Sports hate is different from regular hate. Oregon fans don't wish harm to their families or a wasting skin disease, but there are four opposing coaches Duck honks don't like very much, reveling in their misfortune and failings.
Jedd Fisch
As coach of the Huskies, Washington head coach Fisch is destined to be despised by default, but his sideline personality and demeanor make the enmity easy.
His abrupt departure from Arizona gives him a careerist tinge, and it's easy to wonder how quickly he'd bolt from Seattle if an opportunity arose in the SEC, a higher-profile school or the pros-- he's a Florida grad, class of '98, college roommates with Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman.
The Fisch wrap resume includes a series of one and two-year stints:
1997 P. K. Yonge Developmental Research School (FL) (DC)
1998 New Jersey Red Dogs (WR/QC)
1999–2000 Florida (GA)
2002–2003 Houston Texans (DQC)
2004–2007 Baltimore Ravens (offensive assistant)
2008 Denver Broncos (WR)
2009 Minnesota (OC/QB)
2010 Seattle Seahawks (QB)
2011–2012 Miami (FL) (OC/QB)
2013–2014 Jacksonville Jaguars (OC)
2015–2016 Michigan (QB/WR/PGC)
2017 UCLA (OC/QB)
2017 UCLA (interim HC)
2018 Los Angeles Rams (senior offensive assistant)
2019 Los Angeles Rams (assistant OC)
2020 New England Patriots (QB)
2021–2023 Arizona
2024–present Washington
Dan Lanning has been at Oregon longer than any of Fisch's jobs, and he's 35-6 as a head coach. Fisch is 23-29.
Fisch finished 6-7 in his first season at Dubs Down. After the Huskies' embarrassing 21-18 loss to Rutgers dropped them to 3-2, a game in which UW outgained the Scarlet Knights 521 yards to 299, he blamed his players.
“That was about as disappointing a game as I’ve ever been a part of," Fisch said. "It was a game that went 60 minutes. But I told the team, you can’t play two teams. You can’t play yourself and your opponent. When you have a penalty after a blocked field goal and when you miss three field goals, there were too many things that came back to get us.
“Not to take anything away from Rutgers, but we didn’t handle our penalties and that’s the saddest part of the night. We’re continuing to talk about it. We’re clearly going to continue to make it a point of emphasis as we made the offsides and the false starts. That’s a disappointment.”
Lincoln Riley
Lincoln Riley is easy to hate (sports hate) because he's young, rich and arrogant, despite being 15-11 over the last two years.
Trojan fans lean heavily into the legacy of Trojan football, constantly bringing up the national championships and draft picks despite the fact that they've finished in the AP Top 5 once in the last 15 seasons.
National college football pundit Paul Finebaum is not a fan.
Deion Sanders
Coach Prime is a flamboyant self-promoter and the face of a program that values hype, sometimes to the detriment of fundamentals and results.
Dan Lanning set Duck fans up to dislike Sanders with a fiery pregame speech in 2023, a game Oregon won 42-6.
It also didn't help that Sanders' son Shiloh was talking smack before the game, smack he couldn't back up.
Sanders had to be hospitalized for observation after a collision with Oregon receiver Traeshon Holden.
Last year Colorado's Travis Hunter won the Heisman despite a 9-4 finish by the Buffs. Some felt Sanders' talent for promotion gave the Buffs' star an unfair advantage in the race for college football's most coveted individual honor.
To some, the disdain for Sanders and his media-forward style creeps into racial divides.
But a lot of it is just a football rivalry that got heated over all the attention CU got during a 3-1 start that season. Many national pundits like Skip Bayless and R.J. Young were talking national championship.
Even The Duck took a shot at the Sanders image.
Ryan Day
The dislike of Ryan Day is partly envy, partly a sense of being a new kid on the block in a conference of bluebloods, partly a reflection of Day being "born on third base" with all the tradition and advantages Ohio State enjoys as a program.
It's a budding rivalry. Ohio State has been a dominant program in the Big Ten and in college football since Woody Hayes in the '60s: Oregon is an upstart with "no natties," as opposing fans are eager to point out.
Day didn't give Oregon a lot of credit when the Ducks beat Ohio State in the Horseshoe in 2021, and he offered mostly excuses when the Buckeyes lost in Autzen Stadium 32-31.
Some don't like that Day dyes his beard to an unnatural shade of black.
Day nearly lost his job when THEE Ohio State University lost to Michigan for the third year in a row to finish fourth in the Big Ten, but the new playoff format gave him and his players a ripe opportunity for vindication.
They took full advantage, steamrolling the Ducks in the Rose Bowl, building a 34-0 lead in the first half before Ducks realized they were in a football game against a national championship caliber roster playing to its full potential.
Now Lanning is the one who wears the label of "can't win the big one," a charge his critics once leveled at Day.