Ducks Land Top Rated JC WR

Oregon received a verbal commitment from one of the top rated Junior College WR's today in Rahsaan Vaughn. Vaughn took an official visit to Eugene on 11/26 and just fell in love with the Oregon. Vaughn had been considering Utah, Georgia, and Arizona.

Oregon Lands 3 Star MLB

Chip Kelly and the Ducks received some goods news today as 3 Star MLB Rodney Hardrick gave his verbal commitment. Hardrick was considering Idaho, Oregon State, New Mexico and Washington.

New Uniforms Revealed

Nike has revealed the National Championship uniforms for the Oregon Ducks. Nike also revealed the uniforms for TCU, Florida and Boise State.

Newton On Letterman

I was watching Hawaii Five-O last night and saw a commercial that Cam Newton would be on the David Letterman Show last night. I really can not believe how much the media has jumped on the Cam Newton train, do not get me wrong he is a very good player, but he also has only done this for one year and he will only do this one year as he is projected as a mid first round draft pick in this year's up coming draft.

I do love the fact that while Cam Newton was touring New York and having a good time, our LaMichael James and the whole Duck team was back at practice. After a while the Auburn team will most likely start to believe the hype, that they will run away with the National Championship, but as Kirk Herbstreit stated if the Tigers go down 21-0 to the Ducks they will not come back. I love being the underdog its whole lot more fun than being the favorite.

Florida Names Next Head Coach

ESPN has reported that the University of Florida will name Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp as their next head coach.

Ducks Climbing the Recruiting Rankings

With the addition of Christian French Oregon jumped 6 spots in the Rivals.com team recruiting rankings. Oregon was coming in at 22 but has jumped up to 16 in the latest rankings. With the recuiting trail coming down the final stretch hopefully Chip Kelly and the Oregon coaching staff can make this the best recruiting class in the last 10 years surpassing the #11 ranked class of 2007.

I will keep everyone up to date as more information comes out about recruits.

LaMichael and Other Award Winners

The College Football Award Show was last night on ESPN. Oregon's LaMichael James won the Doak Walker Award and was also named a consensus All-American. He was Oregon's fourth consensus All-American joining DT Haloti Ngata (2005), CB Alex Molden (1995) and Mel Renfro (1962). Here is the complete list of all the awards:


Maxwell Award: Cam Newton, Auburn

 O'Brien Award: Cam Newton, Auburn

Walker Award: LaMichael James, Oregon

Bilitnikoff Award: Justin Blackmon, Oklahoma State

Mackey Award: DJ Williams, Arkansas

Rimington Award: Jake Kirkpatrick, TCU

Bednarik Award: Patrick Peterson, LSU

Butkus Award: Von Miller, Texas A&M

Outland Trophy: Gabe Carimi, Wisconsin

Thorpe Award: Patrick Peterson, LSU

Lombardi Award: Nick Fairley, Auburn

Nagurski Award: Da'Quan Bowers, Clemson

Groza Award: Dan Bailey, Oklahoma State

Ray Guy Award: Chas Henry, Florida

Ducks Land Christian French

Chip Kelly and the Ducks received some good news today as 4 Star ATH Christian French gave his verbal commitment to play for the Ducks in 2011. French had offers from Notre Dame, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State.

French is projected to play TE, DE or LB at Oregon.

Chip to Gainesvile?

With the resignation of Florida head coach Urban Meyer still the talk of the day, some people are starting to wonder if Chip Kelly's name is going to come up in the job search. I can promise you that once the coaching search gets in to full swing Kelly will be in the mix, but he will most definitely come out extremely quickly and shoot down in rumors that he is leaving Oregon. Here though are the pro and cons of Chip going to Florida:

Pros:
Gets to coach in arguably the the best conference in the country
Is in the middle of one of the best states for recruiting
Florida athletes are known for speed
Florida has been running a version of the spread for almost 10 years

Cons:
Florida will have to pay a $4 million buyout to Oregon
Chip moved his parents just recently to Oregon
No Phil Knight in Florida


From everything that I have seen about Kelly he does not seem the one that really care about money. So, Florida coming and offering more money is not going to lure away Kelly. Also, Kelly has to give a 15 day notice to Oregon if he is going to leave, which gives the Ducks and Mr. Knight plenty of time to counter offer.

On my opinion leaving Oregon for Florida is the easy way out. With the amount of talent in the state of Florida every year Kelly could potentially have the most efficient offense and fastest offense this country has ever seen. If Kelly likes a challenge then he should stay at Oregon and make them a national power like Florida. In that regard he is already on his way there.

Was LaMichael Overlooked for PAC-10 POY?

Yesterday it was announced that Stanford's Andrew Luck was the PAC-10 offensive player of the year. Once this came out, myself and some of my fellow Ducks immediately were like:
What about LaMichael?
We started chatting about how LaMichael is so much better than Andrew and this is just typical of the PAC-10 to overlook Oregon again. I started thinking though, maybe they did get this right. Let's compare the two players. Here are their stats for the 2010 year:

Andrew Luck:
Comp %: 70.2%
Yds/A: 8.74
Passing Yards: 3051
Rushing Yards: 438
Total TD: 31

LaMichael James:
YPC: 6.0
Rushing Yards: 1682
Rec. Yards: 169
Total TD: 22

Just at first glance it looks like the PAC-10 got the award correct, but lets look further into it. Lets see what percentage of the total offense came from each player.

Stanford Total Yards: 5608
Luck Total Yards: 3489
% of Total Offense: 62.2%

Oregon Total Yards: 6446
Oregon Rushing Yards: 3642
James Total Yards: 1851
James Rushing Yards: 1682
% of Total Offense: 28.71%
% of Rushing Yards: 46.18%

Stanford Total TD's: 60
Luck Total TD's: 31
TD %:  51.67%

Oregon Total TD's: 71
Oregon Rushing TD's: 42
James Total TD's: 22
James Rushing TD's: 21
Total TD %: 31%
Rushing TD %: 50%

From looking at the percentages above once again I am pretty sure that the PAC-10 got the award correct. Do not get me wrong I am a huge LaMichael fan and look forward to one hopefully two more years with him, but when it comes to who is the most valuable player in the PAC-10 and to their team, this year it is definitely Andrew Luck. There is no way Stanford would be playing the Orange Bowl if it was not for Luck this year.

Urban Meyer Stepping Down

According to ESPN Urban Meyer will be stepping down as the head coach of Florida. A press conference is scheduled for 3pm pst today.

Current Oregon Recruiting Class

Here is the current list of Oregon commitments for 2011

Jared Ebert - JUCO DT - 3 Star - 6-5/285
Anthony Wallace - MLB - 5 Star - 6-0/240/4.55
Ifo Ekpre-Olomu - CB - 4 Star - 5-10/180
Tacoi Sumler - WR -4 Star - 5-9/165/4.33
Andre Yruretagoyen - OL - 4 Star - 6-4/265/4.94
Jerrard Randall - QB - 4 Star - 6-2/185/4.46
Tyson Coleman - S - 4 Star - 6-2/205/4.63
Rahim Cassell - OLB - 3 Star - 5-10/220
Jamal Prater - G - 3 Star - 6-5/280
Tyler Johnstone - OT - 3 Star - 6-6/260/4.93
James Euscher  - OT - 3 Star 6-7/278
Marcus Mariota - QB - 3 Star - 6-4/190/4.40
Carlyle Garrick - S - 2 Star - 6-3/215
Sam Kamp - DE - 2 Star - 6-4/225

All PAC-10 Team

Seven Ducks made the first team All PAC-10 Team
Here is the entire First Team:

QB Andrew Luck, Stanford
RB Owen Marecic, Stanford
RB Jacquizz Rodgers, Oregon State
RB LaMichael James, Oregon
WR Juron Criner, Arizona
WR Jeff Maehl, Oregon
TE David Paulson, Oregon
OL Chase Beeler, Stanford
OL David DeCastro, Stanford
OL Jordan Holmes, Oregon
OL Jonathan Martin, Stanford
OL Tyron Smith, USC

DL Jurrell Casey, USC
DL Cameron Jordan, California
DL Steven Paea, Oregon State
DL Brooks Reed, Arizona
LB Akeem Ayers, UCLA
LB Mason Foster, Washington
LB Casey Matthews, Oregon
DB Omar Bolden, Arizona State
DB Chris Conte, California
DB Talmadge Jackson, Oregon
DB Rahim Moore, UCLA

PK Nate Whitaker, Stanford
P Bryan Anger, California
KOR Robert Woods, USC
PR Cliff Harris, Oregon
ST Chike Amajoyi, Stanford

Offensive Player of the Year:
QB Andrew Luck, Stanford

Pat Tillman Defensive Player of the Year:
DT Stephen Paea, Oregon State

Coach of the Year:
Chip Kelly, Oregon

LaMichael James Named Heisman Finalist

LaMichael James has been named one of the finalist for the coveted Heisman Trophy. The winner will be named this Saturday at 5pm pst. The other finalist were:

Auburn QB Cam Newton
Boise State QB Kellen Moore
Stanford QB Andrew Luck

Chip Kelly Named Coach of the Year

Chip Kelly has been named coach of the year by CBSSports.com. Kelly and Stanford HC Jim Harbaugh were named Co-Coach's of the Year by AFCA.

CONGRATS COACH ONLY ONE MORE TO GO.

First Vegas Lines Out

The first vegas lines are out for the National Championship and Auburn is favored by 3 points. This really comes as no surprise as already most "experts" are jumping on the Auburn train.

Ducks Headed to Glendale

It is official the Oregon Ducks are headed to Glendale to face the Auburn Tigers for the 2010 National Championship. Oregon fell one spot in the AP poll this week to number two, but kept the their number one ranking in the USA Today poll.

Stanford will be traveling to Miami to take on ACC champ Virginia Tech.
Arizona will be traveling to San Antonio to take on Oklahoma State.
Washington will be traveling to San Diego to take on Nebraska.

Ducks Skin Beavers

The Oregon Ducks continued to do the same thing that have done all season, WIN. Oregon State kept it close in the first half going into half down 16-7 to the Ducks, but as us Duck fans have seen so many times this year we are a second half team. Darron Thomas and the Ducks outscored the Beavers 21-13 in the second half to win convincingly 37-20.

The Ducks won the turnover game forcing 4 turnovers, including three picks of starting QB Ryan Katz. James and Barner combined for 267 yards on the ground and Thomas added 145 yards through the air and 2 TD's.

Oregon will most likely be meeting the Auburn Tigers in the National Championship in Jan. 10th. ]


GOOOO DUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

'The Second Decision"

The news broke yesterday that Auburn quarterback Cam Newton will be eligible for the SEC Championship and potentially the National Championship. This decision by the NCAA came 24 hours after Cam Newton was declared ineligible by Auburn University, but I would like to note that nobody really knew that Newton had been declared ineligible. The fact that Newton was declared eligible by the NCAA brought to the surface that he was declared ineligible by the University. Now that was have that all clarified he is my take on the situation. I totally disagree with their decision and here is why:

1. As USC AD Pat Haden stated "In the Reggie Bush case, when the parent [did] something inappropriate the kid and the school suffered, I was always told the parent is the child, that's what we've been telling our kids. If the parent does something inappropriate the child suffers the consequences." Bush did not take money when he was at USC his step-father was the one who setup everything. Due to the Bush incident USC had to vacate wins, a national title and a Heisman trophy. The two instances are not identical since money was never exchanged, according to the finds so far, in the Newton case but it was in the Bush case. You can see though how Haden has a valid point.

2. It has came out that during his recruitment Cam Newton stated that he wanted to play for Mississippi State. This would make sense since he was recruited by Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen out of high school to play for Florida when Mullen was the OC there. So, if Cam Newton wanted to play for Mullen and Mississippi State so bad why did he go to Auburn. Its not like Auburn was a national power at the time and was guaranteed a trip to the SEC Championship or a shot at a National Title. One word MONEY.

The NCAA has opened Pandora's Box with this ruling. For years to come they will have to explain why this ruling was made and how it is ok for parents to shop their kids around as long as money is not exchanged.

My biggest problem with this and then it will be dropped is do you really think that the NCAA would have immediately made Newton eligible if Auburn was 5-7 or even 9-3. This was done to keep Auburn in the hunt for a National Championship. If Auburn does not go this opens the door for TCU to come and play the Ducks, most likely. Having a non-AQ school in the NCG is not what the old timers at the NCAA want I promise you that.

Intro

As a die hard Ducks fans I have decided to start this blog to keep avid duck fans up to date on all aspects of the Oregon Ducks football team. This will include team news, recruiting, scheduling and anything else that happens within or outside the confines of Autzen Stadium.

As all Duck fans know we are in the hunt for our first National Title with the mind of Chip Kelly, the legs of LaMichael James and the arm of Darren Thomas leading the way not to mention that Duck defense which gets nowhere near the amount of respect that it should.

We are less than two days away from the "Civil War". As I am sure all fans know this is the most important Civil War game in the history of the Oregon Football program with its outcome come one of two trips for the Ducks. With a win we travel to Glendale to face Auburn most likely, but perhaps we could also be facing those Horned Frogs. With a loss its off to Pasadena for the second year in a row.

GO DUCKS!!!!!!!!