[This is the first post by Noah, who is going to be covering recruiting here at ATQ. Welcome Noah! Looking forward to your contributions. -jtlight]

Hello, Ducks fans. With a Rose Bowl victory, Chip Kelly's flirtations with the NFL, and signing day closing in, it's been an exciting month in the recruiting world. Oregon has already received verbal commitments from 18 talented players and remains in the hunt for some of the most highly regarded recruits in the country. With around 5-7 scholarships left, we take a look at some of the key targets on Oregon's radar as signing day closes in.

Arik Armstead (OL/DL) - Arik Armstead is an elite level linemen who can play on either side of the ball. Listed at 6'8" and 275 lbs by Scout.com, Armstead is the type of lineman that Oregon fans seem to clamor for every recruiting season. Tall, athletic, and beefy, Armstead would be the best lineman prospect to commit to the Ducks since Haloti Ngata (and like Ngata, he reportedly prefers to play on the defensive side of the ball). Listed as the #2 overall prospect by Scout.com, Armstead is considering Auburn, California, Notre Dame, Oregon, and USC. One thing going in Oregon's favor is that Armstead reportedly wants to enroll for Spring term, which may be difficult at schools like Cal and USC, where Spring semester is already underway. For what it's worth, the Scout.com recruiting team is currently guessing that Armstead will pick Oregon, though other recruiting outlets have contradicting predictions.

Armstead had an in-home visit from Chip Kelly yesterday. Apparently the visit went well, and he found Kelly witty. Kelly also told Arik that he could not promise that he would be at Oregon for his entire career. This sheds quite a bit of light on how Kelly recruits. Armstead is now done with his visits, and will be announcing on national signing day.

Shaquille Thompson (S) - Along with Armstead, Shaq represents the potential crown jewel of this recruiting class. Listed at 6'2" and 210 lbs by Scout, Shaq is widely regarded as the #1 safety in the nation, and a top 10 overall talent by various recruiting services. He is currently committed to Cal but has wavered since Tosh Lupoi's high profile departure to Washington. Before committing to Cal, Shaq also had Washington, Oregon, and UCLA at the top of his list. With Lupoi now on its staff, Washington would appear to be the frontrunner should Shaq decide to decommit from Cal, though Oregon certainly remains in the running. After his initial visit to Oregon Shaq complained that Eugene was too small. However, he has recently inquired with LaMichael James about academics at Oregon and life in Eugene, suggesting a renewed interest in the school.

With the turmoil at Cal, Shaq's recruiting has taken a very stressful turn, and he could end up anywhere. Chip Kelly will be in-home with Thompson and his family today..

More recruits after the jump.

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Not a lot of quack out there this morning, but we'll have a recruiting round-up posted later this morning, so keep your eye out for that.

• With Chip Kelly going on the record yesterday on his near-departure to the NFL, George Schroeder has a piece on who (according to sources) would have been the new head coach of the Ducks: Offensive Coordinator Mark Helfrich. While it would not have been a splashy hire, it might have been a great one. Unfortunately, we don't just don't know much about Helfrich. He is in Chip Kelly's shadow and doesn't get the credit in the run game that Steve Greatwood does. But Helfrich is highly praised, and it's clear the the athletic department has confidence in him. At the very least, it would have been an interesting hire, and I'm glad the Athletic Department is confident in their evaluations to make that decision, and not feel like they need to make a splash.
• In a bit more Chip Kelly news, after speaking yesterday, the point of contention seems to be whether or not Kelly flip-flopped on taking the Tampa Bay job. Ted Miller says it doesn't matter either way, says that Kelly's opportunity with Tampa will help Oregon, and responds to George Schroeder's column from the other day.
• The Civil War is this weekend, and GoDucks.com has their weekly press release. There are still reasonable tickets left.
• One of the big challenges the Ducks will face is limiting OSU's Jared Cunningham, who is leading the conference in both scoring and steals. He's playing 37.5 minutes per game, and is second in the nation in free throws attempted. As good as Cunningham is at drawing contact, I'm excited to see Oregon's defensive plan, especially with Tony Woods defending the rim.
• Matt Prehm has his conference picks for the basketball games this weekend. He picks Oregon to win by one over OSU, and the Ducks second in his power rankings.
• Lastly, great news for Darron Thomas. He's been invited to the NFL combine, where he'll get a chance to display his skills for NFL scouts.

That's all for now. Drop your other quack below. GO DUCKS!

If you haven't heard it yet, Steve Tannen on Sports Talk 95.3 in Eugene, had about a 20 minute interview with Chip Kelly where they talked about the recruiting process, Darron Thomas' departure to the NFL, some of the players coming back on the team next year, and most prominently Kelly's recent flirtation with taking the head coaching job for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Tannen did an excellent job getting to the heart of the matter with Kelly regarding his possible acceptance of the Tampa Bay job. First, Tannen asked him why he listened to the job offer in the first place. Kelly mentioned that he followed the same process that led him to Oregon 5 years ago.

Kelly felt like he was operating from "a position of strength" in that he loves the job he has and the people he works with, but he needed to gather the information from Tampa to be able to make a decision. He said, "they presented to me what their plan was for Tampa Bay, and it was extremely attractive."

One of the more interesting parts to me, was Kelly talking about needing to hear Oregon's side of the story before he had all the information. Two things really stuck out to me. First, Kelly made sure he had time to talk to Rob Mullens, Oregon's AD, before he made his decision. Mullens was on a flight home from England, so this delayed the process, compared to some of the other coaching changes that have gone on this off season where coaches waited until their superiors were actually on their flights or unavailable when they made their decision. Second, Kelly addressed this issue in a similar manner to the way he's addressed other off season issues. Gather all the evidence, hear both sides of the story and then make a decision. Only it was Kelly in the middle of this situation and not a rogue athlete facing punishment.

Next, Tannen talked to Kelly about reasons for making the jump to the NFL. Kelly addressed a couple of floating rumors when he said that he wasn't doing it for leverage to get a renegotiated contract, and he never wavered in his decision. He only made one decision and that was he wanted to stay at Oregon. Kelly talked about the unknown of the NFL and still struggling "deep down inside" about whether the NFL is something he wants to give a try.

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I've never been into recruiting very much. Following the whims of teenagers making one of their first important decisions of their lives never interested me very much. Sure, I'm as excited as everyone on National Signing Day, but I don't get too caught up in the drama leading up to it.

If I can offer just a small word of advice, please don't bug and or pester recruits as they try and make this decision. Social media has given us greater access to them then ever before, but that doesn't mean they need to hear from every raving fan about their opinion. Lastly, if a recruit decides to chose a different school then Oregon, don't be negative or say bad things about him. In other words, don't be that guy. Onto the quack:

• Speaking of recruiting, lots of tidbits flying around for those interested. Ted Miller also has a break down on some of the highlights around the Pac 12. There's also a quick piece on the biggest overachievers and underachievers regarding recruiting over the last five years.
• Cliff Harris may have had his time at Oregon end poorly, but according to a piece this morning by Adam Jude he's still a "Duck at heart." Cliff has made some mistakes, but hopefully he can learn from those and move forward both on and off the field. Of note, for those fans that thought he ducked out of the Rose Bowl early, it seems he did that to meet up with Darron Thomas and De'Anthony Thomas.
• Bob Clark has a piece about the Ducks chances on how they'll finish the the rest of the basketball season. A 5-5 finish would give Oregon their first 20 win season since 2006-07 when Oregon lost to Florida in the elite eight. While 20 wins would look good on paper, I still think unless Oregon wins the Pac 12 tourney they are looking a NIT berth right now.
• At FishDuck this morning, David Melo catches up with Danny O'Neil, who led Oregon to their first Rose Bowl in 37 years in 1994.
• Nike released new Hyper Elite basketball uniforms for 7 men's teams and 2 women's teams. Kendall Marshall of UNC had the money quote of "I know if I played football, Oregon would be in my top five no matter who I was." What I found interesting was the games each of these teams will be wearing them, the opponents will be Adidas or Under Armour schools.
• Lastly, in T&F news, the Ducks head down to College Station, Texas for the Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium and the Texas A&M Mondo Challenge. I'll have to say one of the things I'm most excited about with the new media deal coming this year is the opportunity to watch more Olympic Sports like track and field.

Go ahead and leave any other pieces you find in the comments. Go Ducks!

With a week left until signing day, and our crazy Sunday night, there is a lot of recruiting news. If you missed it last night, make sure to check out last night's Tuesday Night Talk with Dave, Matt Daddy, and special guest Matt Prehm of Duck Territory, who shared some great info with us.

• Adam Jude's piece this morning is on Kelly's efforts on the recruiting trail. Kelly is visiting 3-star athlete Bryan Harper, Shaq Thompson (who was recently asking LMJ about Oregon), and Arik Armstead. He also visited Bralon Addison and Hawaii's Shane Brostek.
• A.J. Jacobson of DuckSportsAuthority has a recruiting update at the Oregonian. Among other things, he notes that recent visitor and Utah commit G Cedrick Poutasi had a good trip, and now "has to think."
• Lindsay Schnell has a piece on the minimal impact that Chip's near-departure will have on recruiting, which Matt talked about on the podcast last night also.
• Rivals has a list of the top uncommitted recruits, and predicts where they'll go. Oregon gets but one tiny prediction on Arik Armstead (here's some more on his in-home visits). Of note, Thomas Johnson is predicted to go to Texas A&M after decommitting from Texas.
• Kenjon Barner was on ESPN's college football live yesterday (full video after the jump), and in the interview he said that he was "extremely close" to leaving for the NFL, but came back due to a promise to his mom to finish out his degress.
• Last but not least, Josh from FishDuck has part 2 of his Rose Bowl play calling breakdown. With all that's gone on the last few days, it's always good to go back and look at that game.

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Your favorite dynamic duo, Matt Daddy and myself, are back this evening for another episode of Tuesday Night Talks at 9:00 PT. Of course, we'll talk about Chip Kelly and our first place Oregon basketball team, but we also have a special guest. We'll be talking recruiting with Matt Prehm of DuckTerritory.com. Find out if Chip Kelly's flirtation with the NFL will have an effect on recruiting, and if the Ducks can pull any rabbits out of their hat on signing day. As always, here is the link to listen live, chat, or call-in. And remember, you can always download the show the next day in podcast form at the same link.

I also want to encourage you all to check out DuckTerritory. There are a number of recruiting sites out there, but they really do an awesome job (and are having a 30-day free trial right now if you want to get the scoop between now and signing day).

In the meantime, this is your thread to talk about anything you would like us to address in the podcast.

At this point, I almost wish Chip Kelly would've just left.

Hear me out.

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