95.5 the game just came out with breaking news that Nate Costa suffered a knee injury in practice last night.  They didn't know which knee or the severity, but said that an athletic department source described it as "potentially serious."  They'll get more from Bellotti in a conference call tonight.

The first thought is last year, and if Nate reinjured his ACL.  I hope that's not the case.  But, with a bit over a week until the Husky game, I hope that Roper's ready.

I'm glued to the computer and radio on this.  The moment I get anything, it'll go right up.

--Dave (addictedtoquack@gmail.com)

[UPDATE] Ducks Attack wonders if this is a hoax, as they've been unable to get confirmation from the athletic department.  He also cites lack of updates by Moseley, etc.  I hear Moseley's out of town.  And athletic department officials can't comment publicly on injury matters (only coaches with player consent).  I can tell you that Jay Allen is the longtime sports director at KXL/95.5, and he broke this himself.  He has inside sources, and a ton on the line.  There is no way this is a hoax, and, if it is, I would be beyond shocked.

[UPDATE]: Moseley confirms an "incident".  Also says there will be more info as it becomes available.

[UPDATE]: Moseley and 1320 the score are reporting that Costa has injured the same knee that was surgically repaired last year. Good news is that he finished out the practice and then discussed this with the coaches. From what we've heard, he will be getting an MRI tonight. However, Oregon's orthopedic surgeon is out of town, so results may not be back until Sunday. At this point, we don't know the extent of this. It could be very serious, or quite minor. He won't be playing for at least a few days.

He'll get a shot.

He's been invited to preseason camp with the Blazers, and there's one potential spot open on the roster.  He's had a rough go with injuries but, like Joey, its been long enough that you have to start thinking he's just really not that good at the next level.  I really hope Luke proves us wrong, because he's my favorite Duck ever (my son is named Luke, after all).

Make it happen, Luke.  I love Brandon Roy, but his Huskyism does need some counterbalance.

We've all kind of figured since spring ball that Nate Costa was the starting quarterback.  In spite of Justin Roper's great bowl performance, Costa just always seemed to have more tools (namely, a pair of legs) that fit our offense.  That the coaching staff called him the 'heir apparent' did little to quell those thoughts.

So what are we to make of this?

Roper has apparently 'closed the gap' on Costa, and a decision will be made by the end of the week?  And he may even try to use Chris Harper, too?

My gut tells me that its still Costa's job to lose, and that this is to serve as a bit of motivation.  And, hell, if Roper wins the job and is the starter, I don't have a huge problem with that, either.

But if MB decides that he's unsure, and goes with the ol' two-QB system, I'm going to vomit.  Between the disaster of the Holiday Bowl, and letting Jason Fife leech playing time way too long, I've seen enough of the two QB system.  Pick a guy, and stay with him.  If he really sucks, go to the other guy.  But PLEASE don't rotate QBs in and out every other possession.

As for Harper, please redshirt him.  In talking with Jared, he mentioned the possibility of using Harper as a RB in trick plays where you can make him throw.  If that's all you want him for, use Crenshaw.  But wasting the redshirt this year strikes me as akin to putting Dixon in against Oklahoma "to see what he can do."  Without that, Dixon is our starting quarterback right now.

In other notes:

Could there be a controversy at punter as well?  I think this is just public praise for Taylor.  Syria is the best punter in a decade at Oregon, no way he's not the starter (though nice to hear that the future is doing so well).

Also, no Drew Davis for the Washington game as he just had a tonsillectomy.  Get well, Drew.

GO DUCKS!!!

--Dave (addictedtoquack@gmail.com)

Wow.  I knew we had a great community here.  But I completely underestimated you guys.  I've had no less than 20 emails from people interested in helping out with the blog.  Its really flattering that all of you care so much as to be willing to give your time.

We value each and every one of you but, unfortunately, I can only take two on the front page.  However, I encourage everyone to keep writing the fanposts, those are a critical part of this blog.

I'm looking over all the emails now, and will get back to people in the next day or so.  If you're not selected, PLEASE don't take it personally.  This place doesn't work without each and every one of you.

Hopefully, we'll have two new authors by the end of the week.

GO DUCKS!!!

--Dave (addictedtoquack@gmail.com)

University of Washington Huskies

Location:  Seattle, Washington

Enrollment:  42,974

Coach:  Tyrone Willingham (11-25 @ UW, 76-76-1 overall)

2007 Record:  4-9 (2-7 Pac-10)

Allow me to make a list of things I hate more than the Washington Huskies:

1.  Certain political figures who shall not be named

2.  Wal-Mart

That’s about it.  Any longtime readers know my hatred everything purple and gold.  So their struggles over the last few years leave me with little sympathy for the Puppies.  I’ve often wondered how a team in such a great city of wealth could fall so far, but you’d better believe I revel in it.  Since their Rose Bowl appearance in 2000, Washington’s spiral to irrelevance has been met with these records:

2001:  7-4

2002:  7-6

2003:  6-6

2004:  1-10

2005:  2-9

2006:  5-7

2007:  4-9

That’s a whole lot of bad, only made worse by the truth that this team has no future, either.  Outside of Jake Locker, this team has no talent.  They finished 60^th in the nation in total offense last year (394.2 ypg), and an abysmal 104^th in total defense last year.  Ty Willingham is on the hottest seat in the nation, and his ass is sure to be shitcanned at the end of the year.

Lets take a look at Satan’s minions:

When Oregon has the ball:

Did I mention that Washington’s defense is somewhere beyond bad?  They were 89^th against the run and 104^th against the pass last year, so equally bad against both.  And, you remember running for four hundred sixty something yards against them last year.  Washington does return six starters, but are still plagued by a fundamental lack of talent on the defensive end.  A new defensive coordinator is sure to help, but how much?

E.J. Savannah had 111 tackles at outside linebacker last year, and is probably the only player on that end worth mentioning by name—though his eligibility remains in question.  The others are a mix defensive linemen with little experience, uninspiring linebackers, and a senior laden defensive backfield that has roughly as much skill as my one year old son.

As I’ve said, though, this defense is equally bad on both sides of the ball.  I’d expect Bellotti to break Costa in easy, with a heavy dose of JJ and Blount in this game.  Those guys should be able to keep each other fresh the whole game long, which should lead to big rushing numbers by the end of the game.  Costa will have a lot of safe passes early on (flats, bubble screens, etc.) until we can take a couple score lead.  I think at that point, Bellotti will let him take a couple of chances to get comfortable.  Costa will get somewhere around 150 yards thorough the air, but we could get over 300 yards rushing.  I’d be extremely disappointed if we didn’t have around 40 points.

When Washington has the ball:

There’s been some bagging on Jake Locker but he’s not overrated—he’s the real deal.  We know he runs like a beast.  And, while he need major improvement as far as passing accuracy goes, we saw last year what can happen if he’s able to find his touch on the deep ball.  Locker does have a bit of a hamstring issue, but its not expected to keep him out of the game.

Let me begin by making one thing crystal clear—Locker’s not going to be gift wrapped two deep blown coverages by the secondary this time.  It was that group’s worst performance of the year in that game, and its not going to happen again.  At least not against this opponent.  Every Washington receiver of not is no longer with the team.  However, one man to keep an eye on is freshman Chris Polk, who is expected kind of like James Rodgers.  Watch the fly sweep.  Louis Rankin is gone, but Brandon Johnson, a serviceable back, will step into the starting job.  The offensive line is very good, and starters return at fullback and tight end.

This unit is okay, but it is very unknown at the skill positions besides Locker.

Special Teams:

The Huskies are very good at punter and kicker.

Final Outlook:

The offense is a mystery, but I expect them to be pretty good.  Look for them to get up about 24 points as our defensive line and linebackers work out some kinks.  However, their defense is something terrible.  We saw a record running performance against them last year, and I expect the same this time around.  Tons of yards for JJ and Blount, and a 42-24 opening day win for Oregon.  Puppies go home licking their wounds, and all is good in the world.

GO DUCKS!!!

--Dave

As you can see, I haven't been around much lately. Its been another several day absence for me from the site, and it seems that this has been becoming more common. I've kind of known this in the back of my mind for awhile now, but it really sunk in when I tried to sit down and write some team previews for the upcoming season: I just don't have 20-30 hours per week to put into this website anymore. My son is getting older and demanding more of my attention. I now have two dogs as well. And my wife would like a bit of my time, too. Regular visitors know that I've never been happy with the lack of basketball coverage due to the fact that I coach high school ball and don't see most of the games, let alone have time to blog about them. But I've always felt that the football coverage was solid. However, its becoming apparent that I don't have the time to do the job that I've done the last couple of seasons. Jared and Nick do a solid job helping out on here, but they have major time commitments as well.

This has led me to think about what the future of the site is. This has involved conversations with my wife, the higher ups at SBN, other bloggers, etc. One option was to simply quit. That was never really a viable option to me. We've got way to great of a community here to just up and leave. Besdies, I love doing this. I wasn't looking to stop completely, just looking to not spend quite so much time doing it. Another option was to just leave the status quo. Its still an okay blog just updating a few times a week--but just okay is not good enough by my standards. I think that we all expect better, and if we want the online community here to continue to be strong, people need a reason to come back. Another option was to find someone else to shift all of my responsibility onto. Besides just writing, there's a lot of behind the scences stuff to keep up with. But everyone has commitments, and if I can't find all that time, why should I expect someone else to.

So, while muddling over what to do, Peter Bean suggested a solution that could solve all our problems here. We have a great community here. And I've never thought of this as "my" site, as much as its "our" site, with "our" referring to any Duck fan who wants to come here and be a part. So, since this place belongs to all of us, lets use the community to make it stronger.

We're looking for at least two more writers. Ideally, one would be the primary football writer, and one the primary basketball writer. I'd ask the football writer for three posts a week, mainly dealing with scouting reports, previews, and game recaps. Ditto for the basketball writer. You could write whatever you want beyond that (there is no such thing as stepping on toes here), but that is all I would really ask for. I'll continue to take care of all the administration stuff, jersey contest, blogpoll, as well as a couple of articles a week, and Jared and Nick will continue their fine work. But taking some of the research off my plate will give me some time to spend will free up some time with my family, and having someone else cover the game recap will make my wife and son happy, who already sacrifice half their weekend to let me watch football all Saturday. Having a basketball writer around will allow us to actually have basketball coverage, which has been sorely lacking until late in the season the last couple of years. We could probably all team up to cover baseball.

This is a blog, so there is no pay, but its all for the love of the Ducks and to have a place to chat Oregon Sports all year round. A couple of more writers would allow us to have updates everyday, and really fuel the discussion even further. If you're interested, shoot me an email with what you'd like to cover, and a writing sample. I want to be here and keep this place going for many, many years. I just need a bit of help.

GO DUCKS!!!

--Dave (addictedtoquack@gmail.com)

I went to speak to Wave Broadband customer service in person today (Wave Broadband serves Woodburn, Canby, Silverton, Stayton, Grande Ronde, Sandy, and some smaller towns around those).  I was surprised to find someone who was actually knowledgeable about the situation, instead of the worthless people I was getting on the phone.

Here's what I was told and, I think, its good news.  We know that Wave is changing their channel lineup.  The woman pointed me to the brochuere that we got in the mail.  One of the changes is that FSN is moving to channel 38.  Channel 37 is being left open to accomodate CSN.  I'm told that almost everything has been agreed to, price, etc.  The only issue still under negotiation is that Wave has some subscribers in the Seattle area.  Wave doesn't want to offer CSN to those subscribers, because its Oregon programming.  Comcast wants to.  I'm told that this is the only issue left in negotiations and that its pretty much a lock this will be done by basketball season.  Of course, cable companies tell us a lot of things, but I think that FSN moving channels to open up channel 37 is pretty good evidence that something's in the works.

Doesn't affect a lot of people, but very good for the few of us that it will.

Are you going to see many Duck games this year? Before you answer that question, there are some things you should know.

That deal with IMG. You know, the one that's paying for the sweet new scoreboard at Auzten, as well as the new baseball and basketball scoreboards? It doesn't come free. Some sketchy things are about to happen, and its a lot of us who stand to get screwed.

We only have four national TV games scheduled this year: Washington, USC, OSU, and Purdue. More will be picked up, especially if we are as successful as we think we will be this season. But we also know that many of our games will be on OSN--likely starting with the Utah State game in week two. For the last ten years, this has worked out well--tune into your local ABC affiliate, or get ESPN GamePlan if you're out of state, and you're gold. Unfortunately, that's all changing this year.

Apparently, before the IMG deal, the University basically had an agreement with Chambers Communications to extend the contract for another five years. However, before any formal agreement was signed, the UO signed off with IMG, who presented terms that were no agreeable to Chambers. As a result,  Chambers was forced to punt on extending the contract, and we are left wtihout any OSN carriers less than a month before the season is to start.

Making matters worse, it seems that the contingency plan is to have OSN air on Comcast SportsNet Northwest.  Those of you who are Blazer fans will be familiar with this network, as it is the reason that most of the state can't get Blazer games.

For those of you not in the know, here is the deal with CSN.  Its mostly only Comcast customers that can get it.  Sure, they make it available to other providers, but at a price so exoborant that many have not been able to carry it.  To date, the only other carriers are Verizion FIOS in the Portland area, Ashland TV, and Scio Cablevision.  Got Satellite?  No CSN for you.  Live in an area not served by one of the above providers (and, living in Woodburn, I fall into that category), tough shit for you.  Served by a provider such as Charter or Wave?  There is no legal way for you to get Duck games.  Sorry.

But the University, IMG, and Comcast will all make a lot of money on this.  So they really couldn't care that we can't see the games.  I have no knowledge of how this will affect coverage on ESPN gameplan, but I'm fairly sure that Wave, the only cable carrier in Woodburn, doesn't offer GamePlan (nor am I sure that the wife would go for it even if they did).  So it may be a lot of Jerry Allen for me.

As both a Blazer fan and a Duck fan, Coincast can rot in hell.

GO DUCKS!!!

--Dave

A little immature part of me likes to bait a Beaver fan every once in a while because it is so easy to do, I have Beaver friends whose skin I like to get underneath a bit, and they are so defensive.  It really is classic little brother syndrome.  However, to be fair,  here are my true thoughts on OSU:

1.  I root for OSU every time they're not playing us, unless a loss would help us in the standings.  They are Oregonians, and I generally want to see them do well.  I don't hate them.  But I never want to lose to them.

2.  I do see Oregon as the superior program.  That's not based on records, its based on the fact that we have better talent and are more nationally relevant.  Oregon is not an elite program.  We need to be in the BCS consistently to claim that.  But we are a good second tier program (a la Wisconsin/Va. Tech/Colorado).  I'm not sure that the Beavers have reached that level yet.

3.  I have a lot of respect for what OSU is able to do, but even Beaver fan has to admit that 1)they need to win a big road game, 2) they need to fill their stadium, and 3) they need to get a decent opponent to come to Reser.  Only when OSU starts winning big non-conference games on a regular basis (and getting home games, instead of whoring yourselves out to LSU and Penn State) is a part of that.  Maybe Oklahoma or Michigan won't come to Reser, but an Oklahoma State or an Iowa might be a good place to start.  In fact, maybe the fact that a Michigan or an Oklahoma will come to Autzen is the best verification of our claim.

I've got respect for your program, Beavs.  But you've got to do more to reach the next level.

In the meantime, I'll back off until Civil War week*

I reserve the right to change my mind if you lose big to Penn State.  Believe me, we're all rooting for you to win that game.

--Dave

First off, I want to apologize for my absence the past week.  Some unforseen computer issues have taken me completely offline since last Thursday, although we should have those fixed by now.

I want to discuss an issue that I had no intention of bringing up again, but whiny Beaver fans have started sniffling again.  I was listening to Gavin Dawson last night, and the topic (Ted Miller's claim about Oregon being hated), quickly devolved into the same old whine from Beaver fan "both teams have similar records over the past few years, why is Oregon so overrated and the Beavers so underrated" bullshit yawn yawn yadda yadda.  I guess we'll have to go over this again because Joe Beaver is too stupid to get it through his bucktooth skull.

For the sake of Beaver fan, I have put together a list of major reasons nobody gives a flying shit about Oregon State football:

1.  Your national perception is that of a loser.  I'll give you credit, you guys usually pull it together late, and end up with a decent record at season's end.  However, due to our mind-boggingly stupid TV contract, most of your national TV games are non-conference early in the season.  And those are the impression most people have of you.  Blown out by Cincinnati.  Blown out by Boise State.  Blown out by Louisville.  Drilled by Fresno State as SI's preseason #1.  In your one decent showing, you lost to LSU because you couldn't make 1/3 extra points.  Other than LSU, these aren't even great programs, and your getting drilled.  Also notice how none of these games are in Corvallis (can't get anyone to play in the Burrito?)

Meanwhile, these same national TV fans have seen Oregon beat Michigan twice, including one of the worst losses in Wolverine history.  We've beaten Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Fresno State five times in a row.  Yes, we always seem to blow a late season matchup with Arizona or Stanford, but national TV audiences see Oregon beat big teams.  They see OSU get drilled by mediocre ones.

2.  Nobody watches the (Las Vegas/Emerald/Insight Bowl).  Beaver fans, you've been to one bowl this decade that anyone really cares about (Fiesta, maybe Sun counts as a half, so 1.5).  Meanwhile, Oregon has been to a Fiesta, two Holiday's, and two Sun Bowls (so four, if you count the two Sun Bowls as a half each).  We've beaten Texas and Colorado, and played Oklahoma fairly even.  You did beat Notre Lame, to your credit but, lets be honest.  Does anybody give a damn that you beat Maryland in the Emerald Bowl, or New Mexico in the Vegas?  This is why we don't give a shit about the BYU game--nobody outside of Oregon or Utah even remembers it happened.

3.  Nobody has any reason to consider you a serious contender.  You're 1-2 almost beforet he season starts.  And that one win is often against (insert 1-AA foe here).  You can say what you want about Oregon's late season swoons (and, really, that's just the last two seasons, not some longstanding issue), but at least we are contenders at some point (see #2 in November last season).  We may have finished near the same point last year, but why should anyone talk about a team that barely squeaked into the top 25 at the end of the season.

That's really the long and short of it.  While finishing fourth in the conference every year is consistent, that is pretty much OSU's ceiling.  Oregon will have a down year from time to time where we finish fifth or sixth, but we are in competition for a conference championship on a regular basis.

Lets talk about the real issue here.  Again its Beaver jealousy.  Beavers jealous of our relationship with Phil Knight.  Beavers jealous of our facilities.  Beavers jealous of our uniforms (yes, jealous of our uniforms, your insults fall on deaf ears until you stop wearing orange sports bras.  I'd be jealous of anyone's uniforms if my team was wearing those).  Jealous, quite frankly, that we have more money, power, and influence than you.

Yes, the style helps us a bit.  But everything is better with substance.  We've beaten the cream of the college football crop on a national stage (Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan).  You've struggled against mediocre out of conference competition.  And, ultimately, its that, more than Phil Knight of giant billboards, that people take us seriously and think of you as the little brother.

The Emerald Bowl is cute, though.

GO DUCKS!!!

--Dave (addictedtoquack@gmail.com)