Mailbag: What does the new era of the Oregon/Washington rivalry look like?

Words were said and good times had for the Ducks during Mario Cristobal's shot at the rivalry. What can we expect from Dan Lanning and Kalen DeBoer?

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The Oregon/Washington rivalry brought plenty of smiles to UO fans during the Mario Cristobal years. (Tyson Alger photo)

PORTLAND — Hey, football is coming soon. In just a couple of weeks, a steady stream of watch lists and roster previews and predictions are about to start flowing in.

We’re excited. You’re excited. So let’s start this mailbag column on the gridiron.

How is the Oregon vs UW rivalry going to change with Dan Lanning and Kalen DeBoer leading the programs? — Jordan

Before Oregon and Washington met in 2019, The Athletic’s Christian Caple and I surmised that the rivalry between the two schools was heading for a sweet spot. 

All the evidence was there. The 2018 game was a classic, with No. 17 Oregon powering through the No. 7 Huskies on the goal line to claim an upset of the Dawgs in overtime. And the 2019 game seemed appetizing, too, with the No. 12 Ducks facing No. 25 Washington up in Seattle. 

Both teams appeared to have stable coaches. Both teams were competitive within the Pac-12 Conference. Both teams had somewhat recently been to the College Football Playoff. 

The only thing we thought might be missing? 

“A true villain on either side,” Caple wrote. “I’m not sure any Oregon player or coach demands the ire of Huskies fans the way, say, Rick Neuheisel did for the Ducks.” 

A bit has happened since then. Oregon surged back in the second half to beat the Huskies on that rainy 2019 day in Seattle, then Troy Dye did “Dawgs Down” on national TV, then the Ducks won the Rose Bowl, then Chris Petersen surprisingly quit, then the 2020 game was canceled due to Washington’s COVID issues, then Washington printed up “Pac-12 North Champion” t-shirts, then Oregon played in and won the Pac-12 championship game, then, in the first meeting between Jimmy Lake and Mario Cristobal, the Ducks won 26-16 in 2021 and partied in the locker room with Cristobal’s voice booming through social media that the Huskies were “everything that’s wrong with football.” 

The next week, Lake was fired. Then Cristobal left. 

So now, we’re here. Oregon has a new coach. Washington has a new coach. It should mostly be a clean slate for the programs, right? 

You’d think. But one of the hallmarks of Lanning’s early tenure as Oregon coach is how effective he’s been at convincing Washington kids to come to Eugene. It happened with Rainier Beach’s Josh Conerly Jr.. It happened with transfer defensive lineman Sam Taimani. If you look at the 2023 recruiting class, Washington No. 1 player Jayden Wayne has the Ducks — not the Huskies — in his top five. Same with the state’s No. 2 player Caleb Presley, a four-star cornerback who has Oregon as his only West Coast representative in his top five.

To be clear, the Ducks and Huskies are in far different positions here in 2022. Lanning’s job is to take a program that’s reached three consecutive conference title games and start sprinting. DeBoer is faced with reenergizing a group that went 4-8 in 2021 and has felt listless since that 2019 loss to the Ducks. That isn’t to say things can’t get spicy in Eugene on Nov. 12, but right now the waters appear calm in a rivalry that’s always ready to storm.

Aaron Feld was such a big part of Cristobal's staff and of Oregon's identity the last four years, but I feel like I haven't heard much of anything about the new strength & conditioning coach. Seeing as they are an important point of contact for the team and serve an important role throughout the year, what can you tell us about the new guy? — Adam

Early in his tenure at Oregon, Dan Lanning arrived at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex well before 6 a.m., walked to his office and then jokingly poked his head out the door and yelled down the hall. “Hey, Wilson” Oregon’s first-year coach called. “Let me know when you get in today.” 

It was a bit of a rhetorical request because Lanning certainly knew that the former Ole Miss strength coach had a reputation for putting in early hours. 

“Been here since 4 a.m., Coach,” Love replied from his office. 

“He’s just wired different,” Lanning recalled when telling the story. 

Love.

I’ll admit, it is a bit different being around an Oregon program where the strength coach isn’t in such a daily presence. I mean, Aaron Feld did a great job. One of the biggest successes early in Mario Cristobal’s tenure was the overall physicality the Ducks played with, as produced by those results in the weight room. But Feld wanted to be more than that. He was active on Instagram and Twitter and probably would have been dancing on TikTok if it had emerged a little earlier in his tenure. He was the guy with the mustache who screamed and yelled and made sure to be Cristobal’s holdback guy even in situations where it probably wasn’t needed. 

Now, Love can certainly scream. His players at Ole Miss swore by his energy. 

“People will probably say that he can’t keep this energy up every day,” Ole Miss running back Keith Smith said last year, “then I just walked into the hallway and he’s already screaming. That’s the energy you want.” 

“It’s just who I am,” Love said last year. “I’m like this when I’m eating supper at the house. When I’m cooking.” 

Love has the bonafides. He’s an Alabama alum and started his career in Tuscaloosa as a graduate assistant and later as an assistant strength coach. He overlapped with Lanning there in 2015, then Love was hired by Lane Kiffin to lead FAU’s strength program in 2017 and then followed the coach to Ole Miss in 2020. 

“We’re happy for him,” Kiffin said at the end of last season. “When you win like we did, people want a piece of what you were doing.” 

A good connection between head coach and strength coach is often an overlooked aspect of the first year of a new staff. Nobody spends more time with the athletes than the strength guys, which is why it seemed especially beneficial that the Ducks retained Shaud Williams as an assistant strength coach. Williams has been with the Ducks since 2018. 

“He provides important stability and familiarity for our student-athletes as we transition in our new staff,” Lanning said back in January. 

Do you ever finish a paragraph, channel your inner-Payton Pritchard and scream, “THAT’S WHAT I DO?” — Erik Anderson 

Occasionally. 

What do you think the future is of independent sports journalism efforts such as John Canzano’s and yours? What are the keys to its survival and even thriving in the rapidly changing media environment we find ourselves in? — John Knowlton. 

John was the face of The Oregonian for 20 years and between the branding of his radio show and the exposure he got with that column, he had the audience to be able to go independent — just as I was lucky to build enough of an audience on the Ducks side of things to feel like I could pull the Corridor off. Essentially, we got to do the most important part — building our brand and our reputations — while still having the guide rails of full-time employment. When we jumped, we at least knew the height of the fall. 

Right now it seems to be working. I’m approaching one year with the lights on, John is already into Substack’s top 25 sports sites within a couple of months and I do feel like removing some of the barriers between writer and reader creates a stronger connection in the final product. Plus, neither of us have any mandates from our company telling us what we can and cannot write/tweet/say.

A copy editor would probably help, though.

I also think about this a lot: Remember when the promise of cord cutting was to save money? Why pay for cable when you can get Hulu for $7 a month? Now throw in another $15 for Netflix, $10 for Prime, $8 for Disney and, hell, I got to catch up on Yellowstone so that’s another few bucks for Paramount Plus and, yeah, you get the picture. 

If this is the model every local sportswriter goes to, a lot of people are going to end up getting unread. Because as much as I’d like to watch MacGruber on Peacock, when money gets tight I’m going to stick with my Succession and Barry on HBO Max. 

That’s not great for the long-term viability of local sports journalism. This model is great if you’re already somebody, but I’m worried about the smaller sports and writers with smaller profiles that just don’t have the audience to make money off of this. I cut my teeth covering little league baseball, high school water polo and a whole lot of other random sports that made me better as a writer, served a community and absolutely wouldn’t net me the needed audience or profits to operate independently. There needs to be a proving ground for people – whether that’s still at the local newspaper, or in the future under some sort of collaborative independent effort.

Now that you've run at Hayward Field, do you have a greater sense of our state's appreciation for track and field? What did you think of the facility? And do you ever think you'll be able to beat Andrew Greif in a future race? — Steve Greif

The problem with trying to beat Andrew is that he had world-class coaching growing up. I heard that the old North Bend track & field coach was an animal.

To answer your first question: Most definitely. Look, I didn’t need the new Hayward’s endless list of amenities to win me over — every track I grew up around in Alaska had more gravel than sand in the long jump pits. What I saw at Hayward was a community of fans with a unique passion for something. That will hook me every time. 

But for real, the venue is nuts. My favorite part: Everything, from the lanes to the concourse, is covered in track surface. With a mostly empty stadium that morning, I did my warmups just outside the concession stands while thinking about lunch. The entire underbelly of the stadium is covered in the material, too. It makes you feel fast everywhere.

Men's Hoops update? Additions, losses, where do the Ducks stand? — TJ

I’m going to let our hoops expert Shane Hoffman take a crack at this one. Take it away, Shane:

Something was broken with last year’s team. As talented as last year’s roster looked in the preseason, this year’s roster is far more logical. It’s well balanced and retains the versatility and lineup variability that the 2021-22 team possessed on paper.

Here’s my early two-deep predictions: 

Will Richardson/Tyrone Williams

Jermaine Couisnard/Rivaldo Soares 

Keeshawn Barthelemy/Lok Wur 

Quincy Guerrier/Nate Bittle

N’Faly Dante/Kel’el Ware

Look, I know a three-guard lineup is a daunting proposition after what we witnessed last season. That being said, Richardson should take a step forward and the additions of Couisnard and Barthelemy complement him far better than last year’s duo of De’Vion Harmon and Jacob Young. 

Couisnard’s frame and play style bring a physicality missing from last year’s backcourt. Barthelemy, meanwhile, is a legitimate above the rim athlete — one of the better ones UO will have had in some years at that position. 

You’ll notice the second unit of my two-deep lacks a true point guard. If they start the guard trio, it opens the door for each of them to spend time carrying bench units. However, if one of the guards is relegated to the bench, my guess is that it would be the younger Barthelemy and then Soares or Williams would slot into the starting lineup. 

Some final thoughts:

• Ware fits this system quite well. He’s an excellent rim protector and lob threat, but it’s his passing, which he flashed at the Nike Hoops Summit, that jumps out the most and should have Dante praying for a clean bill of health. 

• The JUCO product Williams is an absolute bucket. If he can defend a lick, I could see him potentially taking over Eric Williams Jr.'s sixth man role, albeit as more of a microwave scorer than impactful two-way athlete. 

• I’m struggling to parse out Bittle’s theoretical role. It would be fair to assume that the former 5-star ascends into the limelight after waiting in the wings last season, but despite the departures of Franck Kepnang and Isaac Johnson, there’s a scenario where he receives nothing more than a reserve spot. Dante is solidified as this team’s starter and I tend to think Ware has a higher upside. If Bittle unlocks his 3-point shot that could propel him into the rotation, but ever since Oregon found success using a jumbo lineup in its 2018 Sweet Sixteen run, coach Dana Altman’s teams have trended smaller and this roster doesn’t scream two bigs at one time to me.

• If a sportsbook released odds on UO’s leading scorer this season they would probably look something like this:
  

  - Richardson +150

  - Couisnard +300

  - Barthelemy +650

  - Guerrier +850

  - Dante +1700

  
  I’d bet on Guerrier for some value. He’s the only wing on this team with true NBA size and while his offensive game looked putrid at times last season, let’s remember that was his first year in a perimeter-centric role. He came on like gangbusters as the season wound down. If he can find that sweet spot of overwhelming smaller opponents with strength down low, while still bouncing outside to knock down threes and take advantage of slower matchups, I see a world in which he could average 15-to-18 points a night. 

Shane Hoffmann, ladies and gentlemen…

What do you miss most about summers in Alaska? — Adam

Man, Adam, you’re hitting me right in the feels. I haven’t been back to Alaska since the summer of 2015 — it’s a little more challenging to make the trip since my folks moved back down to the Lower 48.

It’s long overdue, mainly because Alaska summers are almost good enough to make you forget just how brutal the other 10 months of the year can be.

A rough list of things I miss:

1. Moose’s Tooth Pizza. 

2. Late night golf — I used to mow the fairways at Palmer Golf Course, which took tee times in the summer up until 9 p.m. As long as you had your cart back to the clubhouse by midnight, you were golden.

3. Jumping into Matanuska Lake. “Jumping” instead of “swimming,” because the near shock/heart attack experienced when entering a body of water normally covered in two feet of ice for nine months of the year doesn’t keep you in for long. 

4. Those three weeks in July after most of the mosquitos have died off and the rains haven’t arrived yet. 

5. Hatchers Pass. This is the thing I miss most while living in the city — the ability to get completely surrounded by nature just a few miles from your front door. Getting up to Summit Lake and watching the hang gliders float above that glacial blue water is a special type of therapy. 

6. Grandma’s Rhubarb Pie. (Anything of Grandma’s, really) 

7. Getting out of pickup hockey at 10 p.m. and driving back from Wasilla to Palmer with the windows down, music playing and the sun still shining. 

8. The Mat-Su Miners, our local Alaska Baseball League team, used to run a killer deal where they’d give you a few bucks for every foul ball you returned to the beer shack. So every game a handful of elementary and middle schoolers — with the occasional you’re too old for this high schooler — would alternate between sides of the stands depending on the batter’s handedness. My single-game record was four, which back in 1997 was probably above minimum wage if you didn’t mind a few scars from sliding through the gravel. 
   

   

   Herman Brothers Field, Palmer, Alaska.

9. We were pretty bad Alaskans. Didn’t hunt. Didn’t fish much. But everyone else did, and that usually meant a summer freezer freshly stocked with generous donations of fresh salmon and halibut.

Now, if you don’t mind, THAT’S WHAT I DO.

— Tyson Alger
@tysonalger