Slingin' Quack

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.