James Crepea, who covers Oregon & the Big Ten for The Oregonian, tells McElroy & Cubelic why Dan Lanning is tickled with all the NIL talk & what he learned about the league during their Media Days
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McElroy and Kubelik in the morning starts now. All right, welcome back in. McElroy and Kubelik in the morning, Friday, July 26th, 734 a.m. on jocks94.5. Listen online at jocksfm.com. App is in your app store, iPhone, Android. You can download that for free. Tell your home smart speaker to enable the jock skill. And if you're looking to buy a new home, Damian, who should you call?

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All right, James Krepia joins us. He covers the Oregon Ducks, has been at Big Ten at Media Days. And James, I like asking football questions, but I just want to get your thoughts on all the NIL discussion that's been thrown around to Sean Foster, Kirby Smart, other folks in the last week, week and a half. Number one, how much reality do you believe that there is to the difference in what Oregon is playing with financially and everybody else is?

And what do you think Dan Lanning really makes of all this extra discussion around what Oregon might have versus what others don't have? Yeah, so on the two-parter there, Cole, I mean, relative to everybody else, who's everybody else? Across all of the Power Four, across all the FBS, across the Big Ten, I mean, what's the sample size? But

If you go by Troy Dannen and Nebraska, the AD there, then I guess Oregon and Ohio State are playing with relatively equal resources. Going to him, they've each got $23 million. Okay, so I guess they're relatively equal footing. Do they have the number one recruiting class in the country right now with a dozen five stars or something that I'm unaware of? No, they're up there, but they're not number one.

They're not markedly ahead of everybody. They don't have some disproportionate number, like I say, of five stars. Now, they're recruiting at a good level under Mario. They're recruiting at a better level under Dan. And the class that they've put together is real good, and it's potentially going to be historic for program purposes, but

like I say, it's not like they're doing something that is so just gaudy and preposterous at the moment. And the grand irony of it all being cold that for the better part of this month, particularly because they had a great commitment run there in late June into early July, that got all this attention and then generated all these comments from, from far and wide after all that. And then they have their day yesterday in Indianapolis. The day ends with them losing one of those commitments. So in the last week they,

They were expected to get a five-star corner in DJ Pickett, who picks LSU. And then they lose one of their four-star commitments last night in Josiah Sharma, who flips to Texas. Yet, you know, I haven't seen a whole lot of headlines and a whole lot of conjecture about how much money there is at LSU and Texas and how they're just buying players.

So for some reason, they've been tagged with this more than most everybody else. And we saw this a couple of years ago with A&M. But A&M's class was kind of disproportionate in pulling away. To say nothing of, as I said to Dan yesterday, when a lot of this discussion was being had during his time on one of the side podiums to wrap up the day, when this staff got assembled, when he got hired after Mario left, look back at the headlines. I'm going to make it up. What was said about the staff?

This was a recruiting-first staff. And I don't need to tell you guys and your listeners about Tosh Lupoi and what he did in recruiting, just as an example, because I know you're familiar with those guys. All right. So now they're in their third year. Well, it sounds like they were billed as a certain kind of staff. They've had success on the field. They just sent a record number of guys from this program into the NFL. And now they're seeing the fruits of that labor and coming through on the recruiting trail into this third cycle of

But now they're not recruiters anymore. Now they're just purchasers. But nobody else in the country is doing it. I mean, come on now. So what does Dan think of it? I think he's pretty amused by some of it, to be quite honest. Because he told everybody yesterday who would ask, and naturally that wasn't a lot of the discussion, either he just doesn't care and it just doesn't matter. Or, yeah, he had a little bit of playfulness back and forth with Kirby and stuff, and sure. But...

And ultimately, it's an amusing narrative for this summer. But as I say, I think there's – is there merit to the idea that they have resources? Sure. As Dan kept saying yesterday, tell me who in the top ten in the country, either in rankings or in recruiting ranks or anything else, is anybody out there doing it for free right now? This is the ecosystem. I don't think it should be viewed as a slight whatsoever. My thing about Oregon is I just want to see more than anything else

I want to see steak and potatoes and a little less sizzle, but because of the uniforms and some of the things like that, it always feels like sizzle. But I think that's not accurate. I don't think that's who they are. I think with Dan and with Mario previously, they can go toe-to-toe in the trenches if you want to play that game. And with the transition now to the Big Ten, it feels like that game might be more emphasized against teams like Michigan and against teams like Ohio State. So how prepared are they...

to win games in the trenches against better defenses across the board, frankly, than what they saw in the Pac-12. Because there were a lot of things last year that the Pac-12 just flat out couldn't defend that Oregon did. But I think the Big Ten teams will be more equipped to be able to defend those things. So how prepared are they for that transition? And do you anticipate it being successful in year one? Yeah, it's all perfectly planned.

poignant observations there, Greg. But yeah, I mean, to your point, you know, that, again, that narrative, that perspective of Oregon specifically because of its history, but of Pac-12 as a whole, you know, they got tagged with that for many years. It was always about, you know, flash versus, you know, versus substance. Well, again, like to your point, I thought Mario kind of put that to bed. I remember being in Columbus, Ohio when they absolutely just

Ohio State in the trenches. That was three years ago. I was also in Atlanta when Georgia opened up the other way the following year. To your point, that was a reigning national champion who went and did it again. Are they better in the trenches than they have been historically and

I certainly hope to be this year and the like. Well, they had an Outland Trophy winner a couple of years ago, and he's doing awfully nice in the NFL. They just had the Remington Trophy winner this past year, and he's in the NFL. The last several years of offensive linemen have been real good. They're expected to have no less than that. They've led the country in fewest sacks allowed on the offensive line the past two seasons. So, yeah, they're built a certain kind of way.

That said, yeah, when you're trying to go up against and now reach the playoff and go up against the likes of Georgia and Bama and LSU and Michigan, Ohio State, that's going to be the new measuring stick. And not just in one game if you happen to play them in the regular season or one game in the postseason, but you're going to have to do it probably two, three, maybe even four weeks in a row. We're talking about postseason football going forward. Yeah, are you built that way? That's a perfectly fair question. Offensive line-wise, I think they certainly are.

Defensive line-wise, they're having an overhaul.

Which was planned, which was known, which is not unexpected. They went from being the oldest defensive line in the country last year to now being on the younger side, at least in terms of returning players. But then they went out and added two of the more preeminent interior defensive linemen who were in the portal. And Derek Harmon from Michigan State and Jamari Caldwell from Houston. And you add that to a Jordan Burch, who was at South Carolina and now is going to be in his second season at Oregon, and

along with the bevy of second and first year players that they added recruiting-wise in the D-line. And yeah, they're confident about it, but in terms of proven outside of Birch, or like you say, some of the other transfers that they brought in, yeah, there's perfectly valid questions to be had because production-wise, you haven't seen it yet against elite teams on a week-to-week basis. That's one of, it might be the biggest question, quite frankly, not just of this defense, but of this team,

Because the glaring weakness of last year's defense was the secondary because in the Washington losses against all be at a first round quarterback with multiple great receivers. Yeah, they got torched at times, but they got torched at times when Kyrie Jackson wasn't on the field. And yeah, he's not there anymore either, but

They went out and got projected four starters via the portal in the secondary to address that very weakness. So they knew they were weak. They knew they were going to be young. They went out and addressed it as best they could this offseason. But those are the questions that are facing this team and this defense entering the season. But like I say, insofar as they could address it, they went and got the veteran experience to try to shore that up.

James, great stuff, man. I appreciate the time. Always good having you on. I'm talking a little bit of Oregon. I know things have been busy for you, very different for you, heading to Big Ten media days. But we look forward to catching up with you again before and during the season. Thanks for hopping on today. Thanks, guys. Absolutely. James Krepia of the Oregonian joining us there to discuss the Oregon Ducks.

You sense a little bit of frustration, probably haven't answered some of the same questions that we have that a lot of different people have about exactly what it may mean for Oregon to go win a national championship and why some people maybe doubt the fact that they can go win that national championship. Never doubt what game day men's health can do for you and your health. If you're looking to lose some weight, they have different ways that they can help you with that.

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And it has to do with the Southern Conference. Tell you what the game is. Ask the guys the questions right after this on McElroy and Kubelik in the morning. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kubelik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock Tap or wherever you get your podcasts.

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