With all this talk about moving UO-WSU to Qwest field I wonder why a deal hasn't been struck with OSU too. If we're alternating home and home why not bring in OSU and just make it a home game always for WSU alternating between us and the beavs?

I know that the first argument will be that if OSU can't even sell out Reeser how can they fill Qwest? Well I have no real answer for that other than tourism considerations. A weekend in Seattle is much nicer than a weekend in Corvallis and seeing your guys play in a real stadium is probably something the Beavs have forgotten about.

This would also secure a yearly trip to Seattle with a trip to Huskyville alternating years.

Maybe I have it all wrong here but I'm thinking this would be a slam-dunk for all 3 schools.

So as a lonely A's fan up here in Portland I need to find a replacement for my Harden t-shirt jersey and AB is my new fav. Though the Harden has treated me well it's hard to draw heckles from the Fenway crowd in an outdated jersey. My sister is in the area right now and apparently the official A's shop is closed, anyone know where she might be able to find one for me?

So far she's only been able to find Cust jerseys and as much as I love the 3 possible outcomes I just can't bring myself to wear the jersey of an A's batter. Not due to lack in faith but more because I don't want to accidentally be mistaken for the player and end up in a Rothelesberger situation.

Thanks and GO A's!

I'm absolutely appalled that the university won't allow this video to reach its full intended audience and I fully agree that by squashing it (or attempting to) they're only making it more popular and adding fuel to the fire.

But then I got to thinking... Could this be the most brilliant marketing scheme the state of Oregon has ever seen? Can you imagine all the hype about the video if they suddenly allow it days before the Civil War is set to kick off? Disney Sports would sure like to get that compelling story as a 5 minute half-time segment. Oh wait, the issue was about permission to use the mascot? You mean this mascot? Sure does look an awful lot like Donald Duck... Remember, Donald Duck along with Mickey Mouse and others are available at your local Disney store. Visit Disney.com for more details...

So maybe as a homer I have a little more pride in my Ducks than the national media but I just can't bring myself to think that an 11 point loss to a top-5 team in the opener warrants this kind of snubbing.

Todd McShay's  Top 25 Poll

Some notables that I find a little concerning:

#5 Cincinnati

#10 Michigan

#11 South Florida

#19 Cal

Oregon: UNRANKED

I am a little happy about the #21 Ohio state ranking but this poll looks like it was filled out by a 7th grader in Cleveland.

Good job, Todd.

I'm not sure how realistic this is but I figured if anyone can get together and make this happen it's the fine residents of Blazer's Edge.

Last night on TV after coming back from a commercial a helicopter panned over the Portland skyline and I thought to myself:

How sweet would it be if there was a giant Blazers Pinwheel on the roof of one of the downtown high-rises?

The answer? VERY sweet.

I figure it wouldn't be much harder than a bunch of red and white christmas lights and some duct tape? Right?

OK, ok, I know there's the issue of finding all the lights, designing some large scale template so the thing looks ok and then obtaining the permission of the building. But that's what our superior networking skills are for!

So what do you think, can we make this happen?

I tried to pedal Brian Wilson to another guy in my league, and I got countered with an offer of Brad Ziegler for Matt Capps. I'm an A's fan and a Ziegler fan, so I feel a little biased about this, and I'm looking for a little input. It's an 8 team 5X5 roto keeper league with 8 players kept per team and no salary cap.

So Ziegler is older but plays in a bigger park and has the better team, or do I just think that because I'm an A's fan? I'm liking Ziegler's job security with the recent injury to Joey Devine and his numbers from last year are pretty astounding.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Pull the trigger or not?

So I've been living in an apartment for just under 2 years now and the neighbor behind us lives in a house that has a pretty nice backyard. I figure the guy is in his mid 30s to be able to afford the place because he seems young and takes advantage of his nice yard.

Thing is, he takes a little too much advantage of it. He has BBQs and pit fires all the time and all the smoke fills my apartment. I think he's rebuilt his deck 3 times because almost every sunny Saturday or Sunday the hammers start banging at about 8, I'm chronically hungover from it. It seems that almost every night I'm sitting there eating my half-assed tuna sandwich and he starts cedar plank grilling up some salmon, it's just not fair. He'll have parties and crank the music REALLY loud when it seems it's just him there by himself, seems like a fun guy.

I'm not really complaining because it is exactly what I would do in his situation, and I'm sure if I went to talk to him about it we would probably end up becoming friends. But I found out something about him last night: He's a Beaver fan.

After watching the Utah/OSU game and hearing his overly excited reactions I had a great idea. Come Civil War, IF we win, I'm going here and ordering 600 little buddies to lay out on the sidewalk in front of his house. I was thinking about hucking them in to his back yard but 600 rubber duckies staring you in the face when you open the front door might be a little more alarming. What do you think?

Oh yeah, there are other Oregon sports!

I guess George Horton was a good hire as our Oregon Baseball team just turned in the #2 recruiting class in the country.

Second only to fellow Pac-10 foe Arizona state we could be slated for some fun times on the diamond in the coming years. I for one look forward to going to games and see that pile of dirt in the Autzen parking lot before football games and my mind starts to drift to baseball. Sweet, sweet baseball.

Presale began today for the late march Civil War match up at PGE Park so get yourself out there if you live in Portland!

GO DUCKS!

There seems to be a few too many feathers flying around here when it comes to the future of the program. Obviously with the collapses of recent there can be blame placed on the coaching, injuries, lack of motivation and game-time coaching.

What I would like to know is: Where do you see the Oregon program going in the next 5, or 10 years and why is our current model so destined for failure?

It's obvious that we can achieve the highest level of success with the right personnel in the right formations but when should we start expecting that situation EVERY year?

In this generation of college football we may not be able to be the powerhouse on the level of USC, LSU, Notre Dame, and Ohio State but we should be aiming to compare with the likes of Texas, Auburn, Michigan, and West Virginia. How do we present ourselves as on the level of these programs?

We're all witnessing a dramatic coming of age in Oregon football. Save for WV (who I'm unsure about the history of) who in that above list has gone from decades of losing tradition to where they are now in 14 years?

The sky isn't falling, Oregon football has a bright future but things do have to be eventually changed. What is that miracle move that can take us from where we are now to where it seems most of us want to be?

So I don't know about you but I absolutely hate these teams with a passion. If there was some way they they could both lose the game horribly it would make this season a complete success for me. In a perfect world both I would like to see both teams play a horrible '83 Toilet Bowl-type game and then get slapped with violations for paying players with meth and drug money. The NCAA would then slap both schools with limitations on everything from scholarships to shoe size and make them play future football games in pink (though, purple isn't much better) jerseys while crying. Am I asking for too much?

According to the ESPN Bowl Projections we're looking Rosey for New Year's Day. 

An impressive jump from the preseason projection of Sun Bowl against Colorado. Thanks, guys!

I think we have a shot with 2 losses if we finish second in the Pac 10. Having the ability to run the ball like we showed against the fuskies should put us in a competitive situation in all of our games, even with the tough schedule. 

I was out of town, so I didn't get to see the game (anxiously awaiting replay) but based on the box score things look like they went according to plan. Minus the Roper exit, of course.

I'm a life long A's fan in Portland, OR and Eric Byrnes is one of my all-time favorite players. Even to the point where I find myself rooting for the Dbacks on a consistant basis. I was watching a Dbacks-Dodgers game a couple weeks back and I saw the promo for the Eric Byrnes show, I was wondering how it is and if anyone has a torrent or anything so those of us without FSAZ can check it out.

Anyway, keep up the good work and take that division!

I recently completed the Prince for Peavey and Ludwick trade and now I’m trying to pull Brandon Phillips off of the 2nd place team and help him make a run at it. I’m looking ahead to next year and I feel pretty good about my pitching core in my 5x5 mixed roto league.

Brandon Webb

Jake Peavey

Roy Halladay

Clayton Kershaw

Then I get to looking at my batters and my top 4 batters turn out like this:

Ryan Ludwick

Jose Reyes

Jason Bay

Mark Teixeira

Now, I have options in this mix, Dustin Pedroia, Corey Hart, Garrett Atkins and Torii Hunter are all in the top 64 on the season with Brian McCann sitting at 93 (after the recent injury) and valuable at the position.

Jason Bay, Jose Reyes and Mark Teixera have all proven their worth as keepers so I can pretty much put them in my lineup already for next year, but Ryan Ludwick? Is his age a concern? How about that hip injury?

What do you guys think? Is this a gamble?

I'm in a waiver-less roto keeper league and this trade came to me:

Give up:

Prince Fielder

Get:

Ryan Ludwick

Jake Peavey

I have pretty much already committed to playing for next year and I'm also carrying some good players along with trade bait. The deadline is coming up so I need to act fast. I'm just concerned that I'm getting no youth in return, is Prince's upside worth more than Peavey's constant dominance? Is anyone sold on Ludwick?

If the trade goes through my 8 keepers look like this:

Reyes, Hart, Tex, Atkins/McCann Webb, Peavey, Halladay, Kershaw/Pelfrey/Morrow

Today is Pac 10 media day and here is the poll:

1. USC (38 first-place votes)...389
2. Arizona State...330
3. Oregon...295
4. California (1)...274
5. UCLA... 204
6. Oregon State...192
7. Arizona...185
8. Washington... 139
9. Stanford...76
10. Washington State...61

USC on top, again, but rightfully so. The lone Cal homer must be a little red in the face now and I don't think UCLA will be 5th. Otherwise, pretty much what I expected.

GO DUCKS!

The ESPN Oregon Preview has this nice little bit in it:

"Williams led the Ducks with 55 receptions for 844 yards and eight touchdowns in 2007, but his critics will tell you those numbers should have been much higher. In the Oregon blogosphere, he is known as "50/50" by so-called Quack addicts, a derisive reference to his chances of catching the ball."

 Let's hope that nickname turns in to 100% J-Will by the end of the year.

GO DUCKS!

Ben over at Blazersedge posted about this Oregonlive post a couple days ago (if you saw it there I'm the hard-core bacon advocate in his office) and I thought since it's a slow time here we could use this to pass the time a little. 

The Best Thing in the World

I don't see Bacon losing in that region, it faces a possible tough test against Free Beer in the sweet 16 but I don't think Free Beer is going to have the gas to make it to the regional finals. 

A friend brought up an interesting point; how can Beer defeat Free Beer? I concluded that there must first be beer for free beer to exist, and beer is so good that we gladly pay for it. 

Some intriguing first round match-ups:

5 Drum Circle Tragedies v 12 Baby Pandas

Baby Pandas could be the sleeper in this region, I love Colbert but he's not 1 seed worthy kind of like the fuskies a few years ago.

3 Bridges v 14 Shaft

Really, how do you predict this one?

Video from ESPN about Knight's influence on the hiring of Pat Kilkenny and Bill Moos' departure. Seems like there could be some quality reporting in there if they didn't tone it like Dateline and stress the point that something shady may have gone on. But what can I say, I'm a homer.

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?&brand=null&videoId=3332343&n8pe6c=2

In the spirit of Page 2 my friend has started an NBA blog that focuses more on the lighter side of the NBA. Be sure to leave us some nice comments and try not to bash us too hard. It's all in the name of good fun.

Raef is about POWER

http://dateraef.blogspot.com

Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers!
Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers! Go Blazers!

Not good, not good. Let's hope Pflugrad and Dickson can fill the void long enough for us to pull some burners off of the track team.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3070747

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