Tag: Oregon Ducks football

Pac-12 Bowl Report: Confident Oregon faces North Carolina in Holiday Bowl

.@Ducks_Wire and @TarHeelsWire face off in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. It’s the first Holiday Bowl since 2019. The last two were canceled. Let there be points!

The Pac-12 is 1-1 in bowl games after the first week. Washington State got pummeled against Fresno State in the LA Bowl, and Oregon State blew out Florida in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Next up for the Pac-12 is the Holiday Bowl, as the Oregon Ducks face the North Carolina Tar Heels in San Diego.

Oregon fell just short of the Pac-12 title game, losing to the Oregon State Beavers in the Civil War game. Now they have a chance to get to 10 wins in Dan Lanning’s first season in Eugene. They have to beat North Carolina.

This will be the first-ever meeting between these two teams, and both sides live on the arms of their quarterbacks.

Tar Heel gunslinger Drake Maye finished the year with 4,115 yards and 35 scores while adding another 653 yards and seven scores on the ground; he was UNC’s leading rusher. Wide receiver Josh Downs is a threat and a first-round pick in the 2023 NFL draft.

The Ducks have Bo Nix, who excelled in his first season in Oregon after transferring from Auburn. However, Nix’s health is a question mark after he got hurt in the Oregon State game.

Ducks Wire and Tar Heels Wire have done an extensive breakdown of this game. Both teams can score big. Oregon is 13th in the nation with 39.7 PPG while North Carolina is 43rd with 35 PPG. Both teams are top 25 in yards per game and in the top 30 in passing yards, so this could be an offensive explosion at Petco Park.

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Bowl Refresher: Texas vs Washington and this week’s best games

Bowl season gets much more interesting over the next three days.

Bowl season picks up steam this week. In what has been an uneventful bowl season, the best is to come.

The most noteworthy bowl to date was Air Force’s upset victory over Baylor. Another Big 12 team looks to avoid a similar fate on Tuesday.

The Oklahoma State Cowboys face the Wisconsin Badgers in one of the most unpredictable bowls left on the schedule. The Cowboys are losing arguably their best offensive and defensive players to the transfer portal: Spencer Sanders and Trace Ford.

Tuesday’s game may not be the train wreck that was TCU vs California in 2018, but it has the potential to rival that game.

Wednesday and Thursday begin the better non-New Year’s Six bowls. Thursday features Oklahoma and Texas playing back-to-back bowl games.

Here’s a look at bowl games we can all look forward to watching.

5 Tar Heels Oregon needs to look out for in the Holiday Bowl

Even with all of the transfers/opt outs, North Carolina will still bring a formidable team to play the Ducks in the Holiday Bowl.

Believe it or not, the North Carolina Tar Heels will somehow field a team in order to play the Ducks in the Holiday Bowl on December 28.

The runner-up from the ACC has had many players transfer or opt-out to prepare for the NFL draft. The Tar Heels’ secondary has been especially decimated. Starting corners Tony Grimes and Storm Duck have each transferred, as has safety Cam’Ron Kelly.

Linebacker Raneiria Dillworth and backup quarterback Jacolby Criswell are also off the roster. However, the most important Tar Heel, starting quarterback Drake Maye, will be under center to lead UNC into the postseason game in San Diego.

Maye is an obvious one, but here he is plus four other Tar Heels Oregon needs to pay close attention to if the Ducks want to end the season on a high note.

How to watch, listen, stream the Holiday Bowl – Ducks vs Tar Heels

The Ducks and Tar Heels will play for the first time on the gridiron in the first Holiday Bowl since 2019 and the first inside Petco Park.

It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, but the Holiday Bowl is right around the corner. No. 15 Oregon is set to play North Carolina in San Diego.

This will be the first Holiday Bowl since 2019 and the first one to be played inside Petco Park, the home of the San Diego Padres. This game was set to return last season, but Covid issues within the UCLA program cancelled its game with North Carolina State.

Since the game is going to take place in a supposedly baseball-only stadium, the configuration isn’t going to be the standard fare. One end zone will be in front of the Padres dugout down the first base line with the other side going out into the left field.

The Holiday Bowl will also feature a new television home. It had been on ESPN for many, many, years. But Fox bought the broadcast rights for the bowl game.

This will be the first meeting between the Ducks and Tar Heels in football. We all remember the 2017 epic Final Four matchup where the Ducks just missed out on defeating the eventual national champs.

Justin Herbert’s historic Week 15 performance commemorated in Hall of Fame

Former Oregon Ducks quarterback Justin Herbert’s wristband and towel from Week 15 will be on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In a week where Bo Nix returned to Eugene and Dan Lanning secured an incredible recruiting class for the Oregon Ducks, it’s easy to forget about the history made by former quarterback Justin Herbert.

Herbert wasn’t his sharpest in LA’s 17-14 win over Tennessee on Sunday, throwing for 313 yards with a pair of interceptions and no touchdowns.

However, he did become the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for 4,000 yards in each of his first three seasons – and that accomplishment will forever be immortalized in Canton at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Herbert’s hand towel and playsheet wristband from Sunday’s game have arrived at the museum for display – according to a tweet from the official Pro Football Hall of Fame twitter account.

Herbert is in a bit of a third-year slump, with his 21 touchdown passes far lower than his rookie and sophomore season totals of 31 and 38.

The Chargers are 8-6 on the year ahead of a road game in Indianapolis on the 26th.

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Noah Sewell declares for the NFL draft, ends college career at Oregon

Oregon linebacker Noah Sewell announces he will leave the Ducks to prepare for the 2023 NFL draft, ending his career with the Ducks.

Oregon was hoping the opt-outs for the Holiday Bowl would be held to a minimum, but the Ducks received word that at least one more player has decided to go to the NFL draft.

It was recently announced that linebacker Noah Sewell would indeed opt out of the bowl game in San Diego and concentrate on preparing himself for the draft in April.

Sewell is projected to be an early-round draft pick in April, with some mock drafts having him taken as early as late in the first round.

Before coming to Oregon, Sewell was one of the highest-rated prospects to commit to the program and he has lived up to his 5-star billing.

He was the Pac-12 Freshman Defensive Player of the Year in 2020 and a Freshman Al-American where he led the team with 45 tackles in Oregon’s seven games during that pandemic season.

In 2021, Sewell played in all 14 games where he was a Pac-12 First-Team selection. He led Oregon and ranked second in the Pac-12 with 114 total tackles, 37 more than any other Duck, and four sacks.

This last season under Dan Lanning, Sewell’s numbers dropped with the new coaching staff. He accumulated just 56 tackles and 1.5 sacks. Sewell did intercept a pass and scored his first rushing touchdown in the rout over Colorado.

As the younger brother of former first-round draft pick and Oregon legend Penei Sewell, the legacy of the Sewell name will live on in Eugene for a long time.

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SIGNED: 4-star defensive end Blake Purchase is officially a Duck

Oregon believes it may have signed the next great Duck linebacker with the No. 1 recruit in Colorado Blake Purchase.

Oregon is quickly making it a habit of signing the No. 1 recruit out of Colorado. First, it was tight end Terrence Ferguson. Now it’s linebacker Blake Purchase.

The Ducks will definitely have a need at linebacker in 2023 and definitely in 2024. Noah Sewell might be gone after this season, Justin Flowe transferred, Iowa transfer Jestin Jacobs has just one year of eligibility left as does Mase Funa.

So there is a spot that could be ripe for the taking for Purchase. In his three seasons on the varsity level, Purchase has been credited with 158 tackles and 38 sacks. With a little more weight, he could turn into an edge rusher for the Oregon defense.

 

SIGNED: 4-star defensive lineman Johnny Bowens is officially a Duck

Oregon ventures into Texas and signs 4-star defensive lineman Johnny Bowens and beats out Texas A&M, Miami, and others.

It’s no surprise that Oregon head coach Dan Lanning is recruiting and in the case of Johnny Bowens, signing top defensive talent.

This time, Lanning went into the vast land of Texas and found the 6-foot3, 265-pound defensive lineman out of Converse.

Nearly every school in Texas, including Texas A&M, Baylor and Houston, wanted to sign Bowens, not to mention Miami. At his size, Bowens could either bulk up and be an interior lineman or slim down and be an edge rusher/linebacker hybrid.

Most recruiting services have Bowens as a Top 30 defensive lineman and a Top 50 player overall in that recruiting hotbed of Texas.

SIGNED: 4-star RB Dante Dowdell is officially an Oregon Duck

4-star running back Dante Dowdell officially signed with the Ducks and brings his physical running style to Oregon’s RB room.

Oregon has quietly become a place where running backs can go and flourish. It looks like Picayune, Miss. native Dante Dowdell has the tools to become the next great Duck tailback.

Dowdell, the No. 6 RB in the 2023 class, officially signed with the Ducks on Wednesday.

At 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds, Dowdell gained more than 2,100 yards in each of his junior and senior seasons as well as scoring 59 touchdowns in those two years.

It’s those kinds of numbers that will attract the attention of several SEC schools such as Arkansas and Texas A&M, but it was Dan Lanning and his staff that convinced Dowdell to come out West so he can shine.

Dante Dowdell’s Signing Day Profile

SIGNED: 3-star defensive end Jaeden Moore is officially a Duck

Oregon was able to sign 3-star defensive end Jaeden Moore out of Visalia, Calif.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning and his staff is clearly making the defensive line a focus in their first complete recruiting class and they just added a good one out of Visalia, Calif.

At 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, Jaeden Moore should be one of those quick edge rushers that will eventually be difficult to account for. He had a monster junior season where he was credited with 17.5 sacks. Moore added nine more this year.

He was recruited by Washington, California, and Boise State before signing with the Ducks. Most recruiting services have Moore as a mid-level recruit, but under the Ducks’ scientific approach to sculpting the body, Moore could be one of those diamonds in the rough.

Jaeden Moore’s Signing Day Profile