Ditch Dilly?
Also, buy your SeaWorld tickets now (unless you watched Blackfish).
In modern college football, you either ditch your coach or you get ditched.
After losing to the Beavs in fantastical fashion, the Ducks waved goodbye to their wunderkind OC, Kenny Dillingham, along with a list of outgoing transfers that already includes Dont’e Thornton, Jay Butterfield, and Bradyn Swinson.
There are sure to by more Ducks hitting the transfer portal and testing the waters, along with maybe a handful of assistant coaches following Dilly to Tempe—although we haven’t heard of any yet, and how many or how few coaches follow him may tell us something about the belief his coworkers truly have in him.
But no matter who is on or off the roster/payroll come next week, somebody from Eugene still has to board a plane and head to a bowl game.
Will they be flying to San Antonio for Oregon’s first ever appearance in an Alamo Bowl?
Or will Bo Nix—who should absolutely return in 2023 for a 7th (8th?) college season—lead his team to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl, which could be made extra spicy with a matchup against Florida State.*
*Miami was not bowl-eligible this season, for some reason.
Both the Alamo and Holiday Bowls are Dec. 29th, which would provide valuable extra practices that college coaches always gush about. My prediction between those two would lean to the lesser Holiday Bowl, given that Utah or UDub may end up higher up in the pecking order and be more attractive to the Alamo Bowl.
The December 17th Vegas Bowl seems less likely at this point for the Ducks, and most pundits are slating Oregon State in there to face off against a middle-of-the-road SEC team.
It could be Florida, or could be Ole Miss, but either way, I think the Beavs might make it to ten wins in Sin City.
How’s that for Respect™?
Also, there’s a Pac-12 Title Game tonight, but with a twist:
It pits one Pac-12 team, and one Big Ten team against each other, like a mini Rose Bowl.
So my personal rooting interest for tonight would be the hope that Utah beats U$C, sending The Rising Whittinghams to Pasadena once again, and dropping the Trojans out of the Playoffs and over to some other NY6 game.
This would do the double whammy of successfully keeping USC from having anything nice ever, along with blocking a certain Seattle team from the Rose Bowl (if you’re interested in that kind of pettiness, which I am).
The outcome of tonight’s game essentially does nothing to change Oregon’s Bowl destination in any way, though.
We can almost surely book our tickets to San Diego right now and begin arguing amongst ourselves over the real important questions:
O.B. or P.B.?
Go Ducks.