Absence Makes the Heart... explode?

I was out for a while helping my mother move from Cave Junction ORegon to Klamath Falls. It was sweltering that first day, over 100 degrees while yours truly did the heavy lifting and was EXHAUSTED at the end of the day. In fact, I was HAPPY for a 3 hour drive in a U-Haul!

After getting the two 26 foot U-hauls that were full unloaded, I headed home yesterday and made it safe and sound last night.

A day of rest has reinvigorated me and I will shortly have my next strong opinion out there for the world to see.

Thank you all for your patience!

Woes of the Buffaloes

Just finished posting the article looking at Colorado for Oregon's fifth game. Things do not look any better in 2013 than they did last season. In fact, in some ways, they look worse.

The best players on defense are gone and the top two linemen on offense have left. That does not spell a lot of good things for a team that finished as the worst offense and worst defense in the conference a year ago.

But this isn't really about that, my look at the team for Duck Sports Authority is posted to look at.

The bigger problem is that the decision to fire Jon Embree appears to have been one made in haste as a response to two embarrassing seasons in the Pac-12 conference. I am not sure if Colorado really made the switch to better position themselves financially or because they thought maybe they'd have a better chance at rebuilding in the Pac-12, but it appears that the Buffaloes are nowhere near respectability in the conference.

The hiring of MacIntyre looks more of a hire made from desperation. The names that were originally mentioned all fell through and it appears tht Colorado got "stuck" with the hiring of a coach whose track record is not really as impressive as it seems.

Sure, MacIntyre was able to get San Jose State turned around, but the recruiting competition he faced was nowhere near as stiff as in his new home. At San Jose State, a member of the Western Athletic Conference during his tenure, the recruiting interests of the members were widespread and created a fairly level playing field. At Colorado, he learned quickly that competing against national level recruiters like Stanford, USC and Oregon as well as competing against 11 other teams for the top West coast talent leaves very little low lying fruit that can come in and help right away.

Colorado may have better cohesion and be a more focused team in 2013, but they will still lack the talent to compete. Maybe he gets things turned around in 3-4 years, but he's going to have to do it through development of players because he is going to struggle to get ready-made talent to Boulder.

Why fear the hurry-up?

In order to comprehend who we are, we must understand where we come from. Such is a brief synopsis of Alasdair MacIntyre’s seminal moral philosophy work After Virtue.

Recently Nick Saban, Alabama head football coach, and Brett Bielema, new Arkansas head coach, have gone on record saying that "hurry-up" offenses are dangerous and bad for the game; that it creates more potential for injury.


I am not going to bore people with the entire detailed specifics, but I will say that they are actually wrong. The 2012 numbers show that the OPPOSITE is true; slow it down three-yards and a cloud of dust type football teams actually suffer higher rates of injury. That's not supposition, Nick, that's fact.

We know what Brett Bielema's problem is; he lost three consecutive Rose Bowls one of them toa  team he though he should have beaten. Never mind that he cannot keep track of timeouts and does not understand the kickoff return rules, he watched De'Anthony Thomas gash his defense for two long runs while LaMichael James methodically picked apart the rest of the defense along with Darron Thomas and Lavasier Tuinei. No, it had to be the hurry up that was the real problem.

Believe it or not, the up-tempo offense Oregon runs is not new and it is not unique. It was pioneered by Sam Wyche and the Cincinnati Bengals in the late 80's and early 90's. The Bengals were the first team to implement the hurry-up as a base offense. Tehy were moderately successful with the offense, but it was nearly perfected by a much stodgier coach, Marv Levy when Jim Kelly arrived on the scene in Buffalo. Circumstances always seemed to prevent the Bills from winning a Super Bowl, but Kelly, Thurman Thomas and the rest of the Bills made the 60 minute hurry up offense a thing of beauty.

At the professional level, especially in the 90's, it took special types of players to run this offense. Not everyone could do it and you had to have the exact right personnel. With the smaller roster sizes it was difficult to practice at warp speed. After Jim Kelly retired, the hurry up quickly retired with him. 

Chip Kelly brought it back with a vengeance. With deeper rosters in college and players more eager to listen and please without the ego of professionals, he was able to perfect a hurry-up like no one else. Cue cards. Hand signals. You name it and he thought of ways to get plays off faster and faster.

Saban and Bielema are right to an extent. Fatigued athletes demonstrate altered motor control strategies, which may increase the risk of injury. Studies have concluded that fatigue does, in fact, have an impact on the potential for injury. But most of these studies focused on recreational athletes not highly trained college football players. As stated earlier, anecdotal statistics from the 2012 season seem to suggest otherwise.

So what exactly are Saban and Bielema afraid of? Are their concerns truly about player safety or are they about job security? Nick Saban has no issue with job security, He has a job at Alabama as long as he wants and that appears to be ending no time soon. Bielema? He probably has a much shorter leash. Arkansas had limited amounts of high success under Houston Nutt and then Bobby Petrino, so their fans expect high standards. If he doesn't deliver quickly, he could be in a heap of trouble.

The real dilemma that they face is the perceived supremacy of the SEC. Texas A&M showed that speed and pace CAN take down the giant that is the Alabama Crimson Tide. If they can do it, why not Oregon?

 Do I think that Nick Saban is afraid of Oregon? No. Do I think he does not want to see all of college football; the tradition he loves of ground and pound; gone the way of the do-do bird? Yes. This is where it all lay.

Bret Bielema is from the coaching tree of legendary Iowa coach Hayden Fry who was part of the Frank Broyles coaching tree; this is old-school football from which Bielema hails. His success has come with behemoth offensive lineman and big powerful running backs.

The interesting twist in Nick Saban's opposition is that he is part of Bill Belichick's coaching tree. Yes, that would be the same Bill Belichick who last season returned the hurry-up no huddle offense to the NFL.

Stealing Lemons?

Former UW receiver Luter Leonard, once a heralded dual threat quarterback who barely saw action above the scout team during his time with the Huskies once told the Seattle times in an interview:

"The thing about life is you’ve got to adjust,”When you come into college, your goal — everyone’s goal — is to go to the NFL and be a first-round draft pick. But, you know, when life gives lemons, you’ve got to make lemon juice.”

Well, Monday Leonard was arrested in connection with an armed bank robbery. I guess if you cannot afford those lemons, you steal the money to buy them.

Jalen Jelks thoughts

Oregon received its 9th commitment for the class of 2014 yesterday in the form of 6-7, 255 pound defensive lineman Jalen Jelks.

Yes, you saw that right, 6-7, 255... and only 16 years old. Jelks is a man-child from Arizona who has had an interest in the Ducks for several months. I briefly profiled Jelks as someone to watch in May.

Jelks had impressed at the Rivals Camp Series and was starting to get a lot more attention. Combine his impressive performance with his size and youth and there is plenty to be excited about for Oregon fans.

Jelks, while big and very athletic, does have some areas of improvement like most high school prospects.  He has good pad level and a quick first step off the line. He shows good footwork and tremendous pursuit ability. He does have a tendency, though, to leave his feet when trying to make a tackle. That's easy to get away with in high school where you can dominate by your sheer size, but it won't fly in college.

Much of what he has, though, cannot be trained; size and athleticism. And he is only going to grow. He reminds me a little of DeForrest Buckner, though Buckner was a little more polished with his technique.

Maybe a better comparison is a taller version of Taylor Hart. For those that don't remember back this far, Hart was a three-star prospect out of Tualatin that signed with Oregon in 2009. Hart was 6-6, 255 when he signed and he has grown to 292 pounds. In the process, Hart has become one of the most versatile players along the Oregon defensive line capable of plugging holes in the middle or playing outside at defensive end.

Jelks has the same kind of size and athleticism to make a similar impact.

When Jordan Hoiem committed, he told me that he didn't like to compare himself to other players, he just wanted to be his own player. But it's natural for us to look at a player and wonder where he might fit and who he might closely resemble as a player.

Jelks will undoubtedly be his own player when he arrives on a college campus. Now, as is always the case this early in the process, it should be mentioned that Jelks' commitment is only as good as the paper it is written on... and that is none.

We all know that commitments in July are not binding; only a signature in February will matter.

If this commitment sticks, however, it will go a long way to replenishing the defensive line depth Oregon loses this year. With the earlier commitment of four-star JUCO defelsive lineman Tu Talia (6-5, 270), the defensive line recruiting for Oregon in 2014 is shaping up very nicely.

Welcome Back Kotter? Nah, just welcome back to The Other Side of Duck

Today, after reading a post on Duck Sports Authority, it occurred to me that I have entirely neglected my personal blog for quite some time. In fact, my last post here coincided with a trip to Hawaii last October.

Upon my return from tropical paradise, the season took hold in full and I found myself quite busy writing four and five articles every week. When those articles extended in December with the creation of the "Flock Talk" series which gave me the opportunity to express more opinion in my writing, I felt the need for the individual blog begin to dissipate.

Today, poster BigMattyO on DSA posted a link to Dale Newton's article about strength coach Jim  Radcliffe... and that reminded me of an article I had written two years ago. After reviewing my previous article it struck me that my voice had changed. Not the physical voice, but the voice I had expressed myself with over the past two years.

Anything I do, I take seriously and try to maintain some level of pride. Whether that be in the weight room, in my own personal betterment through reading challenging material like The Character of Consciousness (Chalmers, 2011) or writing for Duck Sports Authority, I strive for excellence. Do I always achieve a level of excellence I am satisfied with? No. That's what drives me, always looking to improve.

Nonetheless, I take the process by which I write very seriously. I am not always the most flexible person when it comes to my writing and that has caused some consternation.

About a year ago, I was asked to write a couple of pieces for another site, which, as long as it was not a conflict with my writing for DSA, I was completely comfortable with conceptually. In practice, however, there were some things about the process which were not appealing. For the most part, even for DSA, I have nearly full editorial control of my content. To me that is an important part of my process. If the voice I speak with, the views I share or the manner in which I choose to convey a message do not appeal to the editors or publisher, I don't like to be hacked up; I prefer that the piece just not be published.

I would actually be more okay with that than having someone take a hatchet to the piece in a way that changes what I was attempting to convey. In the long run, it led to an exchange that severed a positive relationship which is too bad, because I respect the person tremendously for his passion and commitment to what he does.

There are a lot of great Duck bloggers out there and I do not pretend to be better than any of them. My hope is not to replace the bloggers, but add my own unique style back to the mix.

One of the things that has happened as a result of my work with DSA is that my "fan" voice has begun to disappear. Make no mistake, I started writing as a fan and still consider myself a Duck fan. Nonetheless, the work I do for DSA requires a voice and point of view that has made me lose that alternate voice.

I want to gain that back.

From this point forward, I will use my personal blog as a means with which to express more opinions and other topics of interest. I will, of course, have my unique voice and much of what I talk about will be related to the topics at hand on DSA as well as different pieces which I cannot produce for DSA. Duck Sports Authority is, at its core, a recruiting website. As such, much of the content centers around recruiting and some football analysis.

One of the topics we thought was good was crossing over into "traditional" media territory with human interest stories. That did not really fit the meat, though, of what Rivals wanted from us, so we agreed to move in a different direction.

Here at The Other Side of Duck, however, all is fair. There is no corporate "guy" telling me what to write. This is my site with my thoughts. There will be a benefit, though, from my work on DSA and there will be a crossover.

So, I am back to The Other Side of Duck.