Oregon
Oregon thumping Michigan left little doubt Ducks belong as college football’s No. 1
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Oregon’s Rob Mullens and Michigan’s Warde Manuel, now colleagues in the Big Ten, found themselves sharing an Uber after a meeting of the league’s athletic directors. The conversation turned to Manuel’s role as chairman of the College Football Playoff committee, a job Mullens had in 2018 and 2019.
The chairman’s job is to go on TV and condense the sentiments of everyone in the room into a coherent message. When controversy ensues, as it inevitably will, the chairman is the one who takes the heat.
“You’re representing 13, but you become the focal point of angry fans,” Mullens said with a chuckle.
Picking the teams who will play in the inaugural 12-team CFP is going to be a pressurized process with plenty of room for debate and second-guessing. When the committee releases its initial rankings Tuesday night, there should be one obvious and easy call: Oregon at No. 1.
The Ducks rolled Michigan 38-17 on Saturday to improve to 9-0. This isn’t a great Michigan team, as its 5-4 record suggests, but Oregon still made a statement by walking into the Big House and thumping the reigning national champions.
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Oregon received all but one first-place vote in last week’s AP Top 25, and the gap between the Ducks and everyone else has only widened since then. No. 2 Georgia struggled to pull away from Florida due to three interceptions from quarterback Carson Beck. No. 3 Penn State lost another top-five matchup against No. 4 Ohio State, a team Oregon beat three weeks ago.
The Ducks don’t have many weaknesses, as Michigan saw firsthand Saturday. Oregon is good on both lines of scrimmage and won the battle up front. The Ducks have a tough running back in Jordan James and weapons on the outside in Evan Stewart and Traeshon Holden, though an injury to wide receiver Tez Johnson was cause for concern.
The player who brings it all together is Dillon Gabriel, the most unflappable quarterback in college football. Gabriel threw for 294 yards, completed 22 of 34 passes and also ran for a 23-yard touchdown. Some of Oregon’s biggest plays happened because he was able to feel pressure and evade it while keeping his eyes downfield. Michigan didn’t sack him once, which means Oregon effectively neutralized the strongest part of Michigan’s team.
“I think everybody in the nation needs to recognize what kind of quarterback we’ve got,” coach Dan Lanning said. “He’s a really, really special player.”
Michigan couldn’t keep up, and that wasn’t a surprise to anyone who has watched the Wolverines this season. Michigan is basically the same team it was in Week 2, when the Wolverines lost by 19 to Texas. Davis Warren has been solid in his return to the starting quarterback role, but aside from cutting down on turnovers, the Wolverines haven’t shown much improvement from the start of the season until now.
The running game has regressed, as Kalel Mullings was held to fewer than 20 yards on the ground for the second game in a row. The defense hasn’t gotten markedly better, and now that the injuries are adding up, it’s not realistic to expect the light will come on in the final month of the season.
Oregon finished with 470 total yards to Michigan’s 270. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
When Warren regained the starting quarterback job, the message was that Michigan didn’t need him to be Superman. Except, well, it kind of does. Or at least it did on Saturday if the Wolverines were going to have any shot at upsetting Oregon. Warren played turnover-free football and threw two touchdowns, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep up with the high-powered Ducks.
“The No. 1 thing that’s asked of us is to win the football game,” Warren said. “That’s just what it comes down to. As an offense, we’ve got to start faster.”
Two plays from Saturday’s game showed why Michigan, in addition to being limited at a few key positions, is losing the strategic battle, too. One was Gabriel’s 23-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw. Gabriel said the Ducks noticed on film that Michigan likes to play lots of games with its defensive line, with players switching rush lanes after the snap. If players aren’t in the right gaps quickly enough, it can leave a hole in the defense. Gabriel spotted one of those holes and glided into the end zone.
“The touchdown run was something we’d been setting up,” Gabriel said. “(It was) just an advantage, a check we wanted to get to. Guys up front handled the games really well. We talked about that QB draw, expecting games.”
The other play was Michigan’s fourth-and-5 call in the red zone when the Wolverines had a chance to pull within a touchdown in the fourth quarter. The person throwing the ball on a gotta-have-it play wasn’t Warren, who made some nice red-zone throws in the game. It wasn’t Orji, who at least plays quarterback and practices throwing the ball. It wasn’t even Donovan Edwards, who is 4-for-4 in his career as a passer. Instead Michigan had Semaj Morgan, a wide receiver, throwing to Orji in the end zone.
The reason to call that play is to gain an element of surprise. But Oregon spent time studying Michigan’s trick plays after the Wolverines used several of them last week against Michigan State, and edge rusher Matayo Uiagalelei did his job by covering Orji when he leaked out of the backfield.
“We spent a lot of time on that, an inordinate amount of time,” Lanning said. “I think that’s an unbelievable play by Matayo that’s going to go a little bit unsung. We talk about farming your land. Do your job, don’t worry about farming somebody else’s land. He did a great job of farming his land on that play.”
GO DEEPER
Oregon used the Big House to help put it on a path to becoming a Big Ten power
Great teams are prepared for everything. Mediocre teams make mistakes like lining up over the snapper on a punt, which Michigan did to give Oregon a free first down after the defense came up with a stop.
For three years, Michigan was the team that did everything right. The Wolverines are a shadow of their former selves, and it’s taken away much of the aura of playing in Michigan Stadium. The Ducks handled the environment with ease, exactly as a No. 1 team is supposed to do, and left little doubt about where they belong in the initial CFP rankings.
“It was going to take our best,” Lanning said, “but our best is good enough.”
(Top photo of Dan Lanning and Dillon Gabriel: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
WEST LINN, Ore. (KOIN) — For some 30 years, locals and boaters along a popular spot on Oregon’s Willamette River have been staring at a 50,000-plus-square-foot home, unsure of what to think.
It’s unfinished, fenced in, and the open-air structure towers over 31 acres that include 2,700 feet of prime riverfront in an area affectionately called “Peach Cove.”
“Being a kid, I would drive the boat and look at it from the river,” said Jason Mendell.
The high-profile realtor never thought he’d actually list the home, yet now he’s fielding calls from all kinds of folks trying to figure out the property’s potential.
“Entrepreneurs, pro-athletes, business owners, and people trying to figure out what you could do with this,” he told Nexstar’s KOIN on a recent summer day.
The home’s specs are massive, and Mendell said if it’s ever completed, it would be the largest mansion in Oregon by far.
The listing includes nine bedrooms, 18 bathrooms, multiple garages for dozens of show cars and other toys. There’s a massive gymnasium or event space, too, which could include a full-size basketball court. Original plans called for two pools.
“There’s obviously only a certain amount of people that can afford a home like this, and they’ve got to have the vision to be able to finish it off,” says Mendell.
Ask around, though, and it doesn’t take long to learn there’s much more to the larger story.
“He said, ‘Would you like to build a home for me?’” says Tom Avgerakis.
The longtime home builder is referring to Mark Wattles, the founder and one-time boss of Hollywood Video, which grew to be the second-biggest video store chain in the country in the 1990s and 2000s.
Avgerakis remembers when Wattles first showed him the architectural sketches.
“He rolled them out, and I went ‘Oh, okay.’ The challenge was thrown out, and we can do it,” he said.
At first, Avgerakis said construction moved swiftly, with 50-plus workers on site moving dirt and using high-grade Oregon lumber to erect the frame.
Then, as 1996 became 1997, construction stalled, and “We anticipated a short amount of time off, but it just grew and grew and grew.”
He said that as the owner moved on to other businesses and eventually moved away, they kept up general maintenance and even planted acres of berries.
The property was eventually unloaded at auction, and it has changed hands a couple of times over the years, but no one has ever fully built it out.
“It’s a diamond in the rough. It’s just incredible,” said Avgerakis.
He hopes to be involved if the project is ever completed, and said much of the original woodwork remains in good condition even if other elements have deteriorated over the years. The current owner recently installed a new roof.
Mendell said they’re talking to potential buyers about “what could be,” whether it’s a private estate, high-end senior living facility or even a vineyard.
“It’s 31 acres of prime real estate that’s unique,” he said.
The asking price is $4.7 million.
The property is deemed Exclusive Farm Use (EFU), according to Clackamas County records.
A spokesperson told Nexstar’s KOIN that it’s approved for the one home but that anything like a larger care facility wouldn’t be allowed unless there was a zoning change.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Multiple illicit massage businesses in Washington County were shut down on Friday following action by multiple law enforcement agencies.
The Office of Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said it worked alongside Sherwood police, Tigard police, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Washington County District Attorney’s Office to execute multiple warrants at illicit massage businesses.
Following months of surveillance into two of the illegal massage parlors in Sherwood, investigators conducted searches at four locations in total on Friday: a home in Southwest Portland, Goji Foot Spa and Aroma Spa in Sherwood, and Tigard’s Sunny Massage.
More than $45,000 of cash and evidence of prostitution was seized during the operation. Three people were also arrested for alleged prostitution-related charges and two were cited for operating a massage business without a license.
The investigation was carried out as part of the Oregon Department of Justice’s partnership with Washington County law enforcement agencies through the program Special Projects: Investigate, Respond, Enforce.
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Entertain This!
The Aviation American Gin Distillery and visitor center in Portland, Oregon, has closed its doors as the company behind the celebrity-backed spirits brand shifts its production strategy, according to multiple reports.
Diageo, the global spirits company that acquired Aviation American Gin in 2020, confirmed the closure to local TV stations KGW and KOIN, saying the decision was made because of changing business needs.
“This decision reflects evolving business needs, as we continue to support growth ambitions for our Aviation American Gin brand,” Diageo’s statement reads. “Aviation American Gin remains an important part of Diageo’s portfolio and we are committed to the brand, our customers and consumers.”
USA TODAY contacted Diageo on July 9 for comment and additional information regarding the closure.
The nearly 33,000-square-foot facility opened in September 2022 in northwest Portland, offering visitors a cocktail bar, tasting room, gift shop and tours highlighting the gin-making process, including distillation and bottling operations.
Portland’s House Spirits Distillery founded Aviation American Gin in the early 2000s and later became associated with Emmy Award-winning actor Ryan Reynolds, who acquired a stake in the company in 2018.
“A little over two years ago, I became an owner of Aviation Gin because I love the taste of Aviation more than any other spirit,” Reynoalds said in a statement in 2020 after Diageo acquired the company. “What I didn’t expect was the sheer creative joy learning a new industry would bring. Growing the brand with my company, Maximum Effort Marketing, has been among the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever been involved with.”
Is Ryan Reynolds still a co-owner of Aviation Gin?
As of July 9, Reynolds remains an owner of Aviation Gin, according to his social media accounts. His Instagram says he owns Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile, Maxixum Effort and the Wrexham A.F.C. soccer club.
When Diageo acquired Aviation Gin, the acquisition agreement valued the deal at up to $610 million, including an initial payment of $335 million and a potential additional payment of up to $275 million based on the company’s performance over a 10-year period, according to a 2020 news release.
Diageo, one of the world’s largest spirits companies, also owns other alcohol brands including Captain Morgan, Crown Royal and Smirnoff.
What’s next for Aviation, Diageo?
Diageo said it had already begun moving Aviation’s production from Portland to other facilities in 2025 as part of an effort to improve efficiency and strengthen its North American operations, KGW reported.
Diageo also said Aviation American Gin will remain part of its portfolio despite the closure of the Oregon visitor center and distillery.
Reporter Anthony Thompson can be reached at ajthompson@usatodayco.com, or on X @athompsonUSAT
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