378 COMMENTS

  1. The decline for ESPN is obvious.

    It’s content.

    There was a screen early on that showed NBC, Fox, CBS et al. They’re chasing the same content. NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, golf, tennis, auto/off-road… all have their own networks.

    And then there’s Turner and Univision… and more.

    ESPN expanded too fast when they thought they would control content because of a lack of competition. They timed the market wrong, and they’re paying for it now.

    • They might have saved themselves by taking a chance on gaming before any other network realized it was a thing. But that contract won’t last forever.

      Plus… they paid something like twice what any other network did for the NFL. But they banked on off-season events like the combine and the draft to pick up the pieces of their garbage in-season offerings. Who the hell cares about watching something live when they can just look at a list and get the same info a coupe hours later?

      Hmmm… four or five hours listening to you morons talk, or a couple minutes looking at the list and reading a couple scouting reports that I might care about.

      Tough decision.

  2. Gave up my football season tickets today. I was sitting in section 9 row 50 and apparently the ticket office wants to move the band there. I’ve been sitting there for 18 years now and I knew everyone around me and they were part of the reason why I was going to the games through the bad seasons. My ticket rep tried giving me the hard sell on moving to a section with a higher donation requirement but I told him after all the night games, the BS clear bag requirement this year and the fact I can have a beer at home without being treated like a criminal they have made the inconvenience of going outweigh the experience.

    • From what I understand they are bleeding season ticket holders this year. I know of an additional 4 people that gave theirs up in the past few weeks.

      • If I had season tickets I’d have given them up the moment they hired Riley. If they asked why I gave up my tickets, I’d say, “Because you gave up on football.” Riley is OSU waiving the white flag.

        I have some restored hope now that he’s gone, but Smith seems like a clone so…

    • What happened that made you feel like a criminal?

      But yeah, going to games kind of sucks. The traffic, price, (I always got stuck next to old fans who would yell if I stood up), etc. Much better watching at home. HD TV will ultimately kill attendance in all sports. Prices are too high to justify going when the at home product is that good.

      • We’ve been in the section that always sits down. It’s great to take my kids and they don’t have to lean back and forth to see in between someone and see a tiny sliver of the action.

        And what happened that made me feel like a criminal???? Have you tried to have a beer at a game?

      • Hahaha this guy has some pretty petty reasons to give up season tickets. And none are due to the product on the field…

        He could just move to the endzone. No donation, few people stand. Or new side upper deck. No donations and everyone sits.

        The clear bag policy is pretty standard at any major sporting or concert event. OSU was actually a few years behind in implementing it. Good luck going to any other events ever. But I guess if you’re sneaking things in, then yeah it’s not good for you.

        And outside of the terrace and the toyota club, there’s never been a place in reser to drink a beer. You want to drink a beer in your seat? When was that ever allowed?

        • To be fair, there are only a handful of games any given year where the product on the field is better than meh. It’s usually just a bunch of college football players out there.

          And yes, anyone who is familiar with AC Green is familiar with alcohol policies at OSU events.

          • That would be a handful of games nationwide, in all of college football.

            Where someone sees a great game, I see a couple offenses running wild over incompetent defenses (because sports reporters conflate scoring with greatness).

            If the product was even to be considered good, then I have no idea why Gino Torretta isn’t in Canton.

        • Check yourself. If you read above you can see I’ve been a season ticket holder for 18 years. I’ve been to games where the teams have been absolutely awful and to seasons where we had 4 night games scheduled. I’ve rolled with the punches

          Both the endzone and the new side upper deck suck. The new side is in the sun all day during game days and you have a much better view on TV. The players look like ants up there.

          The clear bag policy is security theater. It doesn’t speed up entry and it doesn’t keep stuff out. There’s various youtube videos you could search through showing it being debunked.

          Exactly, that’s the point there’s no beer allowed. Meanwhile I can have as many beers as I want at other sporting events or at my home. College football needs to get with the times if they don’t want to keep pushing fans away

          • Gave up my season tickets back when GA was hired, mostly due to having kids and not being able to make it to 6 games every year.

            Last year I took in a game and sat in the corner section near the visiting fans( sec 127 i think?). Those seats are pretty good actually, and usually pretty inexpensive.
            Still close to where you were sitting before, and possibly lower

            Just my 2 cents in case youre looking for alternative seating. At home on your couch works too.

            The clear bag policy wouldn’t be terrible if the bag were big enough to hold anything. It’s pretty tiny and when the rainy season hits, more fans will just decide to stay home. Also, the no food policy isn’t as commonplace as the clear bag. Other Pac schools still let you pack a lunch into the stadium.
            That’s just an OSU money grab, which will end up driving more fans away.

          • The food policy is a good point. But I tend to side with the non-alcoholic policies. If you can’t make it through a game without a drink, it’s not the experience that’s lacking.

          • I’m fine with the alcohol policy too. Seen too many drunken fights in the stands to justify allowing alcohol throughout the stadium. Anybody know how it’s working for baseball? They seem to be able to control it just fine in that smaller environment. The extra revenue would be nice, but a sold out Reser Stadium full of drunks is just asking for trouble.

            What am I saying….Reser never sells out anymore.

          • I’d argue the current alcohol regulations make people drink more. People rush out for halftime, slam 3-4 beers in a 15 minute period and go back into the stadium and get drunk 10 minutes later. if you had those beers spread out over a 3 hour window you wouldn’t have as many drunks and you would be able to regulate it better.

    • Sad that this is too little to late. The facts are on what many would consider an obscure blog site that the general public will never see because the bias greedy media won’t cover it.

    • It ‘s nice that they are finally on record, but unfortunately there needed to be a vehement defense when The Oregonian first did their hack job. Being cynical, it now makes me wonder if any possible deal with KC has fallen through?

      Also, what’s up with The Oregonian saying the website is “supposedly” run by Erickson? The can’t confirm that? They seem to be pretty good investigators at everything else!

      • To be clear, it is precisely because nobody did a dog and pony show denying all the allegations that they are believable now. It was clear from the beginning that he was still tied to the courts, and publicly decrying court procedure could only mean he really didn’t care what the final outcome would be–that he only cared about his ego in the short term.

        • I’m not really concerned about the believably because I took the time to read about juvenile adjudication of minors. I do not have a problem with him playing professionally even if he did it, but I sometimes wonder if Heimlich and his parents did not consider the worst case scenario for his future in baseball and when they had that “oh,shit” moment that indeed that public judgment was going to be harsh and MLB was going to turn and run, they decided to get on the record. I would have been fine with them screaming from the mountain tops from day one that he did not do it.

          • You also have to qualify what he “did”… or didn’t do.

            What the court and he agreed to is that he patted his niece’s butt, once, when he was 15.

            That’s a far cry from the rape allegations the prosecutor didn’t believe in a state where the prosecutor has a mandate to believe the victim’s testimony without any corroboration.

            That should have also been the point where anyone who was reading the original O story should have stopped and said, “Wait… that’s rape, and there are only charges of molestation?”

            That was the first point everyone should have known something was not right.

            Say what you want about that dichotomy, but it exists. And it is the driving point of disgust for anyone who would continue to persecute him now. The prosecutor didn’t believe their alleged victim, so they scared the alleged offender into something, anything to show they were tough on crime… or whatever.

            The libel per se from the O (and everyone else, apparently) not doing any due diligence whatsoever about minor adjudication… or even reading or properly transcribing the court documents they had (and presumably still have) is the second part. The language is so egregiously negligent so as to taint the story from the get go.

            The credibility of what they are saying now is all I’m concerned with here. If they had come out with this letter as soon as the O wrote their tripe, they would have been branded as liars and excuse-makers. They are now to some degree. But they also aren’t waiting on a court date to prove that teh rest of Luke’s life can be trusted to Luke. If he and they came out with all these denials, who knows how the court would have decided his fate last August? He said he had to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s. Five years of doing that does not allow one to break character in the face of a firestorm just to say, “Nuh uh!”

          • The only way I see for Heimlich to get out of this mess is for the mother to admit on record that she lied outright or planted a seed in her daughter’s mind for spite, but she obviously wasn’t concerned about protecting her daughter so she’s probably pretty adept at keeping a straight face through all of this. It might be interesting to get something from Luke’s brother too. But he almost has to believe his ex-wife because otherwise he’s calling his daughter a liar. It’s apparent now that no journalist is going to touch this from the mother’s motives angle.

          • Luke’s brother has played it straight. Custody rights can always be revisited, and telling the court that you think they railroaded your brother is one way for the court to start siding with the non-custodial parent. On the flip side, not telling everyone that you think your brother did what the mother has said he did (and the little salacious tidbit the O presented from the interview with no context… that was dismissed by prosecutors) is what a responsible parent would do.

            The mother has lost all credibility.

            What I really don’t understand is why there is no mention of the niece having spent time in counseling to deal with her trauma. Instead, we’re to believe she doesn’t really remember any of it… after months or years of therapy.

            A simple way to gauge how seriously the mother takes this story (as opposed to being a vindictive lout, outing her daughter in the process) is to ask her how many years of therapy the girl had to endure.

          • Agreed, the mother had been beyond vague in her comments regarding her daughter. She’s let the general public take up the mantle, with crap like “everything time Luke pitches the little girl is traumatized again”. She might be clever like a fox in that way, she doesn’t really need to say anything more. The damage is done.

  3. OSU is in a tough spot with their ticket sales due to the Trump Tax Cuts (as are many other athletic departments). The required donation for my four seats is $500 each. Previously, my employer matched my donation (they get to write it off) so I only had to put up $1,000. Of that $1,000, 80% was tax deductible so my net cost was approximately $800.

    Now? Contributions to athletic departments to buy tickets aren’t deductible so my employer has chosen not to match funds. I’m on the hook for the full $2,000 with no tax benefit.

    I know the timing of it caught everyone off-guard but I’m surprised there wasn’t a creative solution offered by OSU to mitigate the effect for fans. Something like 10% off for each year you commit to in advance (some professional teams do this).

    We re-upped only in a moment of weakness fueled by the baseball title (and alcohol). Next year, with no Civil War at home and probably coming off a 1-3 win season, there’s very little chance we keep tickets unless they do something dramatic to make the math pencil out.

    • Not only that but the tickets are like 1/4 the cost on the resale market. It makes no sense to buy season tickets unless you have a group or section you like being in.

      • Actually the tax write off and the tickets not selling for anything (I couldn’t even give away my tickets to a game last year) were also factors in me giving up my season tickets this year

      • I’ve only bought tickets from craigslist and stubhub the past 4 years. I pay much less per season than friends in “valley view” and always sit in prime seats.

  4. Luke’s parents letter was just posted on O-live. They started by saying that it came from “a website supposedly run by family friend Kristine Erickson”. I sent a copy of it to the administration e-mail a few hours ago, asking that they forward it to sports, but somebody else may have beat me to it.

    • Why would I be the one you call out?

      These are my truths–the ones I’ve always been advocating.

      You need to direct your cautions to the tldr crowd.

        • The matter of misinformation being so rampantly distributed that POTUS circular files his info after reasoning it circularly?

          PUH-lease.

          Dumbshit is not the first to use the method. And his marks are not the first suckers born in this country.

          That’s about all I have to say on that. I get to wait for “the adults” to recognize us “not adults” with the ideas behidn the empty rhetoric they stole… and then pissed away in sell-offs completely antithetical to the original ideas.

    • 15 years ago, we would note the misinformation from all these same people would start with someone who would link to an associate who would cite the very article in which the link was placed. Then Drudge would pick it up, and there would be a cascade of links trying to legitimize the lies. But when you finally drilled down on all links, they were circular, no wider than four or five separate sites, and they could not have been linked in succession (meaning they were all dropped at the same time to have the desired effect of multiple sources confirming each other).

      • He is actually a really good friend of mine, so he keeps me in the loop on his research. He got his degree in Biology, and I believe a minor in Biochemistry from OSU, if I am remembering correctly. He got his masters from UO school of journalism, we would give him a hard time about. But it wasn’t until he got to University of Auckland doing his PhD that he was talking about his efforts on understanding the internet’s “ecosystem” and information propagation (good or bad). He was talking about hash-tags and all that before my wife and I even knew what it was (We don’t do Twitter, so probably always late to the game) — that was about 5-6 years ago. It is really weird seeing his mug on TV (CNN, FOX, and TED talks), but he hasn’t let it get to his head. I believe he is enjoying himself, especially being able to pay off his school debts with the increased pay he is now getting at Columbia, etc., but he has been flying all over I could tell he is getting worn out since last time I saw him person, Oct of last year.

  5. File under Luck ‘O the Beavs……looks like Xavier Crawford is gone for sure. Anyone know if he had fallen out with Smith? Otherwise, I assume he would have been a starter for two more years? Only the Beavs can have a P-12 starting corner transfer to a mid-major! Cory Hall must have been persuasive.

    • He may not connect with the new DB coach. If he fits the JS mold of high output/no ego that’s pretty much the opposite of Cory Hall. And pretty much the opposite of every successful corner I’ve ever seen for that matter.

      • He might have just loved Coach Hall, thought he got a raw deal and wanted to continue playing for him?

        I still think we’ll regret not having him on staff at some point.

    • Maybe he didn’t want to play for a guy with an aw shucks attitude. Smith talks like Riley, so we have a 2.0 situation brewing.

  6. Got around to exploring CO a bit today. Went to Boulder to scout out the stadium in case I want to go to a Beav game there. Man…that town is a shit hole. That’s supposed to be a wealthy and desirable city? It was yuppie garbage with a bad down town. What a disappointment. OSU should be able to beat out CU for any recruit, at least on location and the city.

    • Thank you.

      I got in an argument about this with someone recently. Apparently, he thought it was some hippie haven. When I called it out as a bunch of entitled posers who were paying for, not creating, solutions, he got a little miffed.

      If you want to see what Boulder was like when Boulder was actually a cool little town, keep driving through it, and stop in Nederland. There are a lot less trust fund brats running around there.

      • I have several friends who lived in Boulder in the 70s and 80s. Only one of them (a prof at CU) still has property there. But he and his wife live in Louisville. Some friends from OSU also live in Louisville. All the rest have moved to various places like Nederland, Mancos, Paonia and Ridgway.

        I’ve also spent a lot of time in Ft Collins. Been fishing on the Poudre quite a bit. But that friend moved to Steamboat about five years ago.

        • It’s not just Californians. It’s yuppies in general coming from everywhere. Places like Durango and Boulder are eventually priced out by the homogenous Range Rover drivers who buy their dread-headed kids BMWs as starter cars.

          You can see it happening in Ashland now. Eugene was gone the minute they built a mall on the wetlands then countered that with a walking mall downtown.

          The planning history of this giant strip mall of a town is just dumb.

          But then you end up with satellite towns around these gentrified piles of commercial excess that are pretty cool.

        • You’re right, it’s not just Californians. It’s only 99.5% Californians and the other . 5% are boners that live next door to a California transplant and feel the need to emulate.

          Angry have you thought about taking a trip up to Wyoming? Cheyenne is on our short list of places to relocate to to hopefully escape this mass of CALIFORNIAN douchebags that everyone other than Jack feels is destroying most of the west coast.

        • At least Ashland has a strict UGB, so population won’t increase exponentially… It does have very expensive real estate though… It is a fun town to grow up in if you enjoy the outdoors

        • They’re from any yuppie suburban hell in the country. The suburbs of Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte and Hartford are indistinguishable from one another except for geography and signage. It’s all the same garbage underneath. You just have to figure out what sort of rich white yuppies have concentrated on the particular area you want to discuss.

          Boulder would be the kind of rich yuppie who has time to drive two blocks in their Range Rovers to the Jamba Juice between yoga workouts. Californians and Texans have been the cause of everything “bad” in Colorado for decades. But you’re as likely to live next to someone from Long Island that looks, acts and lives exactly the same as someone from some yuppie hell i nthose two states.

          I thank whomever came up with the UGBs in this state. But I fear they’re going to be lost to the moneyed interests that follow the moneyed people that follow the cool. I had one “neighbor” move out to my area, and he was constantly complaining about everything that was everything having to do with living on a rural route.

          He was from Tamp/St Pete, btw.

          The goats aren’t allowed to be seen. The dogs can’t bark. My tractor is too loud… for 10 in the morning. My favorite was when he thought I couldn’t work on my truck in the yard (can’t be seen from his house or the road) because it was white trash something or other… and besides… the different colors of primer made the value of his house depreciate.

          Fuck off dude! If you want all this stuff to go away, close your eyes and start walking. He moved pretty quickly. He also did nothing to maintain his land. He just wanted to complain that nothing was the way he wanted it to be, like it was in his yuppie hell.

          I’m not joking when I say I saw this dude a couple years later… coming out of a Jamba Juice on the north side of town.

        • I understand the resentment of moving Californians who drive up real estate prices, but here in Bend I see a lot of confirmation bias toward Californians. It seems like it’s kind of a ‘thing’ to grumble about people moving here ‘ruining’ the town. I figure these people would complain about something else if they couldn’t complain about the town growing. I’ve met a lot of cool people from California who don’t fit the stereotype, but if they do that’s when the confirmation bias comes into play. If someone is an asshole and they’re from Portland or Washington, they’re just ‘assholes’. If they’re from CA, then it gets attributed to the state they’re from.

        • Are those “cool” Californians lifelong natives or people who happened to live in CA for a while, but grew up somewhere else? The latter are fine. The former are almost always insular with very odd personalities.

        • My experience covers both groups. I don’t mind odd personalities. I guess my point is there’s jerks everywhere, and I don’t see it at a higher rate with people from CA. Now a lot of them drive like idiots, but so do people from Idaho. You’re in CO now, speaking of driving. Psycho drivers there, glued to their phones.

      • You might want to check out Golden downtown not on a weekend when it’s crowded w people who seem to be looking for excitement where there really isn’t any. Colo school of Mines, couple of good restaurants. Trails from downtown – one (near CSM) goes under the highway to top of M mtn. Should you really want to take in all that is hideous w development in Denver environs – take light rail from Den 2 Golden. I’m Denver itself, Highlands neighborhood is not too bad (NOT Highlands Ranch.)

  7. Some discussion regarding the Barometer editorial took place in the previous thread. Now, the Justice for Luke site has posted a link to Martin Meyer’s response. It is found in the “updates” section of the site.

    justiceforluke.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Martin-Meyer-letter-to-Daily-Baro.pdf

    “If I can get you to stop proselytizing to your community long enough to climb down off your moral high horses, maybe I can engage all of you in a little education and, perhaps, persuade you to see this case through a different lens…

    You, as journalists, ought to know the power of words. You’d better be sure you are using the right words in the name of accuracy…

    The failure to educate one’s self on all aspects of a subject before rendering opinions can lead to the appearance of the opinion being uneducated and, in the case of willful failure to educate, biased, ignorant and hateful.

    http://justiceforluke.com/updates/

  8. I used to watch First Take with breakfast, but Screamin’ A. Smith and Max White Guilt Kellerman making virtually everything a preachy racial issue made it unbearable. Switched over to Undisputed and The Herd and haven’t looked back.

    • Screamin’ A. Smith

      This guy is the worst. I stopped watching ESPN when his unbearable predecessor (Stuart Scott) was hired. Never watched or heard of Undisputed. Cowherd is obnoxious and arrogant. He’s better than the others above, but I can’t take his personality for more than 5 minutes. He speaks in absolutes and tries to be edgy.

      The guy I like best is actually Jim Rome. He’s at least funny, and his callers are pretty hilarious. Most shows try to be edgy and controversial, but Rome just tries to make people laugh. I don’t listen to it unless I bump into it, but I always laugh a bit when I do.

        • Luton sucks.
          Haven’t seen enough of Blount to know one way or the other. He looked okay at times when he played under GA. Skeptical of walk-ons, in general. The odds just aren’t in their favor. But, we’ll see. Every QB on the roster looks bad to me. Blount could be the best of the bad.

          I have a feeling Smith is going to favor the walk-on QB since he was one.

          We’ll know shortly! Not sure there’s enough data to claim the best QB yet.

          • So, if Blount is picked it has to be that JS likes walk-ons? Why set up that narrative? There is no way that you have any real knowledge that his choice would be based on that. I chose to give JS the benefit of the doubt that he will choose the qb that he believes gives us the best chance to win.

          • Maybe we will get the scout team CB, who played QB in practice to get the team ready for the AZ game last year. I thought I read he looked good… The D was shit last year though so I think anyone could look good vs them.

        • Talk football? Sure, here are a few areas in which I’d like to hear opinions:
          -OPEN PRACTICES……sure, fans love ’em; what is the effect on players?
          -NAMES ON UNI’S……..who leaves ’em off? Any effect on “team first” attitude?
          -CUT OUT 50% of punts? Use 3rd AND 4th down when it is 3rd and less than 6?
          -MEDIA INTERVIEWS…which players, if any, should be in front of the media? Freshmen? Limited exposure for any single individual, maybe a rotation?

          JIM WILSON……what’s up with him? Seems to have abandoned Twitter for months, had some sort of gig with NBC Sports Northwest, limited his air time with Beavs Baseball to the CWS (and schooling Jon Warren in Arizona-before the NBC thing). Wonder if he’ll be in the booth with Parker for football.

          • I’m not a fan of cutting punts. Big fan of changing field positions on punts. What you want to do is just get efficient at converting those 3rd downs (one sure sign of a good QB). If you’re around the 35 yard line maybe go for it on 4th. That’s no man’s land and the change in field position might only be 15 yards.

          • Here’s my worry. Aside from the QB question mark, it doesn’t look like we have much at DL or inside linebacker (except Jonathan Willis). We desperately need Jeromy Reichner, Isaac Garcia, Hamilcar Rashad to get good quickly or we’ll get crushed up the gut all day by everybody. Elu Aydon is now listed at 380, we may not find a uni to fit him. He should just roll into the center and lay on him. Lavaka is also pushing 4 bills. I don’t dislike Luton, his short throws were good but every damn deep ball was an overthrow, if he can’t hit any deep ball on target then JS needs to get somebody in there with some kind of big play potential. But then the next qbs are a walk on, a community college backup, and another walk on, yikes. McGiven is gone at least, praise jesus.

            Yeah have some open practices. When you aren’t good you need some way to connect with fans. It’s not like Ohio State gives a shit about scouting us. And I want to see what Christian Wallace looks like running the ball.

            Not in favor of going for it on 4th all the time, and I don’t think JS will take a lot of risks.

            Sure take the names off the unis, it seems to work for baseball.

            Interview everybody, not just QBs, I don’t want to hear from the QBs why they all think they should be the starter.

      • Clones FTW! I don’t like how PC and corporate he’s become relative to before, but I can understand. Callers, XR4TI banter, and the ranty takes keep me coming back.

    • Sorry, I don’t subscribe to watching or listening to other people talk about sports. Highlights are one thing. Discussing the importance of said highlights is a waste of time. Watching other people discuss the importance of said highlights is just something I will never understand.

      Read news. Listen to music. Finish eating and go play with dogs for a while.

      • Espn would be better if they just went back to repeats of sports center all morning. Agree, I don’t give a fat shit what Steven a smith or Colin cowpie think about anything. And it’s really gotten sad to see lee corso I fear he’s gonna keel over on stage before too long.

        • Their problem is that they now have something like 10 channels plus competition for content. The channels all need content, and the price for content goes up because of the competition that barely existed in their heyday. MTV suffered the same fate on a lesser scale. They diluted their content with more channels while competition also crept into the market. But their major issue is that content decreased simply because of artist participation. But it’s also noted by the industry as a good vehicle for their pop sectors (pop, commercial hip-hop and new country). But they don’t have to pay exorbitant amounts for content exclusivity. They only have to pay licensing/copyright fees.

          What’s different about the two groups is that ESPN demands access to basic TV packages from all the providers at a high cost, and people who run the numbers and don’t care for what content they have find good reason to cut the cord. But seeing that their (and their competition’s) daily content offerings amount to those drunks at the end of the bar arguing about everything, I’m guessing their target demographic is loud enough to force everyone else to have to pay for their channels.

          And because America was somehow convinced that regulation is bad, it’s going to get worse before it gets better… for the consumer.
          https://www.techhive.com/article/3243698/streaming-services/disney-fox-and-the-painful-path-to-a-la-carte-tv.html

  9. The trash called the Oregonian printed an article about Luke’s parents stating he is innocent. I know we aren’t supposed to click it but just had to see how they treated it. And you can still see their bias in this statement: “Prosecutors initially charged Heimlich with two counts of sexually molesting a 6-year-old female family member. In Washington,** where the crime occurred,** child molestation in the first degree is a Class A felony. They included the parent’s article so far into the story that most would have stopped reading.
    This as opposed to the very first line at the Portland Tribune: “BY KERRY EGGERS/PORTLAND TRIBUNE/’We have always believed Luke was innocent … we instructed Luke to take the plea bargain’.

  10. Been staying away from recruiting news for the most part since June, just to get away from it for the slow Summer months.
    I think the Beavs will be offering QB Weston Eget soon. They’re waiting to see what Michael Johnson Jr decides to do, but I really think they’re wasting their time. He’s a great athlete and a smart kid, but doesn’t really fit our offense. That an he has opportunities to go to several other schools with a much better track record than OSU. I see him landing at either Penn St or Miami, and then the Beavs finally landing a commitment from Eget shortly after. Hopefully the slow play doesn’t bite them in the ass again.

    • The guy holds offers from Sacramento State and San Jose State, I have a difficult time getting excited for him so if the slow play hurts OSU so be it. Don’t see him as being the answer anyway.

      As for the Johnson doesn’t and offensive fit. Any system should be flexible enough to fit the talents of a mobile QB. Sure you don’t want to change your offensive identity every year (Like Andersen did) but if you got a kid like Johnson you could easily adjust the offense to get him out of the pocket and in space a little more often than you would with a less mobile QB while still keeping the basics of your system in place.

      That said, he isn’t coming to OSU so its not really an issue.

      • All states have a drunk in public law, you would think they’d be a bit more judicious in its use though. He was “looking for his Uber.” It’s not like he was causing a disturbance, likely not a threat to drive and was apparently looking for a ride, probably home.

  11. The one recurring and distressing truth from the onset of the Heimlich story in June of 2017 is how firmly Danny Moran’s original imprint has endured. This phenomenon has broader implications in regard to how narratives are seeded and fostered and proves how difficult it can be to debunk them. In the Heimlich case, the essays of Martin Meyer on this site and the “Justice for Luke” website that his legal analysis inspired, has, I think, postulated credible alternative contexts for considering that story. But as the recent Barometer editorial proves, the original narrative has not only survived, it has taken root in the one place (the OSU campus) where the editorialists’s outlook has the potential to be most damaging. It also proves that, contrary to the opinion you see in some circles questioning Ed Ray’s decision to allow Heimlich to play in the 2018 season, the OSU administration’s lackluster explication of relevant law and federal education policy inevitably led to the current, sorry situation.

  12. Haven’t seen it posted here previously, apparently Bike’s replacement is now (still) on the payroll.

    ‘Brian Wozniak, football quality control analyst who previously served for three years as a graduate assistant, was promoted Tuesday to assistant coach in charge of tight ends.’

    • “Coach Wozniak is highly respected by our team and his experience at both playing tight end and coaching the position is a tremendous asset,” Smith said in a statement. “I’m also excited about what he brings to the program from a recruiting perspective with his enthusiasm and his ability to connect with coaches and athletes.”

      The 27-year-old was a four-year letterman tight end at Wisconsin,…He played in three Rose Bowl games and was a member of three Big Ten champion teams.

      https://www.gazettetimes.com/sports/beavers-sports/football/osu-football-wozniak-elevated-to-tight-ends-coach/article_5d935282-ea2f-5253-b115-4cff1047ec2e.html

      Seems to me college athletes are likely to relate better to a 27 year old with Rose Bowl experience than to a sixty-something guy who won (and also lost) more games than anyone at OSU…….years ago.

      If he can, as Smith indicates, connect with HS coaches I think he’s an upgrade.

      EDIT: Actually, he is an upgrade simply by getting the stink of the gum chewer out of the organization.

      • Brian was practically telling Riley how to coach the TE’s…makes sense to actually hire the guy who knows how to coach and will be able to coach the TE’s.

  13. Beavs apparently have a new commitment who would be eligible to play this coming year, according to Nemec. I have no idea who it is, but one 2018 guy who it could potentially be is 2018 OL Niti Liu. But just a guess at this point. We’ll find out soon enough. Could be a transfer as well.

      • Angry had him as a 4*.Here’s his analysis:

        Riley Sharp — Incredible looking pass catching TE with good speed. Not sure if he can block. Heard he is going on a mission, so they’ll have to re-recruit him if that’s true. Major talent who would consistently beat LBs if he remained at TE.

  14. MORE BASEBALL:
    Here is a vid of a Casey interview in which he highlights Kyle Nobach and mentions Luke. Titled: Pat Casey wants more for his kids than rings.
    “I want guys to be big leaguers, but that’s not my goal…my goal is that that guy becomes the best man he can become…”

    Kyle has just taken the job of Associate Head Coach for Everett CC.

    https://www.heraldnet.com/sports/former-mp-and-oregon-state-standout-to-coach-evcc-baseball/

    The vid (less than 2 minutes long):
    https://www.nbcsports.com/northwest/video/pat-casey-wants-more-his-kids-rings

        • I’ve known about his for years. I was hoping he was our primary target, and he would commit in the spring, but it appears he was possibly a plan B. Why? I have no clue. I’m certainly not as high on the plan A kid.

          A friend who knows these things made one comparison for Lucas. He said his game most resembles Mark Price.

  15. Did anyone pay attention to the Pac-12 Media day today? It was pretty Blah and basically the hit points, JS likes the QB and TE room, but feels we’re still not deep enough with the amount of TE’s we have on the team compared to UW. He basically wants to be versatile and be like UW offensively, but utilize TE’s more. He also mentioned that Riley will be available for Administrative advice and recruiting evaluations even though he is a HC for a different organization. They also mentioned that the Bend trip was pushed back to the week before leaving for Ohio State game to simulate traveling to Ohio. Also alluded that Jake Luton is the guy to beat for the starting QB job. I could also see a WR pass by Moran a few times this season too.

    • Seems like the number of bodies at TE is ok, but just the amount of experience is not. We have Togiai, Mitagi and Quinn Smith all with game experience, and then Smalls/Quitoriano/Sharp/Taufa’asau/Bramscher/Holum all coming in as True freshmen or R/S freshmen.

      I didn’t watch any of the media day stuff

    • I just finished it, didn’t hear him mention any QB by name? Just that he has a couple guys who have played before. Maybe I missed him saying Luton was the guy?

      • Same here. Heard him mention Jake Browning but not Luton, but i guess there were a ton of other interviews today besides the press conference where he probably said more.
        Pretty vanilla, like you’d expect. At least there seems to be some substance and thought behind his responses vs Riley’s non-answer answers. In that regard I don’t see him as a Riley clone and more of his own guy, even though he’ll still lean on Riley throughout the year.

        Bottom line, this team is going to have a ton of new/inexperienced guys in key roles, and the team talent level is already at the bottom of the Pac.
        They should be expected to handle a big sky team like Southern Utah, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that game even ends up as a loss, given the offensive output SUU puts up year to year and us coming off Ohio St.

        Think this team will be in the 1-2 win range, but zero wins wouldn’t shock me.
        They need to build up experience and stock up in recruiting before we should expect more.

        • I disagree about new/inexperienced guys, at least regarding the offense. All 11 players on the 1st team offense have started multiple games before.

      • The Luton reference was with mike Yam and Yogi Roth after the presser. They showed highlights of Luton and he said that there’s guys that will challenge Luton in the QB room or something to that effect.

        • “Inside Pac-12 Football Media Day Special (North Division)” – Now Showing on Pac-12 Now On the pac-12 website/app @ the 49 minute mark.

          Yogi asked JS what Luton needs to do to solidify or if he has solidified the starting spot? JS alluded to the fact that he had a great spring, does things well and is taking the leadership role more this summer and is running things this summer. but JS did back that up with saying Luton has competition around him.

    • Based solely on the PAC12 interview linked above by beavers4life, I got the feeling that JS isn’t planning to lean on Bikey very much. He mentioned several other coaches (Petersen, Chryst, Erickson) but had to be lead to talk about MR at all. I found this encouraging and wonder if others heard it the same way.
      Of course, the most encouraging stance would have been for Smith to make it clear that MR is part of another organization now and cannot serve two masters. Period.

        • That’s my take on it; not so much letting bikey down lightly as the holdovers who still like him and might be big donors. I can’t think that it is legal for OSU to pay him when he is also on a private payroll to a pro football team, no less. OTOH, if Riley is anywhere but in the bleachers this season . . .

        • Probably was…did you notice that the O made that the header for JS’s remarks to the media? Nothing much about all the rest he had to say.

        • There is ample reason. It’s a ridiculous subject, but someone re-rehired Bikey. And someone makes no conclusive statements about the employee of a professional football team. That the two are the same person is all his doing.

          He can clear it up with less than ten words, or he can string it along with hems and haws and indefinite leadership.

  16. Interesting, since we were just talking about this the other day. Sounds like oregon is going to start selling beer this year in Autzen, at the concession stands. Beer will be allowed throughout the stadium, except in the student section.
    They also took away the re-entry policy, so now fans can’t leave the game at halftime to tailgate and come back.

    I only went to 1 game last year and I didn’t notice if Reser still allows re-entry at the stadium?
    I suppose the shift towards more alcohol sales in stadiums is going to continue until somebody ends up dying as a result. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Reser extend alcohol sales to areas outside the terrace in the near future, if they think it will add more revenue.

      • Was that too edgy? I just got back from a 2 day process of reformatting my computer. Windows updates alone took 6hrs. Fuckers! I’m cranky.

        • Do we have odds on Dumbshit praising the king of offshoring?

          One for before he kicks it, and one for after?

          Regardless, someone got to him this last week. He’s completely abandoning the hirsute obstinance of everything stupid he has always been… in the last week. The press conference with Juncker was classic stupidity. That he had to have canned applause to announce he was going to stop acting like a complete moron on acid was some of the best humor his existence has provided thus far.

    • Looks like Arizona is also adding beer sales at football games this year.
      And oregon is adding the clear bag policy, similar to Oregon State although they are allowing you to bring food into the game(single serving(

      So fuck Scott Barnes and Oregon State for their no food policy. Greedy SOBs aren’t going to see me visiting Reser this year. If they add the no re-entry policy, there’s no choice but to eat shitty overpriced stadium food or skip on eating for 4-5 hours.

      • Typical small-time view of their world. OSU can’t do simple things correctly and even goes out of their way to make the experience less enjoyable. The bag policy has no relevance regarding safety, nor does it allow for the reality of the chilly climate of the NW in general. They have buckled to the old donor money over new ideas and being ahead of the curve in creative marketing. The old side will never be remodelled as long as all of those old season ticket holders gripe and moan about how inconvenient it would be to lose their seats that they have had since Dee Andros.

        Nostalgia, Jess Lewis outran OJ blah blah blah, loser mentality, blah blah blah, losing =better seats, blah blah, less young kids, blah blah, not as noisy at the game, blah blah, where is Mike on the sideline, blah blah, we can’t win in Corvallis anyway, blah blah blah, glad we might win 6 games in a few years, blah blah…..

        Now a new generation of fans has been indoctrinated with the belief that you can’t do much better than RIley, can’t recruit to Corvallis, be careful what you ask for, see what happens when you reach outside of old OSU (Gary Andersen), Oh well maybe next year, little brother, Nike money always wins, just be competitive, lunch-pail U, national TV losers in another blowout non conference game, mocked by national commentators, a half finished stadium for a generation is normal progress.

        Barnes doesn’t really care about a winning program or growing the fanbase of OSU football. He is just a numbers guy right now. He isn’t interested in trying to make the experience better and enjoyable for the gameday fans. Gameday fans are taken for granted and even less appreciated as the attendance dwindles. I bet there won’t be a game this year with more than 30,000 in the seats. But AD doesn’t try to change ticket prices, or concessions, or pre-game events or promo partnerships because they don’t think any of it will matter. They just hold out their hand to the PAC12 network and wait for the handout. The on field product will not attract new fans at this point, or for several years for that matter. OSU is on the brink of a 6-8 year streak of losing records, but no drastic measures have been taken to make it appealing to actually attend home games.

        Is it possible that Erickson simply had the generational magical year and it will not be repeated again at OSU? I guess a lot of people have concluded this and decided “Why fight it, OSU isn’t a football school anyway.”

        OOOOOSSSSUUUU won’t fight fight fight. OOOOOSSSSUUUU has quit quit quit trying to win.

        Maybe Smith has it in him to turn it around, but he sure gets no respect from anyone locally or nationally by comparison to every other coach in the conference. He seems like a JV coach alongside all of those guys he will face in conference. 1-11 is on the way. Tibesar and Lindgren may be worth 1 win each but I won’t hold my breath for it.

        • I would be for them remodeling the old side if it wasn’t that they wanted to jack up our donation level 6-8 times more than what we were paying. With the donation doing nothing for us thanks to the Trump Tax Cuts there’s literally 0 value to doing it.

        • I think JS is the only first-time head coach in the league this season? I like what he says when he’s addressing key points of the team, how he plans to coach, etc. Not sure what he can do about his public persona; a slight nasal twang, doesn’t look like we imagine a football coach should look. I cringed a bit when he asked ‘how am I doing -do I sound like a head coach’? I like his assistant coaches and don’t think they would be on board if they didn’t respect him. I’m going with glass half full and think the team will do better than anticipated. Barnes, otoh, is doing nothing helpful.

          • “I like his assistant coaches and don’t think they would be on board if they didn’t respect him.”

            Respect for Smith and the opportunity to build something from little seem to be the most likely reason guys like: Tibesar, Lindgren, and even Michalczik would join the staff. Cookus and Bray could be just looking for a job in a familiar setting, but I doubt it.

            One thing about JS “public persona”, he sure doesn’t show signs of feeling a lot of pressure. Overall, that can be good but I will be watching for signs of fire as the season progresses. All of that doesn’t have to come from the HC but somewhere, on or off the field, he’s got to show competitive emotion.

            As for Barnes, I agree that he isn’t helpful. And that is being generous!

          • I compare Jonathan this year to Justin Wilcox last year. Everybody was saying Cal was the worst team in the league and might only win 1 game. They won 5 and were very close in a couple others.

  17. From somewhere on the web:
    “I never fully understood the failures of the American education system until I was exposed to SEC Twitter.”

  18. BASEBALL:
    “The Beavers finished the year 55-12-1 and saw seven players named All-American at least once. Oregon State also had 16 student-athletes named Pac-12 All-Academic – a league best – with Jack Anderson named the Scholar-Athlete Of The Year.”

    BTW, 16 AA’s is more than 3 times the number from either swooshville or Meggs humpers!

    https://www.gazettetimes.com/sports/beavers-sports/osu-roundup-casey-to-be-recognized-by-seattle-mariners/article_1fed322d-250f-505f-8aa2-f1aaf02f8363.html

    • I can’t remember if I’ve already already posted this but Kevin Abel`s younger bro is a sophomore at Jesuit and is 6`5″ throws low 90s an plans to play for the beavers.

      • Kevin and Mick Abel are unrelated. Also, he’s creeping up on 95 mph at this point and will be throwing harder by the time he’s done with high school. He’s a high round draft pick for sure, probably a 1st rounder. Hopefully we get him on campus.

  19. OT- I don’t live local and I ask my parents to send me a copy of the newspaper so I could frame it next to my 2006 and 2007 championship newspapers. I received it this week and my dad sent me the Oregonian (yuck) but sometime between 2007 and now they’ve made the paper smaller.

    Are any of the other local papers are selling full size commemorative additions?

  20. OT: A female beavergopher…….god help us!
    Softball studette Hope Brandner transferring to Minnesota.

    240 likes
    _hopebabyyy_So excited to say I will be continuing my athletic and academic career at the University of Minnesota?

  21. When I learned of Mike’s… (we’re on a first name basis) Riley’s shocking departure last month I submitted my resume to Scott Barnes. I figured he was after a seasoned, steady and mature hand to lead young Jonathan as he learns the job.

    Here’s the good news! I received a very kind letter, except for the request for a donation, from Kaitlyn, Assistant to Mr. Barnes. They are keeping my resume on file should their needs change in the future. I am eagerly posted by mailbox every day waiting for the good news.

    Who knows??? You may see me again, complete with goofy glasses and all, prowling the sidelines at good old Parker Stadium.

  22. Dunno who Frank Frangie is and I don’t twat, so won’t be responding to his twitter re: Tim Cook. However, I hope FF’s success prediction for Cook is spot on. Gary Andersen treated him terribly, imo, 2nd only to Markus McMaryion. I would understand if Cook didn’t even acknowledge his time at Oregon State.

    • Maybe his issue was that he needed to acknowledge that he was attending Oregon State during his time at Oregon State.

      But… we can just go with your narrative.

      The guy who quit on school was almost as jobbed as the guy who quit on his team.

      • Your quitting shtick is getting a little old Jax.. .College isn’t the military, you are allowed to live your life and be where you fit, it’s not a lifetime contract .. Your narrative is getting tired, maybe you should pop in some Murder She Wrote then turn in after a bland supper…

        • Who said he couldn’t quit?

          I’m not assigning any judgment with the quitting. And if you think the immaturity and disrespect for his OSU teammates displayed with the timing of his quitting is judgmental, that’s a you thing.

          Those things just are what they are. If you want to assign labels like good or bad to them, that’s on you.

          Good for him for being happy and getting to love playing a game for the last couple years he gets to do so.

          But he gone… because he quit.

          • Seriously.

            You all want to assign it.

            But what you all want to do is to ignore the reality of the situation in order to make him a hero of some kind. I’ve pointed out that normal people look at quitters in much less than honorable terms, let alone the ridiculous judgments you all want to apply.

            But, in the end, quitting on your team after committing to the long haul of a season is what he did. I happen to think he did the best thing for him. And I’ll never say otherwise.

            The reality is that the best thing for him is completely exclusive of any of the heroic judgments you all want to make. More power to him… wish him luck… glad to call you an alum… thanks for your efforts… out of sight, out of mind.

            That’s it. But that’s it if he decides this in the spring and respects his teammates enough not to commit to the season. It is/was immature to make the decision to commit to your team for the upcoming season, then quit. There can be no argument about that… unless he was forced to be there by some unknown written contract. It was simply an immature action.

            But I hold no animus toward him.

            He’s just gone. He did what was best for him. And what was best for him was a snap decision to quit and go elsewhere. Okay. Bye.

            If you’re suggesting he already had a foot out the door, then we have another discussion that needs to be had. That would mean that his performance was indicative of someone who was not focused. As much as I dislike saying this, if MM knew he had this in his back pocket, then it as the right decision to not name him the starter. His quitting can only be proof that reinforces that decision.

            If he had this in his back pocket then hoped to be vindictive toward his team by quitting at the time he did, then the immaturity and disrespect toward his teammates ramps up by a factor of ten. If he did that and still communicated with some of our team, undercutting their confidence, that factor is again multiplied by ten. I would have several judgmental views about these actions. But they’re just hypothetical in this context. I know of nobody even rumoring them in this case. All I know is that it’s a simple quit based on entitlement.

            Too bad, so sad.

            Stop bringing him up as if he’s some heroic figure. He’s not. And me pointing out that reality doesn’t mean I’m saying he’s some evil genius out to destroy whatever good there is in the world. He’s just a guy who made a decision with poor timing, but it was the right decision for him. The timing simply adds a couple wrinkles to the reality. They’re not judgments.

  23. BASEBALL Question…..

    Anyone know when and how a list of new team members will be released?

    Love to know about all the new kids on the diamond.

    -jz

  24. OregonLive has a list of weight loss/gain for the Beavers.

    Long story short, a lot of guys lost a lot of weight, hopefully that translates to improved speed.

    Elu Aydon seems to have found most of that lost weight, up to 380#.

  25. New names for three campus buildings:

    OSU’s Benton Hall will become Community Hall, honoring local residents who raised funds to start the college in 1860s and 1870s; Benton Annex, the university’s women center, will become the Hattie Redmond Women and Gender Center, after an African-American suffragette who lived in Portland in the early 20th century; and Avery Lodge will be renamed Champinefu Lodge, borrowing a word signifying “at the place of the blue elderberry” from the dialect of the local native Kalapuya Tribe.

    A “Women and gender center”? Oh, so very intellectual! and responsive to SJW!

    Further:
    “Responding to the frequent criticism that such name changes erase history, OSU will develop public displays to share the histories of the three renamed buildings and their previous namesakes inside each one… The university plans to eventually document and display the history of all university buildings …”

    http://www.registerguard.com/news/20180730/osu-changing-three-building-names-to-promote-inclusivity

    • “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning all over this land. I’d hammer out justice, I’d hammer out freedom all over this land.”

      • So the two aren’t exclusive?

        Imagine how triggered you’d be if the building that was renamed with this moniker wasn’t the Women’s Building.

        Then they’d be taking something *sniff* away from you.

          • I could have said the last line.

            Let me Jacksplain…

            You’re apparently triggered by some baloney whatever stuff that people who have time to care… um… care about. You’re particularly triggered by some whatsit name that triggers you for whatever reason… probably makes you tingly in your weird parts, or whatever.

            What I proposed is that, if you’re so triggered as to care about this nonsense, you might be off the rails if they decided to rename some building other than the Womens Building with that moniker.

            Your response says that respecting some people is a zero sum game (or more judging by the ridiculosity of it and you deciding to respond) in which people like you would lose… because a building is named something or other.

            I suggested (by ridiculing you) that respecting people does not exclude respecting whatever group you think is being excluded from the history of the world. But I noted how your irrationally derived group was not excluded in this symbolic exercise regarding that single name, because the building in question wasn’t for your oh-so-persecuted whinies in the first place.

            So I guess we’re even.

            I have zero clue why anyone even cares about this. Sometimes you just gotta give the dog a bone and let him chew on it for a while. But whining about the dog having the bone comes from a place of weakness and insecurity.

          • Wait… it just occurred to me that you might not know what the Women’s Building is.

            Did I wrongly assume you knew something pretty much everyone who has spent more than a day at OSU knows?

  26. A friend of mine told me tonight that Luke has signed with a team in Taiwan. There’s nothing on the web that confirms this but I thought I’d throw it out there.

    -jz

  27. Not that OSU ever had a chance but Johnson commits to Penn State, now maybe the Beavs can find a QB they actually might be able to sign?

  28. Nicebeaver do you know what happened with Josh Gray, Ronnie Audette, and Craig Francois? They aren’t listed on the roster.

    • I’ve been away camping for the last week, with mostly no service the whole time, so I’m pretty out of the loop. At work today, but then off again for the next few days.

      Was told Francois and Audette “didn’t make it to camp” earlier, but I don’t know why. First I had heard about Gray. Pretty bad that we are missing 3 of the better signings from our 2018 class already. Go Beavs?

      • No it will be 80-0 because the other OSU will want to make a statement and win for their ex coach.

        The good news is now Urban can get a color analyst job for that new league Riley is coaching in. He has that job down cold.

      • Looks like Canzano has already signalled for the outrage against Meyer and the Buckeye staff. He even turns it around to challenge all schools to navel gaze over such issues.

        How long until he and others spout that “…all teams scheduled to play tOSU should cancel their contracts.”

        …and leave tOSU with no choice but to cancel the football program, perhaps even raze the university as a form of atonement.

        • Q is happy that Luke is going to Taiwan.

          This argument needs some work.

          Michigan fan says he won’t be fired. He’ll get maybe half a season.

          I’m sure there are odds on it.

        • Canzano is such a loser. When Nall was making GIFs against the Ducks in a CW victory at OSU, Canzano was at tOSU with Phil Knight, in the locker room, and wrote how proud Knight was of tOSU for being a “NIke school.” Then Canzano went on to write that all Knight ever wanted was to be similarly proud of his Oregon Ducks…

  29. Damn. Accidentally clicked an Oregonian link.

    They claim Luton enters camp as the front runner, and that the line will be “a work in progress”…

    Should we even follow this season on AB? Seems pointless. Will be a lot of bickering and people who perpetually think the next game is the one where Luton puts it all together.

  30. Michael Gretler – now listed as Mike Gretler – is having a good season w the West Virginia Black Bears. One of his teammates is Carson Shaddy.

  31. My site has the win total at 2.5, shall we discuss overs and unders?

    Alternatively, I can wager $100 to win $2500 if Linfield wins the D3 title. Isn’t this country great?

    Ohio state game is off the board now.

    • I’m not understanding this lawsuit. If there’s a mutual no-contact policy on top of the restraining order on him, what’s the beef?

      Is it that Jane Doe thinks she has a right to force her alleged attacker to violate the restraining order?

      I’m assuming the mutual no-contact means someone takes an itinerary from each party and blacks out certain parts of campus at certain times for each of them to avoid the other. From a legal standpoint, if this lawsuit carries water, he can sue for the exact same thing and win as well.

      • It’s as if Jane Doe is arguing the cat needs to get out of the box before the law can open the box and observe the cat’s condition.

  32. This Ohio State/Urban Meyer story is interesting. Heard Nigel Burton talking about it on the air this morning. He thinks Urban will be fired, but he also thinks tOSU will fire several of his support staff as well. Apparently the phone records show text message exchanges between coaches wives and coaches all showing proof of knowledge of this whole domestic abuse situation and several coaches could be in violation of Title IX for not reporting.(i dont know anything about the title ix rules, so i have no idea if this is true)
    He says the phones were all state property(university issued), so gathering the evidence will be pretty easy. The question is how soon would Ohio State make this move. You’d think the sooner the better, with camp already underway.

    Beavs may luck out and only lose by 57 now.

    • Sick, and not going away soon.
      Steve Gress of the GT tweets to expect his piece on Riley later today.

      BTW: Gress says he’ll be on the football beat this season, no word on what Lundeberg will be doing, although Lundeberg recently said he had a great meeting with Wozniak.

      • Gress has launched his essay. I dare readers of this blog to read that story and not have to fight off the impulse to retch. Much as we celebrated the news in June that Riley was “gone,”–not so. His influence on the football program is insidious and I think Smith is doomed as a head coach.

    • As an employee of a professional football organization, he should be allowed access to the tape room. OSU should welcome anyone who wants to evaluate our student-athletes.

      Beyond that, there should be no payments of any kind to him by OSU, and there should be no responsibility given to him by OSU, free or otherwise.

      • “should” being the operative word…..heck, Barnes “should” admit that he, Barnes, is only marking time and collecting an (outsized) paycheck!

        • I don’t know… I’m pretty sure OSU has a non-compete clause for such things. If Barnes was to waive that in his case, I think the NCAA might take note. I’m also pretty sure he can’t have contact with players (regarding football) or be given exclusive access to practices.

  33. Oregarbagian headline says Riley at peace with his decision…
    Riley: “I wasn’t going to do it (take San Antonio job) until I could work out a deal where I was connected to Oregon State. It took two months to make a decision, to work it all out,” Riley said. “I wanted to stay connected, but I also want to do this new job.”

    He wants his cake and wants to eat it too. And OSU baked up another one for him to eat off of. This way when the San Antonio gig fails he has somewhere to go. What is it with this guy? It can’t be about the money can it? He has more money from his string of sweet deals then all of us put together.

    At this point I really have issue with OSU continuing to make up ways to pay him.

    • “Work it all out” whatever does that mean? Are there 2 contracts? The OSU one should be public information. He would still be at Nebraska if he was any good as a coach. Instead the Beavs get him again

      • RIley calls the San Antonio team “…that team down there…” in a direct comment about his coaching gig.
        It was all a ruse to say he publicly stepped down when he was in 2 months of negotiating to keep his foot in the door at OSU. Why the publicity stunt during the CWS?

        I have even less respect for OSU athletics, OSU football, and Scott Barnes/Jonathon Smith. RIley has worn out his welcome for at least half of the fan-base and is little more than the shell of what he used to be. NOw JS will be perceived as back on his training wheels and in need of Riley’s inout all the time. It was all a nice dream to be rid of him when he left to Nebraska, then a relief when Smith showed him the door. But now it is another pie in the face to those of us who have hoped to finally be rid of his shadow over the program.

        So long OSU. Smith will not be the answer because he can’t see this simple issue correctly. OSU is infected by the very thing they think healed them, however misguided the thinking may be.

        • Is there even a whisper that someone might be looking into the ethics, if not the legality, of this arrangement? Riley’s schtick – he couldn’t make it in the pros, he couldn’t make it at Nebraska, so he wants to be enshrined with the Beavs, a mention of OSU will automatically trigger Mike Riley (never mind Dennis Erickson had the best season) like an association test.

          • I wonder where he claims residency… you know… for tax purposes.

            There’s a big difference between being a resident of Oregon and being one of Texas when it comes to collecting that sweet buyout money. I doubt he claimed Texas while employed at OSU. But it would be more than shady if the low low pay we gifted his quitting self (while allowing him to add months, potentially years of service toward his PERS calculation) was gifted to someone pulling down $2.6m per year but paying no Oregon taxes on it… while being an employee of Oregon.

  34. From Eggers latest piece:

    Says defensive coordinator Tim Tibesar about Ayton: “That’s too heavy for the position he’s at. His body composition is not where we’d like it to be. That’s an area he needs to improve on.”

    I like Tibesar. Fucking say it like it is.

    • I thought that was the most encouraging quote in the article. Second best may have been:

      “We’re going back to the basics,” Michalczik says. “Let’s find out who’s going to rise up to get those spots. We’re going to put the best five on the field and the best 10 on the plane, and we’ll go play.”…
      “The top five should be starters,” he says. “Day three, I’ll rank them again. Day five, I’ll rank them again. Hopefully, we’ll get the best five on the field against Ohio State.”

      If not for the gum chewing elephant in the room, I’d say JS has put together an above average staff, way above average in a couple cases.

      Wishful thinking here is that JS hasn’t actually had the final say with respect to MR. However, if he’s allowed himself to be forced to retain Riley it is a reflection on his own self confidence and view of his position. Bad ju ju either way.

      At least Schnell has been shoved over to general news and is unlikely to be around to fawn over MR. Unless she still has a TV gig.

      • The more I read up on the staff and their way of handling this makes me excited for this season. They aren’t showing their cards on who the starters are yet. Which keeps Ohio State guessing how their OL and DL fronts will match up with against the Beavs. Meanwhile, the Beavs staff/coaches have ideas on how to attack the Buckeyes. I’m not saying we’ll win or even stop them from scoring 60 pts in the game, but the fact the coaches know exactly where they want their players to be speed, weight, and intelligence for each position, gives me more hope than MR or GA staffs ever did.

        This staff has clear set goals and roles for each coach to do. They can lean on each other, but ultimately it’s up to the position coach who to start at each position with JS agreeing with them.

        Sounds like Cookus didn’t like the way Special teams was handled under GA. He said they will put the best 11 out there for special teams, rather than just getting bodies out there on the field. Which means he’s taking his position seriously. It’s his first year as a paid assistant at a P5 D-1 School, so he’s making the most of it. I have high hopes this team will be competitive all season long.

        • Hope springs eternal in August for OSU football. Every year it is the same con game of bigger, stronger, weight training, scouting, summer workouts for chemistry, coaches have new schemes, guys are confident etc. blah blah blah.

          If you go back and scan any article going into GA’s first year, it was almost identical verbiage and descriptions of the team Riley left him. I guess it is all coach-speak and we are fools for thinking it is anything more than what every coach everywhere must say about his new team going into fall camp.

          I drank the GA koolaid last year and actually thought he could turn the corner with a few things going the Beavs way. Little did we know the internal train-wreck that was in process.

          High hopes are meant to be dashed for Beaver fans. Sorry to tell you but those high hopes should have a large cushion to soften the landing.

          • Not to dwell on ‘luck of da Beavs’ trivia but why-oh-why when Riley left for Nebraska did Gary Andersen have to appear at that very moment? That was big-time bad luck.

          • At least this staff is harping something different than previous staff’s…Fundamentals and more individual drills than 11 on 11 drills. This gives me more hope than previous regimes/coaching staffs. I was worried about our WR, RB, and DB coaches mainly because those guys came from G5 schools, but it appears that those coaches know how to teach fundamentals. Getting the players to buy in on improving the little things will only help them in game time situations. Allowing your fundamentals to be muscle memory instead of having to think about what you need to do makes a huge split second decision easier. Playing instinctively means you have the fundamentals down so well, you aren’t even thinking about “turn your hips, eyes on the hips of the receiver, back pedal, run with the receiver, look back for the ball, hands up.” If you only have to think about which direction the WR is running as a DB, and then being able to get into position without thinking of how to get into position, you will win those battles.

  35. I dunno, I glanced at the who lost weight article.

    Looks to me like the fat kids that should be maintaining or losing weight have gained 40 pounds and the little guys that should be putting on ripped muscle every off season weigh the same or have lost weight.

    Not much confidence from me.

    • And the QB position, but other than that, ok….just the D-line, and QB…..

      And maybe LB play….but that’s all…just those three units…

      And maybe OL…but that’s all, DL, QB, LB play and OL….

      In all reality, likely only the Secondary and RBs are up to P12 play at this point.

      • What’s wrong with the OL? Should be a strength.

        As far as LBs, Jonathan Willis is an upgrade from Hungalu in the middle, and Kee Whetzel has huge talent. With Tibesars specialty with OLBs, expect Kee and Hamilcar to have good years.

        • I think there’s talent at the LB position, and suspect they’re biggest issue will be playing with discipline. If they do, the results should be much better. I think Tisebar will improve their play.

          On the OL, have they found a legitimate center? That’s an important position and one I was surprised that Andersen – a former OL player himself – didn’t prioritize higher. Having your starter be a project is not a good approach.

          Speaking of center, is JS/Lindgren having QBs take a significant portion of the snaps directly from center?

          • I doubt it. Trying to remember whether Colorado or Washington ran much of their offenses from under center, and don’t seem to recall much?

    • Has Fifita ever seen the field in his years at OSU?
      I remember liking his film, but i dont think u’ve ever seen him play. He was one of the few Riley recruits who still signed after Riley bailed the 2nd time.

    • I wonder what Smith truly thinks of his QB situation having been one himself? Seems like they struck out on every decent recruit they went after. I think this is ultimately what dooms the Beavs this season unless JS has some magical powers with development. The QB roster just does not seem anywhere near P-12 ready talent-wise. As always, I hope I’m wrong.

      • Current QB recruits aren’t going to affect this season anyway.

        Not sure why Luton has such a bad rep. He may just be a poor-man’s Brock Osweiler but he isn’t talent-less. He only threw one pick over his last three games. Our offensive issues last year weren’t turnovers, they were based on not making any big plays ever, which was due to our OC play caller being a fucking idiot who ran an offense practically designed to go three and out.

        • Not to mention the fact that our TE’s and WR’s had cases of the dropsies all season long. Timmy Hernandez was really the only clutch receiver that could catch balls thrown his way, and even he had drops last year.

          How many years have we said that our defense is always ahead of our offense and vice versa? I would much rather see them at the same pace. Were the interceptions that Jalen had good jump on the ball, or was it thrown right at him? I’d much rather have interceptions where our DB’s are in good position than the ball thrown right at them.

        • I don’t know, every team but OSU seems to find a freshmen that lights up the opposition with his legs and a couple of times a year! And usually The Beavs are the victims!

      • No, I support Beavs in the pros but he’s started off on the wrong foot if he wants to make it in the NFL. I think a lot of the Bears media thought he’d have a good chance to make it.

        Whoever he listened to to turn pro, was not a good person to get advice from. Could have been a draft pick next year had he stayed.

        • Yeah. To anyone that follows the NFL it was obvious that he was always a long shot to make an NFL team. Not sure another year in college would have mattered but at least he could have gotten a free year of grad school out of the deal. May bounce on and off of practice squads for a year or 2 but I never saw him as an NFL back. Rooting for myself to be wrong though.

          At least now he’s got the Alliance of American Football available to him too. That is where I expect to see him wind up assuming the league survives.

          • Golly, I know Ryan’s a fine young man, but he quit the Beavers early. I can’t stand quitters! *looks around nervously*

          • He didn’t like the drama and got antsy to leave. There were times I questioned his effort last year. He also got hurt often, to the point I questioned how badly he was really hurt. I’m grateful for the civil war win but his goal line TDs obscured the fact that Pierce was awesome in that game too. I wonder if things would have gone a lot better for him if he played linebacker instead of RB.

          • Golly, I know Ryan’s a fine young man, but he quit the Beavers early.

            Quit early?

            He put in four years and graduated. And then he went on to seek his future in the real world, letting his team know he wouldn’t be back the next year.

            Technically, he did quit OSU. I don’t know why you hate quitters. That’s a you thing. But he didn’t quit early, whatever that means. He made no claim that OSU owes him anything more.He made no promise he was going to give OSU anything more, then disrespected that compact. Where’s the early?

          • Says the guy responding to simple reasoning so diluted so as to make it understandable by triggered whiners who think calling something or someone precisely who or what they are is somehow applying judgment.

            Do you hate quitters too?

            I could spend some time guessing reasons you all just don’t understand these very very very simple and accurate concepts and the language (that would be English) used to define them. But as much as you all are triggered by these very very very simple and accurate concepts, I don’t think your brains could handle more than half an idea at a time.

            You may return to your strictly emotional view of the world, bolstered by your super secret dictionary that tortures English to conform to what your gut tells you just must be right.

    • I watched the 2nd half and it was some pretty terrible play calling. It had never been so obvious to me that a run play was coming. The formation of the O-line telegraphed what was coming for almost every play Nall got the ball, and he had no room to make anything happen.

      Could be because it was so early in camp that they didn’t have much time to install a package. Wasn’t entirely his fault.

  36. I was expecting worse, given the name of the ump. Ball was tailing across and away from where the ump is set up on a 3-2 count. It’s not as egregious as one might think… or some that I’ve seen Hernandez call (or probably several called earlier in this game).

    As a rule, if Joe West or Angel Hernandez are behind the plate, I save my blood pressure and tun off the TV. Their games (especially West) are just horrible to watch.

  37. Does anyone actually read his posts/rants/whatever the hell we want to call that word vomit? I do a three-second skim at most. Blah blah trigger blah blah snowflake blah blah Trump blah blah quitter blah

    • As long as he’s not getting paid by OSU and we’re in compliance, I’m okay with the status quo.

      I think his coaching acumen makes him the Norv Turner of the NCAA. He has some great ideas on how to run an O, but his greatest head achievement is just going to be good, with only a loosey O to hold the downside off zero.

      But he’s not choosing the assistants, and I don’t think 9 is going to be irrationally loyal to middling units.

  38. Lundeberg had some roster updates today after practice.
    Wily-Matagi has retired,
    New JC DE(and projected starter) Jeromy Reichner is injured and out for the first part of the season.(Luck O…)
    Landry Payne is applying for a 6th year.
    Oh, and Smith isn’t anywhere close to picking a QB

      • Lundeberg did a good day-to-day job for baseball, I like his work. I did notice, however, that Gress is gonna be the main GT guy for football.
        There is always Eggers for the occasional in depth report.
        I’ve found it easy to stay away from the Big Zero, and particularly the juvenile comment sections there.

  39. Anybody else get the email/survey from Scott Barnes today?

    Several questions about which types of seating enhancements us fans would be interested in when they get around to updating Reser’s West side as well as Gill. Several different options were thrown out, mostly of the more expensive than average variety. Indoor club seats, outdoor club seats, private suites, party decks that can be rented by groups. No mention of more affordable seating options to actually encourage fans to show up.
    I don’t know about you guys, but higher end seating will not attract me to the stadium.
    Give me more chairback seats and more cupholders like the east side and I’m good.

        • I think the only info I didn’t know is that they won some kind of award. It is a little disturbing given how negligent they were.

          She doesn’t go far enough to describe #3. Their repeated statements were defamatory as well.

          God’s work, btw, is to believe in Jesus.

          Believing in Jesus is to believe in sharing your wealth with the poor (or anyone who asks for it in some passages). I won’t list the numerous passages where Jesus and the bible tell us these things. But suffice it to say, you don’t believe in Jesus if you don’t believe in this, his most repeated lesson.

    • thanks for the tip, OOB. Her explanation of the child custody nexus is the clearest of any provided heretofore. Regrettably, the damage has been done and seems to irremediable. Moran is out of the industry and Katches has moved on. Sadly Canzano is still dogging the region.

  40. PSA for everyone located in the PNW:

    Bundle up out there, Seth the Mediocre apparently got meningitis, mono and a broken finger from “the weather” in Corvallis.

    “The environment, the weather, the temperature — all that in Corvallis, Oregon — it wasn’t good for my immune system and all that, so health-wise it wasn’t good for me to be there,” Collins said last week.

    It was about a month in the hospital, almost lost my life,” Collins said, adding the aftereffects lasted about six months. “And then the next season, after the USC game, I got mono. Snapped my finger (in August 2017). It was just numerous different health things. I felt like it was the weather, the environment. Mentally, physically, it wasn’t healthy.”

    • To be fair, it was probably just the environment, and he’s conflating it with the other two. If he’s talking about the stresses of the GA “era”, the possible circumstance of living in housing that might be insufficiently maintained for this climate, life in the Willamette Valley for people with respiratory issues and the circumstance of the presence of meningitis, that’s all environmental.

    • Like most people associated with the Anderpants era, he will not be missed.

      (psst Jack remember “sprained vulva”? “God” you sure flew off the rails when someone said that! Took you a week to “quit” ranting on it)

    • the league cites a morals clause mandating a negation of the deal, specifically, someone with a “criminal history.” Except, in the view of the state of Washington, which is the only person or entity with jurisdiction, he has no criminal history. The crime was Moran’s moronic reporting and Katches desire for web traffic so he can move up the “journalistic” ladder, which he has done.

      • “Criminal history” will continue to be used as the excuse in place of “We don’t want bad press” until everyone knows and understands the facts. So…until the end of the human race.

      • For several reasons.

        Why do you think the Saudis wanted to buy it? It’s not just a car company. The Kauai project is making a mint, and the Sauds and UAE backers have hammered the cost of production to less than what Tesla has done. The Powerwall series is just the beginning.

        Fisker announced his patent application for a new graphene battery last year, and Musk didn’t seem phased. And now we’re finding that another, easily sustainable material has comparable utility?
        https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/hemp-cant-get-you-high-but-it-can-get-high-tech/

        Industrial hemp is a bigger play than either medical or recreational, and it will have less regulatory start-up gags. But I digress.

        Tesla going private is huge news, despite what the shorts say. That they were short (and that now they’re all grumbling about only the car side) tells me they were short-sighted.

        Full disclosure: I’ve always thought short-termers are short-sighted.

        Anyway, this projection pans out pretty well when you spend the time researching and running just the rough numbers.
        https://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-tesla-investor-the-stock-could-triple-in-five-years-2017-11-02

        But given efficiency gains in private ownership, it alters the models significantly to the upside.

        The Saudi announcement was first. Then Musk went on his twitter fest. I have to think he was scared into accepting an open deal just to dilute their holdings. I don’t blame him. Who would want to be in bed with those scum?

        Apparently not Canada.

        Maybe the Orb-Fondler in Chief?

        Looking around, I have to wonder who has that kind of cash.

        • The rumors of Apple last year make it the odds on favorite. And we know they have the cash.

          Can you imagine an economy EV with iCar software and a Tesla plant and design?

        • The other amazing thing is that he now has to convince the shareholders to remain once the decision goes down. That will be easy with the lower tiered investors who are in it for the long haul. But the hedgers will need to put aside the regressions to make a fundamental choice between short and long term gains. The long have always outweighed the short. And contrary to what the shorts say, they weren’t holding anyone’s feet to the fire. They were just hampering cash flow by bleeding the life out of the long term.

          If you take the click-bait mentality away from the shorts and give them biannual liquidity events, some will automatically run away. The biggest hedger will remain for the long haul… and may be a part of the funding round for this move. But it will be interesting to see which shorts were truly just shorts, and which ones truly believe what they say now about their roles and stay in for the long.

        • And lastly, you can’t deny that the method for announcing it all was just amazing. You don’t tweet something like that unless it’s true. And it’s just hard for a majority of people to wrap their heads around a truth that big.

          For comparison, if the US Government was run like a business, Dumbshit would have resigned a month into his administration for the lies he tweeted and repeated in public. CEOs of public businesses who do it once, let alone daily, would be talking to the SEC or their regional Federal prosecutors about the fraud they committed. At the very least, the CEO would be gone for the consistent persecution of the non-crony employees within the business.

          Efficiency is also easily extracted from public statements.

          Microsoft and Google also have the cash on hand. Cisco, Oracle, Amgen, Gilead, GE, Qualcomm and Amazon all have good chunks of change, but they would need to form a consortium for this kind of move. There was no scuttlebutt about the funding talks before he dropped that bomb. And you can’t have that many people involved without more than one person babbling about it.

          So the rumors about Apple last year means there was some related discussion occurring. Having already been discussed, a plan forward may have been left open. Another would be a discussion with Gates at Microsoft. He has enough pull within his own company to solidify quiet support for an agreement like this. And Google’s primary shareholder structure allows them to remain quiet.

          There are advantages with all three. I don’t see the same advantages with a consortium of chips and biotechs. The shorts are certainly out today. Wall Street just hates Musk (and then screams bloody murder when he sometimes gives what he gets). I imagine a lot of their mindless lackeys do as well given the narrative they control with their political machines.

          If he didn’t have funding in place when he tweeted, he’s toast.

          If he does have funding in place, Wall Street is going to have to bend over… and maybe not opt for cup holders in their spas.

          With the amount of interest created by the method (it’s dominating the news cycle for the second day in a row), if I were a short, I would be looking for my safety blanket right now.

        • And I shouldn’t forget to mention the Sauds. I may be projecting honor where none exists in thinking they scared him into action. He could have a deal in place with them.

          If that’s the case, I’m done with Tesla.

          All you need to know about the Sauds, captured in one tweet:
          https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-appeared-to-threaten-canada-with-a-911-style-attack-2018-8

          America’s response to the Sauds turning the eye of Saudi to gaze upon our closest and most trustworthy ally over the last 180 years:
          https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–LJQyokMB–/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/i3exnu2pmgcm5gcby7dp.jpg

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