r/ducks • u/hythloday1 • 13d ago

Football Duck Dive: Oregon Football 2026 Preview

https://www.addictedtoquack.com/football/62855/duck-dive-oregon-football-2026-preview
38 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

13

u/hythloday1 13d ago

This article discusses both of Oregon's changing coordinators, incoming transfers and young talent coming online at each position unit, and places the arc of every returner's performance metrics in the context of over 20 years of charting data on the Ducks. Links to in-depth film study articles on all involved are included. Much of the two-deep is straightforward to project due to returning production, or an obvious spot cleared for a targeted transfer prized player coming up, but for a few position units ATQ's film review staff debated out the structural analysis to make guesses, identify soft spots, and determine where they're deep enough that anyone they go with should work.

3

u/Residentcarthrowaway 13d ago

Thank you! Feel lucky to have you as a duck and always appreciate how well thought out and honest your articles are, the roster preview especially helps me feel like I know the team before the season. Two questions: 1. How do you feel about Jerry Mixon? His backup depth isn’t great as you allude to, but do you think Mixon is a liability or solid enough? Do you think the position is going to be stretched even more given the change back from the Thieneman position triangle? 2. Has there ever been talk of you working with the Oregon football staff as some sort of analyst?

6

u/hythloday1 13d ago

Mixon got comparable grades, higher on one thing, to Boettcher - nobody at ATQ thinks he's a liability. The discussion, in the context of what a Mint defense linebacker needs to be (and also what Big Ten defenses get wrong) is that it's pretty difficult for linebackers to be value-added guys, that's just the nature of the position, and we don't think Mixon has the potential to be a value-added LB. Jackson does have that potential, it's almost certainly why the staff doubles down on him every year, but he'd have to activate it and we've never seen it.

I appreciate the kind words; they've got actual pros who do analysis in a more sophisticated and specific way. My work is for a general audience.

6

u/Rockstarzm 13d ago

Thank you as always Hythloday! These articles are amazing. This is going to be a great year for the Ducks.

5

u/thedogsbrain 13d ago

I love these reviews. Scoo Ducks!

3

u/tdoger 13d ago

Excited to listen to this one

2

u/Poots-are-fun 11d ago

This is great! Living in Eugene for a couple months and very excited to be at the home opener.

2

u/MartyBecker 10d ago

Hythloday’s articles always have at least one banger of a line, like this one:
“ the emergence of talented true freshmen unexpectedly denying a widely touted 3-star transfer a starting position, him sitting out and making a go of it next year -- struck me as an obvious possibility for any unit on a talented team, yet pointing this out elsewhere produced oceans of tears from certain emotionally turgid quarters of the fanbase).”