Oregon
B1G Thoughts: The Bigger Ten went 17-1 in Week 1, but not all wins were created equally
![B1G Thoughts: The Bigger Ten went 17-1 in Week 1, but not all wins were created equally B1G Thoughts: The Bigger Ten went 17-1 in Week 1, but not all wins were created equally](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FrP-JbhQti4QZvMp5L6drAgXisQ=/0x0:4801x2514/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25600924/2168905491.jpg)
Every week after the Big Ten games, I will bring you some B1G thoughts on everything that happened! This will include analysis, stats, key players, moments, and more.
Ryan Day and Ohio State are all in for the 2024 season. Is Oregon a national championship contender or will they stumble in their first Big Ten season? How do the former members of the Big Ten West fair in the new division-less format?
Here we will track all these storylines and more as the Big Ten hopes to win back-to-back national championships. Check out the I-80 Football Show for more in-depth analysis and to preview the next week of B1G games.
Week 2 has come and gone. After five straight days of college football, we fans can do what we do best: overreact to everything we’ve seen in 60 minutes of game time.
If you’re one of the lucky few, mainly Ohio State and Penn State fans, you may already be making plans for how to celebrate your national championship. The unlucky few, Michigan and Oregon fans, it’s time to cope.
Depending on your level of angst, either Week 1 means nothing and you will bounce back, or your team sucks and it’s a wasted season already. No matter what side of the fence you sit on, we can all agree that we’re happy football is back.
With that, I have some thoughts from Week 1…
USC learned how to tackle… but have you seen their schedule?
USC beat LSU this weekend, which I did not think would be possible, and they deserve credit for that. They took a first-time quarterback and a new defense and did what many of us thought was impossible.
That being said, we need to take several steps back from the USC hype. The Trojans learned how to tackle (welcome to college football), but finally being able to tackle doesn’t immediately make them a national championship contender. Defense is more than finally learning the fundamentals, and despite many people’s expectations, I don’t think LSU has a very good offense.
You may think I’m being crotchety, but LSU lost that game more than USC won it by coaching not to lose and putting their defense in horrible positions with its constant blitzing, leaving a poor secondary in man-coverage.
I predicted USC to go 7-5. They may be better than that on the backs of this win alone, and I still believe they’ll beat Michigan, but this is not a national championship contender and they most likely won’t make the playoffs. In my opinion, the most underrated part of joining the Big Ten is the upgrade in talent and coaching from the middle-class teams. This is still a USC team that lost five of its last six games last year.
Yes, their defense may be improved, but their quarterback is worse — no offense, but he’s not Caleb Williams. USC still has a five-game stretch of Michigan, Wisconsin, Penn State, Maryland and Rutgers. All five of those teams are expected to win eight or more games, and they also have to play a tough Nebraska defense and end the season against Notre Dame.
Maybe I’ll be wrong, but I’d be surprised if USC wins more than eight games this season. At least they can tackle, though.
It’s time to delete your “Oregon is going to run the Big Ten” tweets
Entering the season almost everyone, myself included, thought that Oregon was easily a top-five team in the country. When you talk about which teams are guaranteed to make the playoffs, that list starts with Georgia, Ohio State, and Oregon.
Oregon’s spot in Indianapolis felt preordained, and even die-hard Ohio State fans have thought of a scenario where the Buckeyes lose to Oregon in the regular season but win the rematch in the Big Ten Championship game. All of that may still come to pass, but after one game Oregon may want to lower its sights.
Oregon beat FCS Idaho 24-14 in a game where they gave up three sacks and seven tackles for loss. One of Oregon’s strengths was supposed to be its offensive line, and it looked overmatched against Idaho.
Many people will look at the stats and say they’ll be fine. Expected Heisman contender Dillon Gabriel threw for 357 yards and two touchdowns on 41 completions, and sure that looks great. The problem is you needed to throw the ball 51 times to beat Idaho.
After struggling in Week 1, now Oregon has an unexpected test in Boise State who ran for 357 yards and seven touchdowns against Georgia Southern. I have more belief that Oregon may have just stumbled in Week 1 and will fix their issues, but it would be a lie to say that the opener wasn’t concerning for an expected national championship contender.
Wow, Michigan, that was worse than even I expected
In the new college football game, you start a season with impact players based on ratings and whatever else the EA Sports team used in their formula. You do not necessarily get to pick which players are impact players, but if you had the choice I’d bet my next paycheck you wouldn’t choose defensive tackle and tight end.
That is where Michigan sits. They have four potential first-round picks on their team, but outside of star corner Will Johnson, it’s two defensive tackles and a tight end. All four of those players are dynamic, and they will have long NFL careers. But for good teams, and maybe even bad teams, it’s possible to neutralize players at those positions.
After struggling to move the ball consistently against Fresno State and needing a pick-six to seal the game, Michigan has serious problems for the 2024 season. Their defense is going to be excellent, for the most part, as it was in their last game. But with Texas, USC, Oregon, and Ohio State on the schedule, having a bad offense dramatically lowers your ceiling — just ask Iowa.
I entered this season thinking Michigan would struggle and have a step back, but seeing the product they put on their field, it may be worse than even I could imagine. Readjust your expectations. The championship hangover is going to be a tough one.
We have an answer to the quarterback recruiting question.
There is a debate in college football around what is the best way to recruit quarterbacks. For the schools that can recruit high-level quarterbacks, there are two main ideals:
One, used by Ryan Day, is to bring in the best quarterback you can every season and constantly compete for starting reps. At Ohio State, being the starting quarterback is earned, and can be taken from you at any point, a la Kyle McCord.
The other, used a lot by Dabo Swiney and Lincoln Riley, is to recruit a stud quarterback every other year so your QB feels safe and is less likely to transfer. If you’re Riley, this system probably works for you because if your quarterback isn’t good enough, you can just go into the portal. For Swinney, who doesn’t use the portal, it can be a death wish.
It’s great when you land a Trevor Lawrence type, but after back-to-back misses, Clemson has had below-average quarterback play for four straight seasons with no clear hope that it will change. Michigan, which has not recruited highly-ranked quarterbacks yearly and chose not to pursue the transfer portal, is feeling the effects of this as well. It’s great when you land JJ McCarthy, but now Michigan is stuck with Alex Orji, Davis Warren, and an injured Jack Tuttle.
Unless you’re Riley, who can grab almost any quarterback he wants out of the portal, it’s safe to assume it’s better to have a room full of highly rated quarterbacks than to have to choose your quarterback like you choose dirty laundry — a quick sniff and hope it doesn’t stink too badly before laundry day.
Marvin Harrison Jr., who needs him?
When asked who was the best wide receiver in Ohio State history, Marvin Harrison Jr. didn’t miss a beat before answering that in his opinion, he is the best wide receiver to ever play at Ohio State. A bold claim for a college that produced David Boston, Cris Carter, Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Ted Ginn Jr., and so many more talented wide receivers.
Despite the bold claim, I agree with Maserati Marv, but his reign may be short-lived. It’s been one game, but I am not afraid to say that Jeremiah Smith has the inside track to be the best wide recoverer to every walk through the Woody Hayes Center.
As a true freshman, he started despite a deep Ohio State WR room, but that was only the beginning. Smith is already Ohio State quarterback Will Howard’s go-to target. After a slow start to the game, Howard threw a 50/50 ball to a freshman on third-and-6 in the red zone. If that pass isn’t completed, you are forced to settle for a field goal and Akron wins that moment.
In multiple key moments on third down or the red zone, it was clear who Howard was looking for, and that’s an unheard-of amount of faith in a true freshman. Smith rewarded him with six catches for 92 yards and two touchdowns. The sky may not even be the limit for Smith — he may be limitless.
Let’s just hope for three healthy seasons before he walks into the NFL as a top-five draft pick.
Iowa isn’t the only team that can score on defense!
Ohio State was one of the top five defenses in the country last season, but defensive coordinator Jim Knowles had one major complaint. Outside of the fact Ohio State didn’t win all its games, Knowles was unhappy with the Buckeye’s inability to force turnovers.
They also did not sack the quarterback a lot. The Buckeyes ranked 60th in the country with 28 sacks on the year and 81st with 11 total takeaways.
The Buckeyes came out hot this season with five sacks, three takeaways, and two defensive touchdowns. For Ohio State to reach its goals, it can’t just hold teams to field goals. They need to create havoc with sacks and forced turnovers.
If game one was a look at what this season holds, they should be a scary defense in 2024.
Gabe Powers to the House!
I don’t smell anything (“Holes” reference).
Sniff sniff, I don’t smell anything. No, seriously, the Scott Frost stench may finally be out of the Nebraska program.
Over the past few years, Nebraska has been one of the most frustrating teams to follow, as they were legitimately the best non-bowl team in the country. For years, Nebraska would lose three or more games a season by less than a touchdown. Last year, in Matt Rhule’s first year in the program, they lost all four November games by seven points or less.
Nebraska was a team that for many reasons couldn’t get out of its way, but most of it was due to quarterbacks who couldn’t help but give away possession with ridiculous turnovers in the worst moments possible. Enter Dylan Raiola, a former five-star quarterback with Nebraska ties who may be the quarterback to finally lead Nebraska to bowl eligibility — and dare I say win eight or nine games.
In his first collegiate game, Raiola looked comfortable leading the offense, completing 19 of 27 passes for 238 yards, two touchdowns, and most importantly no turnovers. Their defense will still lead Nebraska for most of 2024, but the game doesn’t look too fast for Raiola. If he can live up to his five-star billing, then Nebraska will be fun to watch for at least the next three seasons.
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Oregon
Despite federal dams, Columbia and Snake River tribes fight to keep fishing traditions alive • Oregon Capital Chronicle
![Despite federal dams, Columbia and Snake River tribes fight to keep fishing traditions alive • Oregon Capital Chronicle Despite federal dams, Columbia and Snake River tribes fight to keep fishing traditions alive • Oregon Capital Chronicle](https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ColumbiaGale_12-1-scaled.jpg)
This summer for the first time the U.S. government acknowledged that nearly a century of damming waterways in the Columbia and Snake rivers for hydroelectricity has devastated fish runs central to the lives of Northwest tribes.
Its report, released in June, made headlines and followed promises by the Biden administration to restore native fish populations to the rivers.
But tribal members who fish and live along the Columbia River remain skeptical.
“I don’t think much will ever change on the river,” said Ralph Whitefoot, a fisherman on the Columbia River and a member of the Yakama Nation. “I’m sure as hell not going to get my hopes up.”
Another Columbia River fisherman, Rebecca Winnier, a member of the Yakama Nation, said the report rang hollow because the authors didn’t pledge to take the dams out.
“We need to let these dams go,” Winnier said. “We’re just out of balance.”
Rebeccah Winnier (left), Coal Hert (center) and Stephen Hert (right) reel in traditional hoop nets from a scaffold run by Winnier’s company, Northwest Fish Hogs, along the Columbia River in Skamania County on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Winnier, who just celebrated her 46th birthday, is a member of the Yakama Nation. Apart from a six-month stint in central Washington’s Tri-Cities area, she has spent her entire life in and around the town of White Salmon, on the Columbia River. She’s built up a large fishing company called Northwest Fish Hogs. Her operation is large, but she still uses a traditional hoop method of catching fish that tribes in the region have used for thousands of years. She points up the river to where her uncles, aunts and her father used to fish – within eyesight of where she fishes now.
“Salmon are a part of our creation story. It would be very difficult to separate fishing and this river from our identity,” she said.
In 1855, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribes entered into a treaty with the federal government, ceding millions of acres of their land to the U.S. In return, the federal government guaranteed their hunting and fishing rights at traditional sites in perpetuity.
Between 1938 and 1975, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built 11 hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. Bonneville Dam was the first to go up, and it’s the last one before the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.
The dams deprived the region’s tribes of their traditional fishing areas by blocking salmon runs and isolating tribal members from the food they’ve depended on for milenia. The dams also flooded tribal fishing villages and structures when reservoirs were created, burying thousands of acres of tribal land and sacred sites underwater.
![Johnathan Kaltsukis (center) sits in the driver seat of his car with his son Jermaine at the local fish market in Cascade Locks on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle)](https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ColumbiaGale_03-scaled.jpg)
After the dams were built, tribal members found themselves limited to fishing – and sometimes living – in unfamiliar areas on both sides of the river that were designated by the U.S. government for the four Columbia River Treaty tribes. Some sites don’t have potable water or even electricity even though the power-producing Bonneville Dam is just miles away.
“I’d really like to see some resources in place for those that are left out here,” said Connie Shippentower, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation who fishes along the Columbia River.
Connie Shippentower, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, has spent a large portion of her life along the lower section of the Columbia River. She and her ex-husband began building a fishing complex in 1988 while she was pregnant with her youngest of two sons. They chose a spot near a former tribal village that was flooded during dam construction.
Although she now lives on the Umatilla Reservation near Pendleton, Connie regularly treks down Interstate 84 to help family and friends with fish canning and other odd tasks.
Whitefoot also knows the Columbia River well. He’s 63 and raised his three daughters at a U.S. designated site east of Stevenson, Washington.
Whitefoot has fished in the Columbia River his entire life. He catches a variety of fish but mainly salmon. He also smokes and cans his fish and those caught by other tribal members. He sells the products at farmers markets and tribal events as far away as Seattle and caters ceremonies and weddings.
Everyone who gathers at tribal fishing sites along the Columbia River depends on the salmon, even if they don’t fish themselves. Some focus on cleaning boats and making and selling nets while others prepare the fish to go to markets.
Whitefoot is among those who do it all – and he intends to remain along the river.
“For me, when the net is out, and I’m picking blackberries from the bushes, it’s a good life,” Whitefoot said. “It ain’t much, but it’s mine.”
![(Left) Powerlines above the Columbia River move electricity from the Bonneville Dam to customers across the region in Hood River County, Oregon, on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Right) Portrait of Farley Eaglespeaker, sitting atop a fishing scaffold along the Columbia River, in Cascade Locks, Oregon on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. (Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle)](https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ColumbiaGale_11-1024x675.jpg)
Whitefoot often works with Farley Eaglespeaker, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe. Eaglespeaker was born and raised in Lewiston, Idaho along the Snake River and, at 21, is the owner of Eagleboys Fish, which sells whole fish and packaged fish from the Columbia River.
He still spends most of the time in the Lewiston area, but when he’s not playing in basketball tournaments, he and three friends drive down Interstate 5, catching and selling fish as far as Vancouver, Washington and Portland.
Eaglespeaker said he thinks a lot about the complexity of traditional relationships with the fish in the Columbia and Snake Rivers and fishing for profit in a river system that was once just a part of their culture, not a business.
“We’re not supposed to fish for the money, but we have to because it’s the world we’re born into now,” he said.
Oregon
Take a moment to reflect on our mission
![Take a moment to reflect on our mission Take a moment to reflect on our mission](https://news.uoregon.edu/sites/default/files/styles/custom/public/2024-09/191029_fall-stock-16.jpg?itok=mf7C1Zd1)
Editor’s note: Sandee Bybee, Director of Internal Communications, is a guest contributor sharing her thoughts and ideas about the connection between employees and the university’s mission as a new academic year approaches.
Labor Day, that point on the calendar when things seem to shift from summer to fall. No place is that more evident than on a college campus. Although students will not be back in droves for a few more weeks, IntroDucktions are officially over, and campuses have a new buzz in anticipation of what lies ahead. You can feel the shift in the air as we prepare for a new academic year and accept our assignment on our mission to foster the next generation of leaders.
Some find that assignment written in their job description with roles and responsibilities that include direct interaction with students and clear contributions to the student experience. Others have to look a little closer to see the intersections between their work and University of Oregon students, but they exist for each and every one of us.
Take me, for example. I work in University Communications with a focus on employee communications. I work to get employees the news and information they need to know to do their jobs and engage in the UO community. In my job, I rarely interact with a student and my contributions do not immediately extend to a classroom or a lab. However, I still have an impact indirectly on our mission by serving and supporting those who directly advance teaching and learning.
I see more examples as I move about campus and interact with colleagues in every unit, school and college. We are all here because there are students seeking an education at the UO and researchers striving to innovate and impact the world we live in. Our work, whether directly or indirectly, contributes to our common purpose rooted in scholarship and research.
The Teaching Engagement Program develops tools and provides resources for instructors charged with delivering course content. Undergraduate Education and Student Success builds programs to support students’ educational journeys through advising, the accessible education center and other initiatives.
Employees working at University Health Services, the Rec Center, and in dining halls see day-to-day interactions with UO students assisting them with ailments, contributing to their health journey, or keeping them fed. It is easy to see the connections between the jobs in these areas and service to students.
While the degree of separation between the work and students might be greater in other programs, places and offices, it still exists. Human resources professionals are feverishly working to complete new hire paperwork and kick off the onboarding process for a new cohort of UO faculty members and instructors during what is the largest hiring season of the year.
The Campus Planning and Facilities Management teams complete work orders, conduct maintenance and finish repairs to ready buildings and greenspaces for use throughout the academic year.
Information Services employees perform network maintenance and provide user services in support of teaching and learning.
These are just a few examples of units and UO employees who make key contributions to the operations and maintenance of the institution. Their work may not be at the forefront of the student experience, but, in many ways, they serve as the backbone of the university providing crucial support and infrastructure for teaching and learning to occur and research to be conducted.
Before every corner of our campuses is filled with students and the fall term begins, take this mission moment to consider your own contributions to the UO purpose and find the connection. Your work touches our students regardless of the degree of separation. Their successes are built on the work we each do every day.
Fall term will be here before we know it. Take the time to move through the changes in the calendar with presence and newfound connection between you and our shared mission.
Care to share how your job connects to the UO mission? Send your mission moment to Workplace@uoregon.edu for a chance to share with others in a future edition of Workplace.
Oregon
Several arrested for fighting at Oregon State Fair
![Several arrested for fighting at Oregon State Fair Several arrested for fighting at Oregon State Fair](https://gray-kptv-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/5BVDVLQAJZHLLKNDKZAOD37IO4.png?auth=c31f737c7b8f8f0f0a82999a0bab6e79cf0d7c59925966d938c9faf76a41d80c&width=1200&height=600&smart=true)
SALEM Ore. (KPTV) – Several people were arrested at the Oregon State Fair on Sunday evening.
Around 7 p.m., Oregon State Police troopers responded to one of the entry gates where many adults and juveniles were fighting, according to a statement from OSP.
SEE ALSO:
Troopers made multiple arrests for disorderly conduct and additionally one person was arrested for assault on a public safety officer.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Copyright 2024 KPTV-KPDX. All rights reserved.
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