I sure get the perception that UO's athletes, coaches, staff... have followed the Dr's orders. I think I recall Altman saying something to the effect the players miss their friends, socializing....and can't wait to get back to semi normal. Mario has made similar statements. I don't know of any cancellations due to UO. Maybe it happened, and just wasn't reported that way. Not sure.
If the perception is right, kudos. It IS easier to stay CV free in Eugene and Corvallis than in some of the larger cities common for most P12 schools and we aint done yet. Still, so far it seems the UO athletics community has done pretty well with it.
So even with a failed cfb season that was akin to a few "pre season" games, there could be a bond of unity and success hidden in the quagmire. Maybe the athletics programs will have earned an even stronger bond with the local community by following the basic public health guidelines.
Just a thought.

Big stats and clutch plays.

Is the Pac-12 championship game between these 2 a done deal

Might be old news to many, but it's not just Oregon suffering from wandering eyes. A bit of this going around. They still have Moss. Hate to loose west coast kids to SEC, ACC...but we ARE talking SC.

Total bummer and lots of questions if true.

Impressed with both teams. Great game and in perfect winter football conditions.

There has been a lot of talk about Foreman and Maason Smith going to the same school. We always knew that wasn't going to be Oregon as Smith never really had Oregon in a top group.

That left Georgia, LSU and USC as the three top spots. Well, today, former Alabama player and 2019 top 50 player, No. 5 DT Ishmael Sopsher announced his landing spot -- USC.

What does that mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe Fotemsn still picks USC. But right now this looks to be an SEC battle for both between Georgia and LSU.

There is a lot of un-even reporting so the figures are at best incomplete and at worst very inaccurate.

2022 Looks like he has interest in the West, so that's good.

Credit our internet friend, Chileduck, for this update that he posted on his Duck track website. She has transferred in from Nebraska. Mia is Danish ... and she certainly looks Danish! I’d give her low four... but she is versatile and can run the 1500 and even add a helping hand in the 4 x 400. She has done pretty good in European U20 meets.

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The article is slated for tomorrow morning, but thought I would share it here and now because I will be busy tomorrow. I reflected on the season with a sort of schizophrenic duality of loss and hope through different words. Below is the entirety of tomorrow's Flock Talk




A tough week with opportunity stripped from a team of players desperate to revive a lost season with another trip to the Pac-12 Championship. Sure. It was going to be a difficult task; and it seems unfair that Oregon – who could have made this point moot with a win in either of the two prior weeks – will not be able to defend their Pac-12 title on the field tomorrow.

I read a line from a PEN-Faulkner finalist On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong) which lends some prescience to this moment. “In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.”

This week was the whole life for the Oregon football team. In a season that seems to not matter, the moment mattered to them. Call it a chance at redemption for two bad games; or just another chance to chase perfect moments wrapped in an imperfect game. Either way, the moment is gone and the bad dream that is 2020 continues in agony. The daffodils of Wordsworth will provide little solace to Mario Cristobal and his football team.

But these moments of abject solitude remind me of Spencer Webb. His story still resonates with me as I recall the conversations we had in April of 2017. Back then he told me “It’s tough. My parents left me, skipped town; left me at my 70 year old grandmas at a very young age. I was maybe three or four years old and my aunt stepped in,” he said. “Yeah, I guess it made me feel like they passed away more than they choose to pick substance over raising kids.”

Webb is not the only young man to stare down inherited demons and beat them; he won’t be the last. He has been through much worse than 2020 and carries unbridled optimism and hope. The duality of a football season, one borne of hope and yet destined for most to dreams in total darkness crashes 2020 into what is really a normal reality. Oregon football – aside from the pitiful 2016 season and its aftermath – has been on an incredible arc over the last twenty-plus years. A once moribund program languishing in the lower dregs of football society came out of that darkness. But many fans reading this do not remember those days; they don’t know what it’s like to be Kansas football; or Kentucky; or any other innumerable programs that know only yearly heartbreak.

I guess this is the penitence of the short memory. We can learn something, however, from then 17-year old Webb. “Me and my family; we grind each day on the field, classroom and life topics.” You can be sure that Cristobal is working to keep this team focused on whatever comes next. I know that the university is working hard to find a replacement opponent to keep this team playing this weekend. It seems a dead end, but they were burning up the phones from the moment that Washington paused football activities.

It was said by Johannes Kepler that “we do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens.” What does that say about the need for humans to interact through shared passions? We are the birds. We sing because that is our purpose. As the 2020 season mercifully comes nearer its conclusion, the shared passions of men and women all across the nation someday return with barbecues, drinks and football. It is in those moments that we can shine our best and those moments which we can cherish.

There will be success and failures on the field. Wins. Losses. Commitments. Decommitments. All are likely to occur between now and next February. But those moments of passion under the lights of stadiums will define us far more than any loss. Those players will find their place, they will play with heart and soul. The coaches will make mistakes, and they will do some things right.

The known is finite, the unknown infinite – T.H. Huxley

Here are my thoughts on this - football is sport; entertainment. Sometimes we take this very seriously; there is a lot of money involved and we care about the sport in a way that can be, at times, unnatural. We dig deep into the lives of teenagers looking to take some pride in something bigger than ourselves. I like this - except when it goes wrong.

Football can be something bigger than ourselves; it can be something worth finding pride and passion, so long as that something bigger is about more than wins and losses.

But for the young men who give their blood, sweat and tears to this game; for our perverse pleasures; there is no mercy to the end of the season. Only loss and longing for another chance. Pessimistic as it seems, sleep will never come that easy. There will always be the bad dreams that define 2020.

With that I have a thought heading into what looks like a bye week. We are not the story; the frailty is not the story. The rehabilitation? That is where the truth of our efforts lay.

We can be the leaders of reclamation. We can change the world; not by tearing down its heroes, but recognizing in them the faults which are at the heart of mankind. I will not test fate and reflect forward the misery of the convoluted 2020 football season for Pac-12 fans.

Instead, I return to the hopefulness of Wordsworth:

They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

[I wandered lonely as a Cloud] William Wordsworth

Impressive haul for Altman. This year's team has a bunch of improving to do, but regardless, the future is bright. Kepnang (28th) should end up be even better than Gregg (77th). As I said in another thread, UO and Zaga should play every year early season. Would make sense for both programs.

Saw my second game the Beav's played last night when they hosted Portland. I know this a Duck forum, but we all keep and eye on what's going on a few miles north.

All I can say is "Cal must have been bad to lose to OSU"

In the last three games they have blown 2 double digit leads and a 8 point one they had achieved after a 7 point halftime deficit in the second halves of those contests. Their opponent were not world beaters. (WSU, Wyoming, Portland) The problem seems to be talent.

They shot at a consistent 35- 37% pace for those games, except for the last few minutes or so of last night's loss when they pushed it up to 42% for the game. Defense is mediocre as was the rebounding. The stats are mostly a reflection of what Wayne Tinkle did before his son and a few other decent players brought the team up to average with enough game to upset some good teams when they weren't on top of their performance, and where they appear to be headed.

Especially with football improving, I'm wonder wondering how long Tinkle will be on the throne. I'm guessing he'll be flushed in no more than two years.

I was the guest picker for this week's national prediction column. Here is the story and the picks.

Sounds like he's off to a great start.

Let us get the ball rolling because like Cristobal and the team, we have to assume that the UW game is happening as scheduled.

So...

Oregon 41 - washington 33

Now tOSU might not have enough games to make the B1G playoffs. 2020 is so nice.

I've had finer moments than my first question today.

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Looks like COVID outbreak 3 days before game. Hmmmmmmm