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A shout out to a former teammate

I'd like to give a VERY loud Thank You to former Central Catholic Ram Atticus Sappington. This last Saturday was the 3rd time this season that his FG has been the final, winning points of the game. I don't think a kicker gets many opportunities like that through an entire college career, let alone one season. I'm glad he's now a Duck!

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Go Rams!

LINCOLN RILEY

USA TODAY:

NCAA sanctions give Southern California ammunition to fire Lincoln Riley and escape contract​

Matt Hayes
USA TODAY NETWORK

The NCAA sheriff handed down some law at Southern California on Wednesday, and the next three weeks just got vitally important for coach Lincoln Riley.
In the simplest terms, the NCAA gave USC a get out of jail free card to fire Riley and escape his mega contract.
The NCAA placed the school on probation for one year, and fined it $50,000 for on- and off-field coaching by non-coaching analysts on staff.
More potentially damning to Riley, whose teams have lost nine of their last 12 games: Southern California agreed with the NCAA that Riley violated “head coach responsibility” rules. This means the school could fire Riley with cause and not have to pay off tens of millions in contract commitments.
That’s right, fire Riley and not owe him a penny.
Southern California coach Lincoln Riley looks on during the second half of his team's game against Minnesota at Huntington Bank Stadium.


I don’t want to get into the semantics of why the “head coach responsibility” charge isn’t as damaging because the rule was given more teeth in 2023 (two years after the Trojans hired Riley). All you need to know is there’s now a off ramp for USC in this growing mess.

No more former players ripping Riley and the program on social media. No more longtime Big Ten punching bags stealing USC's conference thunder.
No more days of a top five program in all of college football middling around and losing to the Minnesotas and Marylands of the world.
“You see the level of penalties that were levied,” Riley said. “If it’s something serious, they’re going to suspend the head coach.”

This, everyone, is the crux of the problem with Riley at Southern California. Every problem isn’t as big as it seems. Or isn’t his fault.



Can’t stop anyone on defense? No big deal, we’ll hire a new coordinator.

Can’t win one-possession games? No big deal, we’re only a handful of plays away from being unbeaten.

Can’t win games consistently in the Big Ten? We knew this would be a tough transition.

Can’t recruit the fertile Southern California geographical footprint? The deficits when we arrived demanded recruiting the transfer portal (which also has been disastrous).


There’s always an excuse, always an out. The latest: QB Miller Moss keeps throwing the ball to the other team.

So now UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava takes over (he probably should’ve been playing earlier) to make it right in what has become an untenable situation.

Not only is the season over for the Trojans, the remaining three games are against teams that need it more.

Nebraska hasn’t played in a bowl game since 2016, and this week changed its offensive coordinator. The Huskers need one win to reach bowl eligibility.

Crosstown rival UCLA, which beat USC by 18 points last season, has won its last three games after finding its footing under first-year coach DeShaun Foster.

Rival Notre Dame can’t afford another loss if it expects to reach the College Football Playoff.

Riley is 23-13 at USC without a conference championship, and the coach he replaced (Clay Helton) was 26-10 in his first 36 games — with a Pac-12 championship and Rose Bowl win, and a Cotton Bowl appearance.

Bucky Busher game score guessing results

Well... Oregon did win ...
Evidently Wisconsin's scoring wasn't that hard to to predict since 9 of us did. Oregon's total on the other hand, and the spread, were much more elusive hiding from all. A special shout is due Tar who almost nailed the spread, predicting 4 but as was the case with most us didn't hit the rest of the numbers as well. There was a tight pack at the top with Duckville leading. Highlighted in red, it was a fairly even group among the experts (I know they don't consider themselves experts) in the middle of the standings.

Duckville 110
Adam 109
10Duck 109
Trent 108
Quack 107
Rockin 107
CKC 104
Ellsmeyer 103
Me 99
64Oregon 84
Ski 81
Scott 79
Youtube Sam 78
Beyond the pond Wisc 78
Brandon 77

Fish 72
TAR 71
Billy 70
Corey 69
Shark 67
Corkey 67
Gray 61
Grave 57

Let me know if I erred or missed someone.

I'm hoping everything gets back to normal for the next contest for the Wasington game. I'll post it in a bit but the game is to weeks away. That means I'll be taking my usual wild guess without looking at the weather or anything else. but ... what the hey. :)

Thanks for showing up again the week, hope to see all of you and a new face or two in a couple.

Ducks 82-61 over Troy

Much better basketball for the most part over what they showed vs Portland. Don't know how good Troy is but they have 12 players returning from a decent team last year. Oregon was faster, quicker and bigger so I am not ready to put a lot of weight on the win without seeing Troy having success as their season moves on. The spread was about 16 1/2.

Nevertheless Oregon started out building an early lead and improved on it steadily except for a little scoring by the Trojans during garbage time to bring the game closer than it was. Still plenty of room for improvement. Biddle had a slow night with his outside shooting, which we know he has. At somewhere near the 30 minute mark Oregon was shooting 50% for the game. Bartholomew was the only reliable three point shooter for the second time in a row. Shooting percentage still way bad complicated by a willingness to miss open shots from beyond the arc but they looked like a team that can consistently score deep in the paint for the first time this season. From the free throw line they are decent so far. A real hallmark is their intelligent hustle at both ends of the floor.

They are still playing solid defense. Without looking at the stats they had plenty of steals and blocked shots without fouling heavily. The big positive development is Supreme Cook getting onto the floor. He is not much of, if any, drop from Biddle. He is big and athletic, able to score proficiently at the rim. Haven't seen his outside shooting, if he has any. Now, when Biddle leaves the floor the Ducks do not have to alter their defensive plan and the rest of the squad did a better job of denying and defending the other team's outside game with their backs covered. Portland shot almost at will but the Trojans only had a few badly defended treys. My guess is that, as the Ducks build their chemistry, there will be even fewer of them.

From here the Ducks travel up the road to Corvallis on Thursday, then play three neutral site games vs Texas A&M and San Diego State, then a pair of games in LA before returning home at the end of the first week in December. By then we should have an understanding of what the Ducks are or can be.

Bucky Busher game score guessing contest

The title probably needs a little 'splainin'. Wisconsin's mascot is Bucky badger, or was until they played Oregon in Autzen back when Wisconsin was a decent team and Oregon wasn't. With the last few seconds dropping of the clock and the score well in hand, Bucky Busher's team called a timeout to kick a short field goal and run up the score. I haven't yet forgiven the a-holes, which would be my next favorite mascot name for Bucky, and I probably never will. Anyway there will be no frozen tundra, no near freezing temps nor fast falling mercury so I am going watch as many fans leaving Camp Randall early as I can in a 42-13 win for the Ducks.

As an aside our former head coach down in southern Florida finally took his annual dive to leave the ranks of the undefeated. The only other team in college football to make the same change was Marietta who went down 28-21 in a battle of unbeatens vs Mt Union.

In this list I've dropped most of those who are none one time guessers. Let me know if I accidently purged you.

Brandon 893
Rockin 883
Fish 856
Me 844
Shark 840
10Duck 832
Scott 820
Ski 786
Gray 771
Duckfan 767
CKC 655
Tar 648
Quack 745
64 Oregon 731
Adam 731
Trent 717
Corkey 711
Duckville 640
Corey 618
Grave 603
Billy 411
Twell 382
BXR 155
Wings 121
Ellsmeyer 85

Have at it :)
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