Georgia vs. Oregon: Everything you need to know watch, stream, listen and bet
The Georgia Bulldogs take on the Oregon Ducks today 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.
The Bulldogs take on their former defensive coordinator and first-year head coach, Dan Lanning. The Ducks are led by Auburn transfer quarterback Bo Nix and preseason All-American linebacker Noah Sewell against a new-look Georgia defense and national championship offensive MVP Stetson Bennett.
Below we’ll provide you with everything you need to know about the upcoming game:
The Georgia Bulldogs, fresh off of their first national championship in 41 years, will start the season at No. 3 in the nation as they look to repeat.
Georgia’s Week 1 opponent, Oregon, opens the season ranked No. 12.
It will be a No. 3 vs. No. 12 battle when the Bulldogs and the Ducks play on Saturday, September 3 in the 2022 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic.
The game will take place in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. ET and will air on ABC.
This will be Dan Lanning’s first game as head coach of the Oregon Ducks. Lanning, who served under Kirby Smart as UGA’s defensive coordinator for three years, accepted the Oregon job in mid-December but coached with the Bulldogs through the national title.
At one point there were rumors circulating that five-star quarterback [autotag]Dante Moore[/autotag] had given a soft commitment to Notre Dame, but an official verbal never came from the Detroit product. On Friday, Notre Dame’s dreams of landing Moore came to an official end as the star committed to Oregon.
Shortly after he visited Notre Dame in March, Moore paid a visit to Eugene, Oregon on a trip that was said to have gone very well. Moore now becomes the highest ranked quarterback recruit in the history of the Oregon football program.
[lawrence-related id=55745]
Although this news becoming official stings, Notre Dame knew they were out on Moore for a while now as things really faded after five-star quarterback [autotag]C.J. Carr[/autotag]’s commitment last month.
The question does remain however as what Notre Dame will do in recruiting the quarterback in the 2023 recruiting class. Do they simply take a pass this year after all of the quarterbacks they’ve offered have now given commitments elsewhere? Do they explore the transfer portal harder a year from now?
The news isn’t shocking to anyone today but it’s not fun regardless when you think you’re the leader for a five-star quarterback but end up empty handed.
In better news at least he also didn’t pick that program in his back yard, Michigan.
This spring it started to appear that it was only a matter of time before five-star quarterback [autotag]Dante Moore[/autotag] ultimately gave his verbal commitment to Notre Dame. However, that commitment never came and if you go by the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine, the chances for the Irish continue to drop by the day.
Now a crystal ball prediction from one of the best at making them is out and it’s more bad news for Notre Dame’s pursuit as Steve Wiltfong of 247Sports has given his crystal ball projection for Moore to end up at Oregon.
How accurate is Wiltfong usually? He’s batting .913 in this year’s class as he’s hit on 3,431 of 3,758 projections which means he’s probably onto something here, as Moore is also now scheduled to visit Eugene this weekend.
It’s not official yet and may not be for some time. Heck, it may not end up being correct altogether (although I wouldn’t bet on that), but a talent like Moore seemingly being in the grasp of Notre Dame and him getting away is a painful miss as he was the biggest recruit in the 2023 class for [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] and [autotag]Tommy Rees[/autotag].
Assuming Wiltfong ends up being correct we’ll left to wonder what Notre Dame does at quarterback this cycle as they taken some big swings but came up empty in each of them.
Do they scurry to add a quarterback that is yet to be offered?
This is where you hope [autotag]Tyler Buchner[/autotag] lives up to the hype the next few seasons and that [autotag]C.J. Carr[/autotag] will be the real deal once he arrives on campus for the 2024 season.
Make no mistake about it – Notre Dame went all-in on Moore and appears to have lost. They went all-in on Moore, seemingly held a significant lead compared to everyone else, and appears to have lost.
Imagine if this had happened under the previous regime.
Carr certainly softens this blow significantly but swinging big and missing like this is anything but fun, even if it has been trending that way for some time.
Notre Dame may not have won a national championship in football since 1988 but the Fighting Irish haven’t had a run of success like they’re on in quite some time. Brian Kelly got ridiculed for many things during his time in South Bend but you can’t argue that he put Notre Dame back on the map compared to where it was when he inherited the dwindling program in December of 2009.
So how does Notre Dame’s last 10 years rank compared to the others in college football? Despite the disaster that was the end to the 2014 season (1-5 finish after 6-0 start) and a 4-8 showing in 2016, the Irish still rank among the top ten Power Five teams in terms of winning percentage since 2012, research that Clint Buckley of 247Sports recently did.
Here are the top 25 winningest Power Five programs since 2012:
Watch BYU head basketball coach Mark Pope reveal how terrified he was of the ducks in Portland. Not Oregon’s basketball team, mind you, but the actual ducks.
The Oregon Ducks’ third game of the men’s basketball season was an ugly 81-49 beatdown at the hands of the BYU Cougars in Portland, one of many poor performances that are now thoroughly in the rearview mirror for Dana Altman’s squad.
For BYU however, it was a huge win that continues to pay dividends in their NET and KenPom ratings, two significant keys for them to secure an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament assuming they do not defeat Gonzaga.
BYU coach Mark Pope is aware of the game’s significance, heaping praise on Altman’s team for their recent performance as they sit on a tidy eight-game winning streak.
“This Oregon game, that should be like a quad zero,” Pope told assembled media on Wednesday. “They’re so good. They said it was a neutral but I mean it was in Portland. I don’t know how much less neutral you can get, I mean you walk around Portland and there’s Ducks everywhere”.
At this point, it is pretty clear Pope is talking about Ducks as in University of Oregon fans and alumni.
Pope’s team sure didn’t have much trouble with the Ducks back in November, at least not the ones on the court, but it sounds like he’ll look to schedule their next matchup somewhere other than Portland – as the pervasive fear of rabid wild ducks clearly still haunts him to this day.
Pope didn’t say where (or why) he apparently saw multiple wild ducks while in the city of Portland, but they are not animals he has seen much of throughout his lengthy career in the game of basketball – which began as a player at the University of Washington.
They must have a “no ducks allowed” policy up in Seattle. And honestly, who can blame them?
Video footage posted this month on a hunting-themed Facebook page shows a woman attempting to feed decoys in front of hunters hoping to shoot real ducks.
Video footage shared this month on a hunting-themed Facebook page shows a woman attempting to feed decoys in front of hunters hoping to shoot actual ducks.
In the footage – click here to view the video – the hunters can be heard asking the woman to stop tossing feed, informing her that live ducks are off in the distance and that baiting inside a hunting area is illegal.
“Those aren’t real ducks,” one of the hunters says.
The woman, momentarily unconvinced, looks around before turning to the hunters and admonishing, “You would spend all this money just to murder a duck? They never did anything to you.”
Three questions: Who will be 2-4 tonight? Where does Cincinnati come in? And where does Notre Dame check in?
The first set of College Football Playoff rankings comes out tonight and the college football world will be keeping an eye on what they say. Although I have no inside information as to what has been said by the committee leading up to this, I do have history and common sense to form an educated guess as to how these will look tonight.
With that in mind here is my guess at what the first set of College Football Playoff Rankings look like this evening. I’m doing these as how I think the committee will think, not how I would actually rank the teams and I want to make that clear.
One of college football’s biggest games of 2020 is now set to be played without a crowd as Oregon has banned large crowds through September.
Perhaps the biggest non-conference game this college football season is set to take place on September 12 when Ohio State travels west to take on Oregon at Autzen Stadium in what is a rematch of the 2014 College Football Playoff Championship Game.
You’d think it’d be one of, if not the toughest game on Ohio State’s schedule this season, playing in a tough place to play like Autzen. A helping hand may have just been lent to the Buckeyes though as Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced Thursday that “The Oregon Health Authority is advising that any large gathering, at least through September, should be canceled or significantly modified.”
North Dakota State is scheduled to play at Oregon on September 5, Ohio State comes to town on the 12th while Hawaii is slated to visit on the 19th. If this is to get extended even a week beyond that it’d take away the crowd from the October 3 Oregon/Washington game as well.
“I doubt very much we’re going to have a packed stadium watching our Ducks play football,” Schill said on CNN. “We’re hoping our football games will be played, but we’re not going to take any chances with the health and safety of our student-athletes or the people who come to watch them.”
The same set of rules will obviously apply to Oregon State who is slated to host three games in September against Colorado State, Portland State and Washington State.
For what it’s worth, Notre Dame plays just one game west of South Bend, Indiana this year, that coming on Thanksgiving weekend for annual battle with USC.
This entire global pandemic tests you in various ways. Some days I get up and think we’re about to turn a corner and that we’re about to approach our old sense of normal. Then on others I’m convinced we’ll never see crowds of more than a couple thousand gathered in the same place ever again.
I may change my mind about this when I get out of bed Friday morning but I’m guessing Oregon just happens to be the first to announce this and that plenty of other states will soon be doing something similar.
Quarterback Justin Herbert brings a fun and dynamic element to the Los Angeles Chargers offense.
The Los Angeles Chargers selected former Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert with the No. 6 overall pick.
To get familiar with the Bolts’ new signal-caller, here is my scouting report on Herbert, along with brief notes from three of his games from the past couple of seasons and his week at the Senior Bowl.
Justin Herbert | Oregon | #10 | Senior | Eugene, OR | 6062 | 236
Career: 2019 PAC-12 Honorable Mention. Playing in 44 games, Herbert threw for 10,541 yards, 95 touchdowns, 23 interceptions, and a 64% completion percentage.
Red Flags: Broke his collarbone in 2017 and missed time due to a leg injury in 2018.
Strengths: Tall, workable frame. Above-average arm strength to deliver downfield with required velocity and can make all the necessary NFL throws. Tight release. Pinpoint ball placement to keep away from defenders. Comfortable stepping up into the pocket when he senses pressure from direction directions, leading them with darts. Decent anticipatory skills. Effective head/shoulder fake to freeze defenders and throw to double-move routes. Functional athleticism as a scrambler, avoiding rushers and extending plays with long strides. Physically and mentally tough with professional poise and work habits.
Weaknesses: Needs to develop his eye use—locks onto reads and stares down targets. Needs to improve his feel for timing routes. Good athlete on the move, average athlete in the pocket at times. Guides throws at times, which affects the placement on his passes; touch can be inconsistent. Footwork can get messy. Can be a bit late to diagnose, which leads to him getting gun shy.
Final Word: Herbert possesses NFL-style tools with his size, athleticism, arm talent, intelligence along with above-average accuracy but he needs to improve his decision-making, instincts and consistency, projecting as an NFL starter in a spread, RPO-heavy offense.
Fit Likelihood: High
Grade: 1st Round
Film Study – vs Stanford (2018)
This was arguably Herbert’s best collegiate game. He showed off his arm, a good understanding of coverage rotations and his mobility.
Film Study – vs Arizona (2019)
Herbert’s strengths and weaknesses were evident in this game. He displayed the ability to make some really impressive and explosive throws to all levels of the field with very little effort, but the weaknesses were him locking onto his receivers, trusting his arm too much, along with showing an inconsistent feel for pressure.
Film Study – vs Wisconsin (Rose Bowl)
Wanna see Herbert win the game with his legs, literally? In the Rose Bowl, he accounted for three touchdowns on the ground. There were some head-scratching throws and decisions as a result of being late to locate coverage and not anticipating efficiently. However, Herbert didn’t let the moment get too big for him, carrying the Ducks to victory in arguably the best game of his career.
Senior Bowl Week
I was in attendance for the Senior Bowl, and Herbert did what he does best by lacing the ball over the field with ease, but he took a leap with his processing speed to make whole field reads and anticipate windows and quickening his eyes and expanding his vision, which was great to see.
