Right Here, Right Now

The penultimate Flock Talk is upon us. After 14 years of ups, downs, transitions, and the changing tides of college football, we are now just ten days away from the merger—and with that, just a couple more pieces left under the Duck Sports Authority banner. Only one more Flock Talk after this.

I’ll be honest: there’s a bittersweetness in writing this today. There is a little melancholy, sure. But there is also clarity. Flock Talk, after all, was never intended to be a permanent thing. It started as a one-off idea—one single story—more than a decade ago. It just happened to stick. Some editions were sharp, focused, and important. Others? Let’s be honest… they were a lot of words with a little less meaning. But the real meaning was never in one piece or another. The concept itself—the spirit of Flock Talk—was the value. It gave us the freedom to step outside the recruiting wars and the week-to-week game previews. It gave us a place to reflect on bigger ideas: about Oregon football, about college football, and about the moments that define a program and a sport.

That’s why it feels only fitting that as the clock winds down, we use this week’s Flock Talk to talk about the present moment. Right here, right now.

Yes, I’m stealing a Van Halen lyric. The song Right Now has been looping in my head all week. The timing is perfect. In the song, there’s a tension between urgency and reflection. There’s this idea that “right now” is all that matters—but also that this moment is shaped by everything that’s come before, and that it points us to everything still to come.

That’s where we are in college football. And that’s where Oregon football is at this moment.

“Right now, it’s your tomorrow…”

It’s impossible not to feel the tremors in the sport right now. As Dale pointed out earlier this week, there’s been a growing undercurrent of message board angst over Oregon’s recruiting misses this cycle. The Ducks have been the bridesmaid more often than usual—and in races where, until now, they were rarely runner-up.

Washington. Cal. Even USC. Those aren’t programs that typically beat Oregon for top targets in head-to-head battles. This year? A different story. And understandably, that has caused some concern.

But sometimes when you zoom too far into a single moment, you miss the bigger landscape. If we only focus on this recruit or that NIL number, we lose sight of the larger forces at play.

Right now, the entire sport is in flux. The House settlement. The looming “salary cap” rules. The unknown timeline for implementation. And the chaos that has resulted in what we are seeing this summer.

The result? Total murkiness. Programs across the country are handling it in wildly different ways. Some schools are going all in on preemptive spending—trying to “lock in” talent with front-loaded NIL deals before the system shifts. Others are more conservative, waiting for clarity before making long-term commitments.

Yesterday gave us the clearest glimpse yet of just how wild this moment really is. Through a Freedom of Information Act release, it was revealed that Missouri—yes, Missouri, not exactly an NIL juggernaut—spent $31.7 million on athletes over the past 12 months.

Even more telling: nearly a third of that ($10.3 million) was spent in June of 2025 alone. By comparison? Last June, Missouri spent just $1.6 million. One year ago, a squirt gun. Now? The Wild West.

This is the landscape in which Oregon is recruiting this summer.

“Right now, it’s everything…”

Naturally, fans ask: Why isn’t Oregon spending like that? The perception has long been that Oregon, with its resources and donor network, is better positioned than schools like Missouri when it comes to NIL.

The answer is both simple and frustrating: because Rob Mullens and Oregon leadership aren’t going to violate the intent of the new rules. They’re not going to play games with “now money” that can’t be sustained in the future system.

That Missouri figure is snake oil. Much of that front-loaded spending is designed to exploit the gap between now and the eventual rules—promises made in the moment that can’t be honored down the road.

Oregon, by contrast, has held steady. The Ducks haven’t gone on a reckless spending spree. They haven’t signed unsustainable deals just to win a single recruiting battle. They haven’t risked their locker room culture by paying freshmen more than proven roster veterans.

It’s the right strategy for the long haul. But in the short term? It stings.

“Right now, it’s everything we’re going through…”

This is the balancing act: staying true to long-term vision while navigating short-term pain. It’s easy to demand wins on the recruiting trail. It’s harder to build a program that will endure when the chaos calms down.

Oregon has chosen the latter. They’ve stuck to a strategy rooted in sustainability. When the rules are clarified and the salary cap era begins in earnest, Oregon will be one of the best positioned programs in the country—because they won’t have overpromised. They won’t be caught in untenable deals. They won’t have created internal locker room rifts.

It’s not unlike what Right Now reminds us: sometimes, urgency and discipline have to live side by side. You can want to act right now—but you also have to be smart about what you’re building for tomorrow.

“Right now, it’s the magic moment…”

That brings us back to Oregon football as a whole. Because right now, the Ducks are in an extraordinary place—even with this temporary recruiting turbulence.

This is a program about to enter its second season in the Big Ten with its most complete and talented roster of the modern era.

It’s a program that finally has alignment across the university, athletic department, coaching staff, and donor base.

It’s a program that just delivered its best back-to-back seasons in a generation—and still has room to grow.

It’s a program led by a head coach in Dan Lanning who, even in the face of today’s NIL chaos, remains a steady recruiter and culture builder.

Right now, Oregon is not a finished product. But it is also not a fragile one. It is strong. It is poised. And in this transition era of college football, it has a foundation many schools would envy.

“Right now, turn the page…”

So yes, this is the penultimate Flock Talk under Duck Sports Authority. The final chapter of this era is coming soon. But it’s also the beginning of something new.

Just as Oregon football will adapt and thrive in the next era of college athletics, Flock Talk itself isn’t going away. It will continue with me after the merger—on new platforms, in new forms, with the same spirit. The game is changing. The business is changing. But some ideas endure.

And right now, that’s what matters.

“Don’t wanna wait ‘til tomorrow… why put it off another day?”

So, as we sit here, in this moment—right here, right now—I want to say thank you. For reading, for commenting, for arguing, for thinking, for caring. The last 14 years of Flock Talk have been about more than just articles. They’ve been about a community trying to understand this sport—and this school—that we all love.

And that won’t change. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.