Slingin' Quack

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.