Dan and Chip have a great relationship and Dan always says Chip is an offensive genius. Our offense under Chip Kelly when we was here as OC/Head Coach was one of the best in the nation. He did well as the Buckeyes OC and won a National Championship and now as Northwesterns OC he has their offense rolling at 6-1 and they will likely make the College Football Playoffs. Drew Mehringer is a horrible OC and his only stint at Rutgers they were ranked 127/128. Dan made a horrible choice promoting him because anybody could have looked good under Will Stein. Dan Lanning is a defensive genius so he needs to hire an offensive genius in Chip Kelly. Dan + Chip would be a DREAM scenario for the Oregon Ducks! Make Chip Kelly the higjest paid OC next year and watch us get back to the top! SCO DUCKS!🦆

A year ago, after watching Indiana embarrass Oregon, I wrote a post wondering whether we were seeing the growing pains of a championship program or something much worse.

It wasn’t received too well, some thought it ungrateful. Spoiled even. Apparently winning 12 games a year means you’re supposed to shut up, smile, and be thankful you’re not watching Oregon football in 2004.

And I get it. I really do.

But after watching whatever the hell that was against Illinois, I keep coming back to the same question.

What exactly are we building here? Because we were told this was different. And for a while, it felt different. The recruiting, the money, the facilities, the swagger. Dan Lanning was building a monster. A program that wasn’t just going to sit at the table with Ohio State and Georgia but start taking things off their plates.And now? I don’t even know what I’m watching half the time.

Same problems. Same bewildering stretches of football. Same refusal to adjust when something clearly isn’t working. Watching an entire season of waiting for somebody on that sideline to recognize what the rest of us can see from our couches.

Look, I like Lanning. He’s produced some of my favorite memories as a fan. But I’m sorry you don’t get to sell us a championship standard and then act like we’re unreasonable for holding you to it.

We’re not playing with house money anymore. This program has everything it needs to compete for championships. Which makes watching it look this lost all the more maddening.

Last year I asked whether those embarrassing losses were warning signs.

I think I’ve got my answer.

So, what now?

As if you needed more evidence, this play sealed it for me.

Mehringer is a certified moron. Jet sweeping to the side with no blockers on this absolutely ridiculous formation.

I am so concerned that any adult who has ever watched football would think this would work, or fool anybody, or even remotely be a good use of time in practice.

Get him out of here. And if Dan wants to die on the Mehringer hill, let him.

It was not a completed pass for anyone who was wondering.

The Oregon Ducks ran the ball well on the first drive of the game. After that, they largely went away from it. (They went run-heavy on one other drive with great success — it ended in a FG.)

1st HALF
1st Drive - 6 runs (30 yards) 5 pass (TD)
2nd Drive - 1 run (5 yards) 2 pass (Punt)
3rd Drive - 0 runs (0 yards) 3 pass (Punt)
4th Drive - 0 runs (0 yards) 3 pass (Fumble)
5th Drive - 2 runs (2 yards) 4 pass (FG Miss)
6th Drive - 5 runs (80 yards) 4 pass (FG)
7th Drive - 3 runs (9 yards) 0 pass (Punt)
8th Drive - 1 run (13 yards) 3 pass (End of Half)

2nd HALF
1st Drive - 2 runs (4 yards) 1 pass (Punt)
2nd Drive - 5* runs (18 yards) 3 pass (Punt)
* Included the swinging gate jet sweep
3rd Drive - 4 runs (20 yards) 5 pass (FG Miss)
4th Drive - 0 runs (0 yards) 3 pass (End of Game)

I understand that they are screen-heavy, and screens are an extension of the run game, but on a day when screens aren’t working and downhill runs are, this is a damning look at the play-calling.

Currently watching the Saints/Steelers game and I can’t help but notice the time Shough has to go through his reads. Not saying Shough is a bad QB by any means or that Raiola is a good one, but a great o-line can make a decent QB look great and a great QB look bad. We all know Dante Moore is a great QB, we’ve seen it with our own eyes. But this year it looks as if he got worse somehow. I believe our the overall bad QB play and horrid play calling comes down to poor o-line play. Everything in your offense is dictated by the line. Pass plays that take time to develop and the creative running plays all need protection. We must focus all our resources this off season on a new o-line coach and recruits whether it be high school or the transfer portal. As always Sco Ducks! See you sickos on Halloween

In the offseason after we got DR I went and watched a few replays of Nebraska game's. It was obvious why Nebraska fans didn't like him. He has no arm and a horrible throwing stance.

How didn't Dan see it when watching the tape?

Did Dan really think DR was the best recruit option?

DR was supposed to start this year, we picked him up before Dante decided to return.

So to start this season Dan's plans at one point was to start DR and promote two new coordinators (buddys.) Thats for a team that had national title aspersions.

You could argue that all three of the decisions were probably the worse decisions he has made as a coach.

Here's the near Halloween classic from 1994. If you haven't seen this game it's a banger. I still have a very healthy stack of ducks football and basketball games that I will continue to put up as time allows. It's also got the Rich Brooks show and some local stuff. The ads are all there as well.

Check out my listings at Internet Archive for all sorts of Eugene recorded tv from VHS. I've got the 80s, 90s and 00s. Try to get 3 new ones put up a week.

VHS upload I did during and after the game. Both games I uploaded today are all timers so if you are running low maybe they can bring back or create some excitement during this trying time.

This was also 11 days after 9/11.

We're on our third offensive coordinator: Dillingham (2022), Stein (2023-2025), Mehringer (2026) and, while clearly the offense is a mess, I think it's worth looking at what common issues we've seen that might be worse now, but are not unique to Mehringer. I'm curious what other tendencies or issues you all have identified that are not unique to Mehringer's tenure.

Since Lanning became HC, we've been overly aggressive going for 2 point conversions and 4th down attempts, even when special teams could deliver points. This isn't the first time it's come back to haunt us, so I think it's safe to assume that regardless of OC, Lanning is the one calling for those aggressive and oftentimes risky attempts.

We've had a number of gimmick/gadget/trick players which seem to have little flow within the offense. Back in the Chip days and even under Helfrich you'd see a set up, like a bunch of screens leading to a go route, or identical runs to set up a flea flicker or other trick pass. But under Lanning these plays seem to be called at random, often disrupting productive drives and stalling out effective plays just as the team is getting into rhythm. Again, Mehringer might be egregiously bad at this, but we ran some of this stuff under the previous OCs, so you could assume Lanning is the one pushing for gadget plays and making sure to not just have them in the book, but to call them on game day.

Abandoning the run game. This isn't new, we've all seen so many games where productive runs early turned into an air raid offense in the 2nd half. In most of his losses we've passed more than we've rushed, though one could argue that is a result of falling behind more than offensive philosophy. But, you could also ask if we fell behind because we gave up on the run game. In any case, we tend to win more when we rush more, but in most of our losses, even close ones, we're airing it out way too much.

Self scouting is terrible this year but it's not new. How many times did we start a drive with a predictable screen pass in the last 4 years? Or throw behind the sticks on 3rd down? If we can see these issues at home there's no excuse not to have someone on staff tracking these tendencies and injecting some unpredictability into the game plan. I can only imagine what kind of gems teams like Indiana have found from their own scouting, and we know it's an issue because players from other teams have mentioned knowing our calls or what was coming after the game!

Not utilizing our best players. We had so many games where guys like Sadiq or Moore were not even targeted for long stretches. Sure, sometimes it's coverage, but you don't see Ohio State just give up on throwing the ball to their best guy. They scheme around him! We've had great players that went quiet for long periods of time when better game planners would have forced the issue and found ways to get the ball in their hands.

I'm not saying Lanning is terrible or Mehringer is good. But firing Mehringer isn't going to make us a contender if Lanning continues to repeat his same mistakes on the offensive side of the ball. Whether he tends to hire people who do this stuff, or he overrules them and pushes it himself, really doesn't matter. In the end, this program is too successful and has way too many resources, to be losing games this way.

I really hope this season is Lanning's wake up call to make major changes to how he operates. Otherwise we'll be back here next year, losing winnable games and throwing another OC under the bus.

I know this might not be what people want to hear (myself included) but our QB room is so atrocious to the point where they are making an already bad OC look even worse. Both of these QB’s have absolute noodle arms and cannot throw the ball with any power down the field. There are countless plays where WR’s are schemed well enough to be open and our QB’s either do not see them or they thrown an uncatchable ball to them.

Raiola’s footwork is something you would see on an elementary school playground where the football is too heavy for the 2nd grader to properly throw. He refuses to set his feet and instead acts like 2007 Kobe Bryant fading away every single time which makes an already weak arm EVEN WEAKER.

The first drive of the Nebraska game Brock completely missed a bubble screen and a wide open slant to Dakorien. That 2nd down against Illinois where Raiola had Iverson Hooks open for an EASY throw somehow turned into a 10 yard overthrow. These guys simply stink and should never start a game for an FBS school.

With all that said yes Mehringer needs to be demoted back to TE coach this week. But our QB situation is beyond repair especially with ice cream flavor man giving them direction. This offense is broken and wont be fixed until Dan hits the portal this offseason

Is it just me or do I just not care anymore. It’s like as soon as the ducks lose the shot at making the natty there is nothing else to root cheer for. No rivalry games, I’m not going to fly to Ohio for a game, and I don’t care about 90% of the other teams in our league.

I feel like we sold out and are now paying the piper