College Football: Oregon Preview

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Above: Oregon coach Chip Kelly, left, and senior tight end David Paulson, at Pac-12 Media Day in Los Angeles. (Staff photo by Keith Birmingham)

As part of this becoming the all-sports blog for are three San Gabriel Valley Newspapers, and part of our college football coverage, I will post a capsule of all Pac-12 teams for the upcoming season. We continue our trip in the Pac-12 North, and today we take a brief look at Oregon

OREGON DUCKS
Coach: Chip Kelly
Years at school: 2
Record: 22-4
2010 Record: 12-1 (Lost 22-10 in BCS title game); 9-0 in conference.
Division: North
2011 prediction: Second
Outlook: Nothing has changed since 2010. The Ducks are again expected to challenge for the Bowl Championship Series title. This is a team that is loaded. It features not one, but two Heisman Trophy candidates in RB LaMichael James and QB Darron Thomas. The defense, led by DB Cliff Harris, is solid. But there are also some issues, especially trying to replace three offensive linemen and receiver Jeff Mael, who has been a key cog in the Ducks’ spread-option attack. There’s also a lingering dark cloud in a NCAA investigation, not too mention two monster road games — against fellow BCS competitor LSU in the season opener in Dallas and at Stanford in November. The Ducks, picked first in a Pac-12 media poll last week, have enough to leap the first hurdle, but I’m not so sure about the second. Still, expect Gang Green to show up in a BCS bowl.
Quotable: “It’s nice to be picked to win, it’s nice to be picked (among the) top five in the country, but it doesn’t mean anything until you go out and play the game,” Oregon coach Chip Kelly said. “So that mindset won’t change. Hopefully our motivation comes from within and our guys wanting to get better every day and become a better football team. But we don’t ever hang this is our ranking and we have to live up to it and all those things. I think the vision that we have for this football program exceeds any expectations that anybody could write down on a piece of paper.”

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  • Former Bulldog

    Oregon’s William Wallace (DB) is from West Covina High School

  • 12th man

    I appreciate the extra coverage on college football..but i would prefer to read just prep sports i can go to other sites for the exclusive behind the scenes story on the NCAA..I cant speak for other readers but it seems like you’re not getting alot of hits & perhaps losing blog readers who are just intrested in High School sports..What’s next? College Baseball,
    Water Polo,Wrestling,Track & Field,Gymnastics???.. I can see what the Tribune is trying to do..but it mite be like opening Pandoras box!!

  • Read On

    There are plenty of other topics here for you to read, 12th Man. Just move on to the topics you want to read about.

  • Are you just lazy

    Please stop cutting and pasting other peoples work. You need to focus on Prep Sports. We can get all we need about College sports from ESPN or Fox West.

  • Steve Ramirez

    Stop being a hater. This was all my own work. Preps is still our focus. But one of my beats is also college football. I have countless people tell my at prep events how they like my college football columns, so I’m just adding a little extra here. Nothing has changed, just giving you guys a little extra, especially during the down time before prep teams begin the prep work for the season in a few weeks. It’s here if you chose to read it, otherwise read some of the other local prep items on here.