The Dam Links 4/23/2014: Civil War Week (Spring Edition)

129 days until kickoff vs. Portland State...

Hey, it's the one Civil War that actually matches two good teams this year. The ones where Oregon State has been good (womens' basketball and, uh, womens' basketball again, and uh .... wrestling?) the Ducks were competitive. The football game was competitive, but we had no idea going in it was going to be that way.

Oregon State gets some love in this Athlon article about potential 2014 sleeper teams in the Pac-12.

ESPN's Pac-12 blog has a Q&A with new offensive coordinator John Garrett. Chantel Jennings talks to Sean Mannion about all things spring football, including Garrett. Wide Receivers coach Brent Brennan looks at Garrett's presence as a chance to learn something new.

Trevor Romaine sees spring football as a chance to welcome the competition. Four things you didn't know about Michael Doctor.

Field Gulls' latest Seahawks pre-draft watch list has a big picture of Brandin Cooks as its lead. Most of the mock drafts I have seen have Cooks going way earlier than #32, so that seems a bit of a pipe dream for the Super Bowl champs, unless they trade up. Specifically, Kiper's draft 4.0 has Cooks going #18 to the Jets, but doesn't have Crichton going in the first two rounds. Cooks is one of 30 players attending the NFL draft this year, the first year I can recall a Beaver attending in person (maybe Steven Jackson?).

Pacific Takes ranks the Pac-12's returning quarterbacks, and puts Mannion at #3, behind Mariota and Hundley.

In case you were hoping to catch a glimpse of Ducks' freshman pitching phenom Matt Krook this weekend in the Civil War, you're out of luck. He's going to miss the rest of the season with Tommy John surgery. That's too bad, I was looking forward to watching him. Watching him lose, hopefully, but watching him nonetheless. In case you can't make the game(s) this weekend, all three of them are on TV, although your cable provider may not carry all channels.

In addition to the Civil War, it's rivalry week for all the Pac-12 baseball teams. Baseball America's Aaron Fitt will be at Goss Friday and Saturday for the Civil War, and head up to Seattle on Sunday to see if the Diamond Dawgs are for real.

OSU's official write-up of Tuesday's 8-1 win over Sacramento State. The Beavers' early week stumble against the Hornets did not help them in the RPI. Or the ISR. Or the NPI. There's a good chance there's only one national seed from the Pac-12 this year, and losses like that don't help at all.

Arizona Desert Swarm's Pac-12 baseball power rankings, in which Oregon State continues their streak of second place, with the Huskies just ahead and the Ducks just behind. The rankings include a guest 12th team this week, which just gets me annoyed at Colorado for not having a team. Can we make them get a team? It's the most prominent spring sport, shouldn't there be a minimum of one sport each season that all schools play?

Connor Leoturneau analyzes Oregon State's 2014-15 mens' basketball season without Hallice Cooke. One comment from Connor in the comments: "For transparency's sake, Robinson has denied my interview requests since the season ended." As for me, I'm no longer going to do stories in TDL in football-basketball-baseball order, but football-baseball-basketball. Clearly, I am a mover and a shaker.

The womens' softball team was swept again in LA over the weekend, a week after getting destroyed by the Ducks.

The only gymnastics placement at nationals was freshman Madeline Gardiner tying for third on balance beam. This earned her all first team All-American honors on the beam.

Mens' rowing had a good (but not perfect) weekend. The women did well in South Carolina.

The womens' track team made some noise at the Oregon Relays in Eugene over the weekend.

One Oregon State alumni seems to be doing fairly well for himself in the sports world.

In honor of this weekend's Civil War, let's remember what Michael Conforto has done the last two Civil War weekends:

As always, vote in the poll below. And if I missed anything else, which I probably did, leave it in the comments.