye and I unite for a long podcast on the PAC-12 North.  We go through the PAC-12 media conference projections starting with washington, followed by Stanford, Washington State, briefly Oregon, Oregon State, and then Cal. Unfortunately, washington is probably going to be over on their 10 win over/under line set by Vegas. They have great coaching and they’ve lost great players the last couple years and bounced back just fine. Their schedule sets up well and it’s hard to imagine them losing three games. Stanford is next up and the 8.5 is comically low. That’s a clear over. Their schedule also sets up well getting Washington at home, where they are statistically favored. They’re countering the rest of college football’s efforts to get faster on defense while they get bigger on offense. They’re so good every year and have had good recruiting classes so it’s hard to imagine them losing 4 games. Third is Washington State and this could be a year that they slide. Luke Falk is back but the secondary has some big shoes to fill that the defensive front may not be able to mask with their coach now at Oregon. We briefly touch on Oregon because, obviously, we’ll get into more detail over the next few weeks. Gary Andersen has been at Oregon State for three years and has been giving some big schools competition for recruits. Oregon State is basically a mini-Stanford with their offensive strategy. With a lot of returners they will definitely improve, but probably not enough to get more wins than they did last year. Last is Cal. Cal has some major rebuilding but the coaches are extremely good and I think they will have some major problems this year, but in 2-3 years they will be scary.  

Sean and I are back for a primer on the Oregon football season. It’s a bit a of a meandering conversation as we weave our way through a variety of topics. We peruse the performance of both the offense and defense to start the pod off. The chart that I reference is in Bill C’s analysis on the Ducks. Darren Carrington had just committed to Utah when we recorded and we go into detail about the decision by Taggart and the funny circumstances about Utah’s core values. What stands out to me personally is that Carrington made a lot of huge plays for Oregon but is not well liked by the Oregon fan base. Similar to Colt Lyerla who had a lot of off the field issues as well. From there we move into talking about the wide receiver position. We have a lot of talent filling the depth chart, but not much of it is proven. The linebackers are the biggest question mark to me. The offensive line was forced to play a lot of freshmen last year but we will see a big boost in performance as a direct result of taking the early lumps against top competition. One of the big goals for the coaching staff this offseason was to get the players bigger and stronger. That certainly seems to be the case given the numbers a few players showed up. Most notably is Royce Freeman who did 600, to parallel, and with NO LIFTING BELT. HE REPPED 600 POUNDS WITH NO BELT. Nearing the conclusion of the podcast we do a quick look at the schedule and the amazing recruiting that Taggart has been doing. Sean expresses some of the angst he has around recruiting and we talk about some of the more ridiculous facets of covering high schoolers picking where to go to college.  

  It’s been a while but the gang is back with another podcast. I’m joined by Ifo Bomaye to talk about a variety of topics. We open up with the Duck basketball stars making their way through the NBA summer league. Jordan Bell and Tyler Dorsey have signed contracts with their NBA teams. While recording the podcast we get distracted a couple times by the Warriors-Sixers matchup on TV. One part of college football I have always been really critical of is the obsession with recruiting. However, I’m making an exception, because there’s really nothing else happening with Oregon football. Also, we are apparently really good at it now and like any fair-weather fan I’m now interested. This setup a good transition to talk about the incoming football players, like our favorite Jordon Scott, and how many of them are showing on the depth cart. The inside linebacker position is a huge question mark. We discuss Leavitt’s defense at Colorado and how it changed over time and what that could mean for Oregon this year. I think we will see aggressive DB play based on the talent at the position. Last year the secondary was not in a good position to succeed and I think they will be huge in helping out the front seven this fall. There’s more we discuss between the major topics so listen now!

A new edition of Slingin’ Quack is here! It’s been a long layoff but Ifo Bomaye and myself are back. We open the podcast talking about basketball recruiting. Ifo Bomaye walks us through the players who have signed and some of the implications moving forward including Brian Bowen. I’m continually impressed by how Altman is able to pull together an awesome team of players in a short time span. Basketball recruiting transitions into football recruiting. Oregon had a huge weekend with not only the spring game but a huge haul of 4-star players. Taggart and his staff are really going all out and have far exceeded my own expectations. The coaches are really pushing the limits of how attractive Oregon can be to recruits. Most impressive is the fact that there are currently 6, 4-star athletes committed. Granted, it’s May, but that is a lot more than us Oregon fans are used to at this point. One of the best players in the state is committed, and guys also come from California, Florida, Colorado, North Carolina, and Arizona. There is now an early signing period where commits can sign letters of intent in December so it will be interesting to see how Taggart really closes out at the end of the regular season. The spring game showed us a lot while also not giving us a ton of information. We go over some of they types of plays we saw on offense, a lot of pulling linemen and counter plays, as well as on defense, the Duck position. With the new coaches it seems that some players are coming back into the fold and earning some serious playing time. Lastly, we talk about our favorite players going into the next year, like Fotu T. Leiato II, and of course, Fat Mac.

Slingin’ Quack is back for a preview episode of the sweet 16 matchup against Michigan. We open the show with a brief discussion on the women’s basketball program, which toppled Duke to advance in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament. Kelly Graves has done a great job of turning the team around from what it was in 2014. We move on to discuss the game against Michigan. The Wolverines opened as 2-point favorites but the line has since moved to -1.5 even though the Vegas Power Rankings have Oregon as a 1-point favorite. Michigan is probably the hottest team offensively having shown that they can score inside, like they did against Louisville, and outside the arc, like they did against Oklahoma State. The key to this game rests on which team will have the fewest lapses in production. Michigan needed a full 40 minutes to advance twice and Oregon has shown many times this season that the offense can dry up, sometimes more than once a game, and allow teams big runs to get back into the game. Bigby-Williams has been filling in for Chris Boucher and while he serves as a good defensive player he doesn’t have the full skill set that Boucher had. It will be interesting to see how the substitutions are used during the game and if Dorsey can keep the hot hand for another game. This team is largely dependent on how well Brooks does and every game from now on has the potential to put a stud athlete on Brooks and try and pressure him. It will be an exciting game at 4:09 pm PST. The winner will play the winner of Kansas-Purdue on Saturday. We finish up discussing football with spring practice around the corner. Also, we play “Taggart or the Illuminati” where we try to guess whether the tweet was sent by Willie Taggart or by the account for the Illuminati.

Rusty and Sean are back after a few months of scheduling conflicts. We briefly revisit the Oregon football staff and recap what has made up the first two months of the Taggart era. Both Sean and I are pumped most about Leavitt and Cristobal. The recruiting season isn’t over just quite yet because former Clemson DT Scott Pagano is visiting Oregon and the new DL coach Joe Salave'a can haul in a big addition to one of the weaker units on the team. At the 18 min mark we switch the conversation over to basketball. Is this the best basketball team that Oregon has ever had? This basketball team has one of the highest ceilings I can think of but also has shown some real lapses in performance. I don’t know of another team that can look as bad in a half as Oregon did against Cal and then come back in the second half and score over 50 points in a close win. This season Oregon has blown good teams off the court but also given up huge runs to UCLA that led to a loss. The x-factor for this team is Dillon Brooks. When Brooks does well everyone on the team plays much better and can take over a game. However, when Brooks is struggling everyone’s play drops down as well. UCLA pressured Brooks in the second half and the offense struggled. The blueprint to beat Oregon is pressuring Brooks and forcing everyone else on Oregon’s offense into creating and moving the ball on their own. Shoutout to the National Bobblehead Museum for sending me a bobblehead. I’m a big bobblehead fan and nothing looks better on a desk at work than a bobblehead.

We are back after a couple weeks away. Scheduling continues to be a doozy. However, I think this episode went pretty well. Because we have run out of time to talk about basketball in the past we open with them in the most recent episode. The team is fresh off a solid set of wins but are headed into a tough stretch of games over the next month. We focus on the team chemistry, adjusting to new personnel groupings, and how the team dynamic is different from last year. We recorded this before Coach O was suspended but we still do our analysis of our take on the workout that sent three players in the hospital. We go over what we know from player comments and a few other news stories to try and put together exactly what the facts are. Obviously the workout should raise eyebrows because students shouldn’t go to the hospital after a workout, but we talk about some of the other factors that should be taken into account when thinking about the case. I have been doing my best over the last few weeks to slow down the hype train but now I am getting yanked along whether I like it or not. The assistant coaches coming in are all fantastic and this is probably a realistic, best-case scenario. (Realistic in the fact that Saban and Meyer are not happening.) We go over our favorite coaching hires and what they mean for recruiting. Lastly, we play a fun game that will go on for a while called “football coach or Illuminati.” The new coaches are pretty fond of the whole Twitter thing and often put out motivating posts. I read out tweets from the Illuminati twitter handle and tweets from coach profiles and we try to guess which tweet belongs to which account.  

Rusty and a special guest are in studio together! The holidays have brought us together but it seems the difficult seating arrangement makes it a little difficult to clearly hear both of us at different times. At one point we talk about getting this on the web the night of recording, but obviously, that didn’t happen. It has clearly been a while since our last pod because we discuss the Willie Taggart hire for the first time on the pod. He has a proven ability to throw scholarships at any ESPN 300 athlete. It seems three times a day there’s a new athlete who is tweeting about getting a scholarship offer. We both like the special attention given to the defense. If the defense doesn’t get figured out with this staff and pay grade then it simply will not happen at Oregon. I’m personally excited to most likely go back to a 3-4 defense. Leavitt brings some baggage with him, which we talk about. The new wide receivers coach shows that we are fully committed to the Harbaugh coaching tree. There are some rumors about other assistant coaches that get some brief coverage. Lastly, we address both men’s and women’s basketball as we head into conference play. The women’s team has done really well heading into conference play at 10-2. While the men’s basketball team has been showing some problems with adjusting for some personnel changes we are both very excited to see the team head into conference play.  

I had a guest fill in since Sean and I have conflicting hours a lot of the time but this is a great pod. We talk about what Helfrich’s firing means for the Oregon athletic department and how it could be influenced by the current state of college athletics. Both of us recognize that there are valid reasons for his firing but we both think that Helfrich should have been maintained. Closer to the end we talk about how the debate over keeping or firing Helfrich became very emotional for many. We look at all the coaches that have been discussed or mentioned by sportswriters or ones that make sense. Our guest breaks everybody up into tiers so you might enjoy seeing where we place Chip Kelly, Les Miles, PJ Fleck, and Jim McElwain. Also, a few tweets could lead one to believe that Brian Kelly is talking with Oregon. Dan Mullen, Scott Frost, Lane Kiffin, Willie Tagart, and a few others are talked about also. This goes for a while so hopefully you guys enjoy it.

In the latest edition of the podcast we start with breaking down the loss at USC. There were some bright spots to take away but the team was clearly outmatched by a better team. Some of the inexperience really showed but there are some players that have really stood out. This weekend Oregon plays Stanford. We talk about Stanford’s strengths and weaknesses and how they matchup with Oregon. For example, Stanford struggles to have success through the air so will rely heavily on the run. However, having Stanford fully dependent on the running game might be an okay thing for the Ducks. ESPN’s Darren Rovell tweeted out a report during the USC game that Phil Knight was ready to drop $10 million on a new coach. We talk about who makes sense in both college football and the NFL. Also, Darren Rovell is often wrong and just a human stream of press releases so I doubt any reports he heard. Lastly, but probably most importantly, we go over the basketball team and upcoming season. Players like Boucher and Brooks are getting the headlines but the real strength of the team might be the crazy depth. Altman has always exceeded expectations, but what will he do when the expectations are a final four finish?

I am joined by Saman Djabbari of the USC Podcast “Traveler Hates Thursdays.” You might remember that we did a pod with them earlier this year. We open up talking about the different dynamic that Sam Darnold provides the USC offense that Max Browne didn’t. Sam Darnold is also is willing to take risks, unlike last year’s starter Cody Kessler who was willing to check down in hail mary situations. At the end of the podcast we talk about the long-term position of the USC program and we find a lot of parallels with where the Oregon program is.  

We open talking about what the second half of the Cal game meant to each of us. There are some football players that stood out to us both on the field and in some leadership roles that some have taken upon themselves. Rob Moseley tweeted out a potential depth chart for next year and there were a couple players that were obviously missing who are not graduating, Freeman for example, but there were a couple others that were surprising.

Sean and Rusty talk about the bye week, what they won’t talk about, and the upcoming game against Cal.

Sean and Rusty talk about the loss to Washington, the immediate future of the program, and the upcoming game against Washington.

Rusty Ryan joined by a special guest discuss the game against Colorado, current state of the program, and preview Washington State.

So this last weekend was very not chill.  A lot of not chill things happened.  Oregon dropped their first game of the season to Nebraska.  The Ducks ran for over 300 yards and didn't have a turnover, which normally would lead one to believe that it would be a Duck win.  However, when you have over 120 yards in penalties, you're going to have a bad time. Bottomline from my perspective, if you don't separate yourself from your opponent in a significant way then it is an assumed risk that the refs might screw you.  You have to be so good the refs don't matter.  It's also the story of the 1991 Cotton Bowl when Miami played Texas. Every team has injuries but it should be noted that Oregon was without some huge contributors in the loss.  That isn't to excuse the loss, but to show that the team can play significantly better.  We also talk about how young the team is and how next year we will see a big improvement. Sean elaborates on his hot take about Devon Allen's track and field career and its relation to his football career. Lastly, we preview the game against Colorado and what we hope to see against the Buffs.  Colorado played Michigan really well in the first half.  The Colorado quarterback, Sefo Liufau, is still uncertain about playing in the game this Saturday.  It will be a good challenge for the Ducks after they showed improvement last week. At the very end we make the point that we are six weeks out from the college basketball season.  Athlon has Oregon ranked as the number one team headed into the season.

Sean and I are back for another episode of Slingin’ Quack. Oregon had a 44-26 win over Virginia and for some reason a lot of people think the end is nigh. However, the sun did come up the next morning, and we know that because I sat in traffic on my way home from work.  

Rusty and Sean talk about the win over FCS opponent UC-Davis.  There is a certain mythbuster segment going over the three phases of the game.  They take a quick look around the conference, talk about the size of players, and the game against Virginia

Rusty Ryan is back to host Slingin' Quack with a longtime friend filling in. We talk about what we want to see against UC-Davis, look at the football schedule, analyze the depth chart, and take a look at the conference at-large.

Rusty Ryan and Sean Larson are back after a short delay.  The two talk about the Oregon Spring game, which includes: The QBs, Pharoah Brown, Devon Allen & the receivers, and the new 4-3 D. Since Oregon is a T&F school we've got some awards to talk abt

Rusty Ryan and Sean Larson are back to preview the NFL Draft and the Oregon Spring Game this Saturday.  DeForest Buckner is the only Duck that will go on Day 1 and all signs point to him going to the 49ers.  We also talk about what we need to see in the spring game on Saturday.

Rusty and Sean meet up after Oregon's amazing stretch to the elite eight in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  They talk about the upcoming Oregon Football season, spring practices, Devon Allen running track, and the QB race.

Oregon takes on the Duke Blue Devils in their run for the national championship.  The winner faces the winner of Texas A&M and Oklahoma.  Rusty and Sean break down the game against St. Joes and look ahead to tipoff in a few hours.

The Ducks enter the NCAA College Basketball March Madness as a one seed, which neither Sean or Rusty expected.  They also talk about their brackets, the possibility of a loss to Holy Cross, and a little bit of college football.

COMIN' TO YOU LIVE FROM THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE ARIZONA SEMIFINAL GAME!  Rusty and Sean talk about the Oregon-Arizona game and how it is one of the best games in recent memory.  They follow up with track and field, pro day, and the NFL draft.

Sean and Rusty are back after a long layoff with a whole bunch of quack.  The two talk about the basketball team and the amazing success it has had quietly, the Ducks at the combine, and what the Titans should do with their NFL Draft pick.

This last week in Oregon sports had zero chill.  Oregon dropped the biggest lead in the history of college football bowl games.  Also, Oregon basketball lost the PAC-12 opener to Oregon State.   Sean and I spend a lot of time looking at the positives coming up.  We looked at the roster in terms of who was coming back, projecting some lineups, and Dakota Prukop getting into Oregon without the national media wondering if he can pass a test. We also talk about Pellum moving back to the linebacker coach role, the departure of another linebacker coach, and who we would like to see as the new defensive coordinator.  (Hint: Tako hates him) Lastly, we talk about Oregon basketball.  Sean posed a question about a year ago on a LOST pod about Dana Altman.  Sean, David Piper, and I all came to the conclusion that Dana Altman has surpassed all expectations every year as the head coach at Oregon.  So Sean and I are feeling pretty good about this season, especially with Bill Walton making the best calls of all time.

We're back!  Took a couple weeks off because of the holidays and we figured not that many people would listen, nor did our schedules line up.  But!  Comin' to you live from Hamsterdam we've got a lot of quack. First, we talk about the Oregon football game against the TCU Horned Frogs.  There's the obvious conversation about Trevone Boykin, whom I wrote an article about earlier this week.  Boykin is terrifying and is the player that we all thought Bralon Addison could be in a perfect world where he easily slid into the quarterback position when Vernon Adams went down and he received the golden arm of Johnny Unitas from the god Xerxes. The QB edge goes to TCU but if not for a Vernon Adams injury at the beginning of the year we are looking at a one loss Oregon squad (most likely).  TCU was ravaged by injuries on defense leading to a few very misleading scores and Trevone Boykin was absent a couple close wins.   The Alamo Bowl and Texas have a thing for tragic heroes.  People that could have accomplished greatness if not for a few things outside of their control.  Oregon does it too.  For years we were talking about who would be the next Dennis Dixon.  Both of these teams are tragically heroic teams.  If not for injuries both of these teams would (most likely) be in the playoffs.  This is one of the top five bowl games, and that's including the playoffs.

Oregon beat Oregon State in the 119th Civil War game.  The first half saw Oregon's defense absolutely control the Oregon State offense, outside of the first drive.  The second half saw the Oregon defense completely check out of the game mentally and give up an embarrassing amount of success to the Beavers. Scott Frost has left his role as offensive coordinator to take over the head coaching role at the University of Central Florida (UCF), that went nearly unbeaten with Blake Bortles and dropped to a winless record this past season.  I think this is a great opportunity for him to succeed.  I've heard that UCF's fan base is willing to start spending more money on the football program.  He's killed it at Oregon the last few years, leading the #2 offense in the country, and if not for maybe bad play calls in the teens he would be viewed in a much more positive light. The basketball team is still undefeated heading into a game at UNLV.  It's technically a neutral site game, but it is at the MGM Grand, which is in Vegas.  But then again, I'm not sure UNLV really has a home court.  After the game against UNLV the Ducks play Navy at Pearl Harbor.

Both Oregon football and Oregon basketball had big wins this last week. Basketball beat Valparaiso, a tournament team last year, 73-67 at Matthew Knight Arena.  Shortly after beating Baylor, the Ducks have a couple of the best wins in the country thus far this season.  It is really exciting to have a team that is so clearly excelling this early and has a lot of promise.  Sean and I talk about the evolution of the offense, how overall impressive this team has been, and what to expect. Oregon football made USC look bad.  Adams torched the USC defense worse than they ever have in the history of the school and Adams tied the single-game record for touchdown passes.  I have never seen a player more open than When Baylis caught a pass on a vertical route up the left hash.  The Oregon defense is really playing well and their game against USC is a real testament to that.  Sean and I talk about why our perspective on this season has been a little tainted and what this team provides that none in recent history have. Lastly, Sean and I talk about possible bowl games.  The Rose Bowl is dependent on Stanford beating Notre Dame and squeezing into the playoffs.  Could Oregon still make a New Years' Six?  Also, I go on a huge rant about the college football rankings that the committee released.   Have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow.

We got almost too much quack this week so we tried our best to make sure we got everything in on a shortened timeline. The first thing Sean and I talk about is the performance of the Oregon basketball defense.  The offense really struggled at times but the defense forced 18 turnovers and got 28 points off of them.  Five players had over 10 points.  Boucher had 15, Cook had 15, Brooks had 10, Dorsey had 12, Benjamin had 13, and even Benson had 9.  While I hope we have one guy who can stand out and score in the clutch we have to be optimistic with the number of people who are scoring. Oregon football had the biggest win of the year when they beat Stanford.  Stanford has been eliminated from the playoff hunt.  Oregon's defense played opportunistic defense and overall extremely well given the strengths and weaknesses of each side.  The running game was astounding and Vernon Adams only had to throw 12 times.  Sean and I talk more in depth about the game and the positives and negatives.  We talk about this biggest moments of the game and what it's like to watch a game on the farm. The last ten minutes are about USC.  Kessler has been playing well but USC lost two of their starting linebackers.  Smitch-Schuster is terrifying on the outside at receiver and Jackson could slow down Carrington.  Carrington somehow gets open all the time but Jackson might be the one to wrap him up. Sean and I go into a lot of details about the win over Baylor, the win over Stanford, and the upcoming game against USC.  Thanks to everyone who listens and tweets at us.

After last weeks difficulties we are back!  Sean and I spend a lot of time going over the win against Arizona State and Cal.  Both games showed signs of improvement for their own reasons.  This team is clearly getting better as the season goes on and I think they'll be able to finish strong.   Looking at the team we saw against Eastern Washington, Georgia State, Colorado, Utah, and Washington State, this team seems light years ahead.  The offense is totally revamped with the addition of Vernon Adams and Darren Carrington. The defense is starting to make plays.  Sacks and interceptions are happening (THEY'RE HAPPENING!) but the lone weakness of the defense thus far has been consistently getting off the field after third downs.  Against Cal everything came together.  At this point, what can we say about whether the defense will get better and what the lasting impression is of the unit?  We're at week 11 so they have a clear identity. At the end of the pod we talk about the most recent playoff rankings and how much of a joke they are, the game against Stanford, and the basketball season that kicks off tomorrow night. -Keep in mind due to our schedules we end up doing this extremely late at night and sometimes into the next day.-

With Halloween this weekend and the Ducks' playing on a Thursday night (allowing me to not have to schedule my day around the game) the festivities will be in full force.  Might be a three-day weekend for a lot of us because it's not like people will be able to function after a Duck game anyways. Oregon has Vernon Adams back along with Darren Carrington.  The offense looked like a totally different unit with both of the top playmakers back.  Sean and I were very critical of Vernon Adams after his performance against Utah, broken finger or not, so we make a solid effort to praise all the things Vernon Adams did well against Washington.  Is Darren Carrington what the offense was missing to bring it to the next level? The episode starts off with a thorough look at the Oklahoma-Oregon onside kick because often before we even record we go on crazy tangents that lead us all over the college football landscape. Oregon needs to win two of it's last five and the only winnable game seems to be against Oregon State with ASU, Cal, Stanford, and USC to go.  Basically, the game Thursday is a must-win for bowl hopes.  But even then Oregon can petition.  But how likely is all of this?

Oregon and Washington squared off in Seattle this past weekend and Oregon came away with a big win.  It looked like the streak might come to an end during an off year but the return of Darren Carrington, Vernon Adams, and the front seven actually living up to their expectations. There are big positives and negatives to take away from the game.  How much of an improvement did Vernon Adams actually bring?  How much more of an impact can Darren Carrington have?  Does this mean a new Oregon squad the rest of the season? Sean and I go through a very early preview of the basketball season.  Even though Altman has had extended success as head coach of the basketball team there still isn't huge attendance numbers.  I don't believe that it's because of the transfer students or anything like that.  Do this for instance: I also want you guys to go through your own exercise that I posed to Sean near the end of the pod. Name three words you would use to describe the Oregon football team: 1. 2. 3. Name three words you would use to describe the Oregon basketball team:

Normally I try to come up with funny titles but this was just too wild to not make it as the headline.  You'll have to listen through to find it though.  CLICKBAIT FTW.   Sean and I talk about the Colorado game and what the stats say.  Obviously, we talk about the defense and how it has gotten worse over the last couple years.  But is the secondary really to blame?  Is there another position that is not meeting expectations?  One unit is severely disappointing this season.   There were a couple noticeable moves in the Colorado game.  We talk about the re-appearance of Oregon's power running attack and how Taj Griffin fits into the offense.   Taylor Alie and Jeff Lockie are now sharing time at quarterback.  Is Alie that good? What do we make of a two-quarterback system?  Is Vernon Adams going to be back soon and is he actually that much better than the other QBs?  

The game against Utah was flat out embarrassing.  Utah did to Oregon what Oregon usually does to other teams.  Utah dominated every phase of the game and were outcoached.  Is this what Oregon is this year?  Are they doomed to being average?   Will they make a bowl game?  Is this the end of the Golden Age of Oregon Football? Marcus Mariota had a game against the Colts and I talk with Sean about what to expect from Mariota this year and how the Titans are using Mariota.  You can probably guess what our comments are on this subject.   Looking ahead to Colorado we look at Colorado's strengths.  The line is Oregon -7, which is pretty much awful given the history of these two programs over the last decade.   I highly encourage people to listen to the podcasts.  Not just because I do it because I actually believe this is pretty solid stuff.