Tag: Big XII

Oregon to host a first-round playoff game in latest CBS projection

According to Jelly Palm of CBS Sports, 6-seed Oregon will host 11-seed Kansas State in the expended playoff format.

It’s hard to imagine a bigger game at Autzen Stadium this season than when No. 2 Ohio State comes to town to play No. 3 Oregon on Oct. 12. That’s assuming those rankings hold in a month into the season.

But according to CBS Sports writer Jerry Palm, an even bigger matchup is projected for Autzen.

Palm has projected the Ducks will be seeded No. 6 in the expanded playoff format and will host 11-seed Kansas State with the winner playing No. 3 Utah in the quarterfinals at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

Oregon last played the Wildcats in the 2013 Fiesta Bowl. It’s the only time the two teams have met. That game was highlighted with De’Anthony Thomas returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown and it was all downhill for K-State.

If this prediction comes true, it would be interesting to see the turnout for the Peach Bowl, which would host two teams not in the SEC in the heart of SEC country.

Oregon is no stranger to facing the Utes as Utah turned into somewhat of a rival for the Ducks during their time in the Pac-12. The two teams have clashed and had some classic games, including last season when the Ducks marched into Salt Lake City and crushed then No. 13 Utah 35-6.

But the Utes are favored to in their new conference, the Big XII and with quarterback Cameron Rising returning from injury, Utah would be a formidable foe in what would be one of the better quarterfinal matchups.

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Kenny Dillingham has harsh statement for college coaches complaining about their job

Arizona State football coach Kenny Dillingham is tired of his fellow coaches moaning about their job.

Former Oregon offensive coordinator and current Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham has had enough.

He has not had enough of his job in Tempe, but he’s tired of his fellow coaches around the country having the gall to complain about their current positions.

Being a head coach in college football and other sports has changed a lot over the last few years. They not only have to deal with their current players, but now coaches have to deal with agents, NIL issues and a transfer portal exploding with talent.

Some coaches have adapted to the new landscape while some have not and those who haven’t are probably out of a job or soon will be. For example, UCLA’s NIL situation is so bad that Chip Kelly left a head coaching position to be the offensive coordinator at Ohio State.

Dillingham told On3 that he’s tired of the moaning.

“I literally spent nine years of my life doing anything to become a coffee boy,” he said. “So, don’t give me the ‘Oh, it’s hard to be a coach right now.’ Yeah, it’s hard. Then quit.”

That’s a lot of coffee, but now Dillingham can have his own coffee boy at ASU. He’s in the middle of rebuilding the Sun Devil program as they finished 3-9 last season as ASU heads to the Big XII next year. Assuming Dillingham drinks coffee, maybe he could take men’s basketball coach Bobby Hurley away because by the way he acts on the sidelines, Hurley drinks enough coffee.

But the big question still remains, How does Dillingham take his cup of joe? Black, cream, sugar, one lump or two? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Texas Tech hands Oregon baseball its first loss of the season

Oregon’s rally comes up short and the Ducks suffer their first loss of the baseball season to Texas Tech 11-7.

Seven runs will usually be enough to come out on top of a baseball game, but in the last day of the Shriners Children’s College Baseball Showdown, that offensive output for the Ducks wasn’t against Texas Tech.

The Red Raiders handed Oregon its first loss of the year with an 11-7 victory. The Ducks are now 2-1 as they come home to host Lafayette for a four-game series with a doubleheader next Saturday.

It was an uphill battle for Oregon nearly the entire game. The Ducks found themselves down 6-0 after two innings. Starter Turner Spoljarik just didn’t have it on this day. He went just 1 1/3 innings, giving up five runs on four hits.

The big blow of the inning came off of freshman reliever Toby Twist as he was greeting rather rudely with a three-run home run from Austin Green. After that bomb, however, Twist was effective in his college debut. He struck out six in his 3 2/3 innings of work. His efforts also allowed the offensive to do their best to climb back into the game, which it did in the fifth inning.

Oregon managed to put up four runs in that frame. Drew Smith got the Ducks on the board with a two-run single up the middle to make it 6-2 before Jeffrey Heard and Bennett Thompson each brought home runs with singles.

Unfortunately, whenever Oregon would make a dent into the deficit, the Ducks couldn’t get an all-important shutdown inning. Texas Tech added a run in the bottom half of the fifth to make it 7-4.

But back came the Ducks with two more runs in the sixth on Smith’s single to score Bryce Boettcher. Left fielder Damian Bravo booted the ball that allowed Carter Garate to also score to make it a one-run game once again at 7-6.

The Red Raiders had an answer in the bottom half of the sixth with a solo homer and later an RBI single and it was 9-6. To their credit, the Ducks never threw in the towel. They scored once in the seventh on Garate’s single and it was 9-7. But that was all Oregon could muster and Texas Tech put the game away with insurance runs in the seventh and eighth.

Garate reached base five times with two doubles, two singles and a walk. He also scored twice. Smith also had four hits and drove in three.

Oregon’s home opener with Lafayette is on Friday with a scheduled first pitch at 4 pm. The Leopards are 0-3 on the season after being swept at East Tennessee State.

Report Card: Ducks receive passing grades, but without much room to spare

The Ducks received largely passing grades in a win over Texas Tech, but it wasn’t an honor roll worthy performance, by any means.

It’s a stat Oregon football usually doesn’t have to worry about all that often, but in last night’s 38-30 win over Texas Tech, penalties were almost as much of an opponent for the Ducks as the Red Raiders were.

The Pac-12 refs that were officiating the game threw a flag on Oregon 14 times, with most of them being either false starts or defensive pass interference. Perhaps it was the combination of some growing pains that come with a new offensive line and new secondary playing their first road game, but Texas Tech will hardly be the most hostile crowd Oregon will face this season. If Dan Lanning and his staff don’t find a way to clean this up, the Ducks won’t be as lucky to come out with a win the next time.

When Oregon wasn’t getting flagged, it was able to move the ball on a fairly consistent basis, but the defense had some problems keeping containment. Tyler Shough led all rushers with 103 yards. Again, Shough won’t be the most mobile signal caller this defense is going to face.

Fortunately for the Ducks, not all wins are going to be the Mona Lisa and a prestigious work of art. At the end of the day, they got the win.

Here are the ups and downs of the Week 2 report card.

Photo Gallery: Big fourth quarter propels Ducks to big road victory

Photo Gallery: Big fourth quarter propels Ducks to big road victory

We can almost guarantee Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks didn’t draw it up like this. Oregon was flagged 14 times, was shut out in the third quarter, but still somehow escaped Lubbock, Texas with a 38-30 win over Texas Tech.

Despite all of the unforced errors that plagued the Ducks for most of the night, Oregon was able to pulled things together in the fourth quarter and scored when it needed to. The Ducks also held the Red Raiders off the scoreboard as well when they needed to. Oregon outscored Texas Tech 20-3 in the last 15 minutes and capped everything off with a 45-yard Jeffrey Bassa Pick-6 with less than a minute to play.

It was a hot, but ultimately good time in Western Texas for the Oregon fans that made the trip to watch the Ducks play their first true road game at a Big XII school since 2004. Here’s the all-too eventful night in pictures.

Instant Reactions: Ducks find a way to survive in Lubbock

Despite more than a handful of errors, Oregon escaped Lubbock with a 38-30 win over Texas Tech.

For those Oregon fans with stomach problems, this football team may not be for you. The prescriptions for Protonix and Zofran might have increased in this state after watching the Ducks commit miscue after miscue, but still come home with a 38-30 win over Texas Tech Saturday night.

Oregon was flagged 14 times for 124 yards, many which set potential drives back or just ended drives altogether.

The Ducks also had some, shall we say, questionable coaching decisions that cost them at least a field goal. Thankfully for Oregon, the flags and other didn’t cost Oregon.

With just over four minutes to go and down 30-28, quarterback Bo Nix led his Ducks on a 64-yard drive that ended with Camden Lewis booting the 34-yard game-winning field goal.

Texas Tech still had a chance, but the Ducks forced Tyler Shough into a Pick-6 from Jeffrey Bassa to seal the deal. Oregon is now 2-0 and come home to play a hapless Hawaii team. Here are our instant reactions from the game:

Oregon women’s basketball schedules home-and-home with Baylor

Oregon women’s basketball schedules a home-and-home contract with Baylor beginning this coming season.

Kelly Graves has always been aggressive when it comes to scheduling and he has continued that tradition by scheduling a former national champion.

Oregon and Baylor have agreed to a home-and-home series beginning with the upcoming 2023-24 season Graves announced Monday.

The Ducks and Bears will meet on Dec. 3 at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas, while Baylor will visit Matthew Knight Arena during the 2024-25 season.

“We are always looking to build a tough non-conference schedule and Baylor will be a marquee non-con opponent for us,” Graves said. “A matchup against such a quality program will help us prepare for the gauntlet of the Pac-12 schedule, and it will be good for our young team to take a great opponent in a tough environment.”

December’s matchup will be the first since the teams met in the 2019 NCAA Final Four in which Baylor, then ranked as the nation’s No. 1 team, came away with a 72-67 victory in Tampa, Fla. The Bears lead the all-time series 4-0, with a 1-0 home record and a 1-0 record in Eugene.

Baylor has qualified for 19 straight NCAA Tournaments, the fifth-longest active streak in the country, and advanced to the Second Round in last year’s tournament. The Bears have won three national titles (2005, 2012, 2019) to go with 15 Sweet 16 appearances.

But the Bears haven’t been quite the same after coach Kim Mulkey left for LSU, which just won last year’s national title. Baylor finished the 2022-23 season with a 20-13 record.

Sedona Prince announces she will be transferring to TCU

Former Oregon Duck center Sedona Prince announces she will be transferring to TCU.

Sedona Prince has found a new home.

Prince has posted photos with TCU’s new head coach and former Oregon assistant coach Mark Campbell with the caption, “Coming home.”

It makes sense for the 6-foot-7 center to go back to Texas since she started her college career as a Texas Longhorn before coming to Eugene.

The Horned Frogs will be in the midst of rebuilding as they finished just 8-23 last season, hence the new coaching hire. Prince could be a focal point of that offense with her unique skills inside as well as playing out on the perimeter.

TCU also had one of the smaller teams in the Big XII Conference as their tallest player last season was DaiJa Turner at 6-3.

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Ducks co-Defensive Coordinator Matt Powledge leaves to helm defense at Baylor

Oregon loses co-defensive coordinator Matt Powledge to Baylor as he takes over the Bears defense.

The world of college football moves fast and if you blink, you might miss it.

Reports were coming out at halftime of the Holiday Bowl that Oregon co-Defensive Coordinator Matt Powledge was a target for Baylor to become its DC.

Less than 12 hours later, the Bears made it official as they named Powledge to the position. He spent time as Baylor’s safeties and special teams coach before coming to Oregon, so the move makes sense for both parties involved. Baylor gets to bring someone in who’s familiar with their program and Powledge gets to run a defense on his own.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning hired both Tosh Lupoi and Powledge to run a Duck defense that definitely had its highs and lows. Fortunately for Oregon, it ended on a high as the Ducks held North Carolina’s quarterback Drake Maye in check in the bowl game.

Oregon will most likely hire a coach for the safeties, but it’s unclear if Lanning will just make Lupoi the one and only defensive coordinator or if he’ll hire someone to share the job as Powledge did.

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Swinney a step ahead on conference realignment

Last week Dabo Swinney shifted gears from talking about the 12-team playoff to discussing potential changes to the structure of college athletics. “I think the bigger question is where is college football going from a structural standpoint?,” …

Last week Dabo Swinney shifted gears from talking about the 12-team playoff to discussing potential changes to the structure of college athletics.

“I think the bigger question is where is college football going from a structural standpoint?,” Swinney asked at the Clemson Football Media Outing. “If it’s a 40-team league but with 130 teams and one trophy it’s not like basketball where you bring in a couple of guys and all the sudden you make a run at it.”

He went on to suggest college football could operate like the Premier League in soccer with a smaller pool of elite teams competing for a title.

The comments seemed odd last Tuesday but as details emerged about the plan for Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 and join the SEC, Swinney’s questions about the structure of the sport seem much more realistic.

On Tuesday night at the annual Fisher DeBerry Coaches for Charity event Swinney dove deeper into the future of college football with conference realignment.

“I think the first dominoes are falling and ultimately the more expansion you have the more you are going to have super conferences somewhere down the road,” Swinney said in audio obtained by The Clemson Insider. “I don’t know when it is probably five years or 10 years there probably will be some kind of 40, 50, 60 team league that has their own commissioner or whatever with a 12 or 16 team playoff.”

At the beginning of the interview South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer joked that any questions about the College Football Playoff and conference realignment go to Swinney.

The Clemson head coach did not shy away from the questions but again emphasized that his focus remains on the Tigers’ opener against Georgia and that he will play in whatever structure shakes out at the top.

“I don’t know ultimately where it’s going and right now, we’re all about getting ready for Georgia,” Swinney said. “It is what it is and, in our roles, we don’t really have any input in that our job is to get our teams ready and play by whatever rules they give us.”

The SEC announced it received formal requests from Texas and Oklahoma to join the conference at the start of the 2025-26 academic year.

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