What Oregon can learn from the past as Ducks chase ancient major college football history

Oregon has an opportunity to do something no other team in major college football has accomplished, but making history is never easy.

Three wins separate the Ducks from a national title, a 16-0 record and a spot in the record book as the first FBS team to win 16 games in the last 130 years. The question is whether they are prepared for the wear and tear of the elongated schedule, a challenge the eight remaining teams face in the playoff also face but only Oregon can punctuate with an undefeated record.

“The real challenge in there has been for me to make sure that I’m keeping our players fresh and our team ready,” said Oregon coach Dan Lanning, “but our guys are really up to the mental challenge. We’ve got a mature team.”

Sport science can only go so far to prepare a team for the rigorous schedule. Take it from the coaches who faced similar workloads in the past at the FCS and Division III levels. 

Their advice: if you’re only preparing now for the additional workload in December, you’re already too late. Cutting back on practice time, padded practices and individual drills is a process that must begin in September to be best prepared for the grind of December.

North Dakota State’s 2019-20 team is the only other team in the FBS or FCS to record a 16-0 record since Yale did it in 1894, when the sport hardly resembled the fast-paced, hard-hitting format today.

Matt Entz was in his first year leading the FCS powerhouse, and was always “on edge,” he said. He was involved in every facet of the program because, “I didn’t want to screw it up or miss something or assume something was being taken care of.” 

That meant monitoring the workload on players, resulting in more walkthrough sessions than practices, particularly near the…


Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/what-oregon-can-learn-from-the-past-as-ducks-chase-ancient-major-college-football-history/

Author : Brandon Marcello

Publish date : 2024-12-27 14:23:00

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