Tag: Ducks Wire

Trojans Wire, Ducks Wire, and Buffaloes Wire 2023 Pac-12 football writer poll

Our 2023 #Pac12 football poll voters: @ZacharyCNeel @Donald_Smalley @Jack_Carlough @Matt_Wadleigh and @MattZemek.

College football season is here. It’s time for the last season of Pac-12 football, at least for the conference as we have known it. Next year everything will be wildly different. This is our final time to savor the familiar rhythms, rivalries and matchups of the Pac-12 that we have enjoyed for a very long time, ever since Arizona and Arizona State left the Western Athletic Conference to form the Pacific-10 Conference in 1978.

We gathered a panel of Pac-12 College Wire site writers to make their picks on the order of finish in the Pac-12 standings for 2023. Our panelists are Jack Carlough of Buffaloes Wire, Zachary Neel and Donald Smalley of Ducks Wire, Matt Wadleigh of Trojans and Buffaloes Wire, and Matt Zemek of Trojans Wire.

We will give you the consenus order of finish based on our five combined votes. We will provide the full vote tallies for each team in each position. We will then share each individual writer’s full order of finish for the Pac-12 football standings this year.

The envelope, please:

Behind Enemy Lines: Ducks Wire gives take on Georgia vs. Oregon

Behind Enemy Lines: Discussing the Georgia vs. Oregon game with @Ducks_Wire

Georgia football is back. The Bulldogs take on the Oregon Ducks this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game from Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The Dawgs enter the season ranked No. 3 overall while the Ducks hold the No. 12 ranking the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll and No. 11 in the AP Top-25.

We always like to get a perspective from the opposite fanbase and media, so we reached out to our fellow USA TODAY College Wires site Ducks Wire for a Q and A session that surely gives a fresh look at things.

Here is a take from behind enemy lines on the upcoming, massive tilt between Georgia and Oregon on Saturday, with Ducks Wire’s Zachary Neel asking a handful of questions that I had for him about the game.

Bo Nix’s attempt to lift Oregon above USC begins with familiar battle vs Georgia

Bo Nix is a source of great debate among Pac-12 fans and observers. We got @Donald_Smalley’s take at @Ducks_Wire on a QB who elicits strong opinions.

Which Bo Nix will we get in Atlanta on Saturday versus defending national champion Georgia? The former five-star quarterback led Auburn to a 9–4 record in his freshman season at 17 years old, winning the Iron Bowl 48–45 over Alabama in one of the biggest upsets of the 2019 season. Nix was voted the SEC Freshman of The Year, finishing the season with 16 touchdowns and 6 interceptions.

Nix became the SEC Freshman of the Year in 2019 while playing under current offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham, who was one of the most underrated hires of the offseason.

It is worth noting that when Dillingham went to Florida State to join Mike Norvell, Nix had a huge sophomore slump throwing the ball at Auburn in 2020. He threw for 12 touchdowns and 7 interceptions, while rushing for over 300 yards with 7 touchdowns on the ground during the season.

Nix threw for 11 touchdowns and 3 interceptions in 2021 but ended the season with a injury that kept him from playing the last four games. Auburn and new head coach Bryan Harsin finished the season 6-3 in games started by Nix.

Nix announced he would be leaving Auburn to enter the NCAA transfer portal. On December 19, 2021, Nix announced he would transfer to Oregon. Ducks fans are expecting a bounce-back season from the Alabama native. If he can stay healthy he is expected to lead Oregon to a Pac-12 Championship Game berth which might come at USC’s expense.

I sat down with Ducks Wire staff writer and Oregon Ducks football expert Don Smalley to talk about Bo Nix in our Don to Don series.

Trojans Wire: Make the case for Bo Nix as a good Oregon quarterback. Why will he surprise us and play well in 2022?

Ducks Wire: History tells us that transfer quarterbacks don’t quite live up to expectations, from Vernon Adams to Dakota Prukop to Anthony Brown. But Bo Nix could be different. He’s played in the SEC, he’s played against teams such as Alabama and Georgia.

He won’t be fazed by any Pac-12 team and more importantly, he won’t be fazed by a sold-out Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sept. 3. Nix will have better talent around him, including an experienced offensive line to keep him upright and make plays. Oregon found out firsthand how good Nix can be when they lost to Auburn in 2019, when Nix threw a touchdown pass in the last moment of the game, 27-21.

[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbz8sj88pxak7gd player_id=01f5k5y2jb3twsvdg4 image=https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

[listicle id=47516]

Ducks Wire’s preseason college football top-25

Ducks Wire is now in the ranking business… Here’s our crack at a preseason top-25.

In anticipation of the 2022 college football season kicking off in a little over a month from now, we at Ducks Wire decided to get in on the ranking business and crank out a pre-season top-25 of our own.

After a massive organizational shift this offseason for the Oregon Ducks, bringing in Dan Lanning from the defending champion Georgia Bulldogs to replace Mario Cristobal, who left Eugene for sunny Miami, Oregon will look to establish itself high up in the rankings once again.

The Ducks also are going to see a big shift on the offensive side of the ball, where a new QB — be it Bo Nix, Ty Thompson, or Jay Butterfield — will look to take over. Despite all of the change, Oregon is still finding themselves ranked respectively inside the top-25 according to most publications.

The rest of the Pac-12 is starting to look pretty strong as well, with Utah ready to defend their conference title, and USC on the up-swing with Lincoln Riley now at the helm. How will all of these Pac-12 schools stack up against the rest of the talent in the nation according to our rankings, though?

Let’s take a look: