Eric Boles

I also see a little bit of an idea that we can't get a coach not from the west coast to come to Oregon. Out of the nine position coaches on the staff and Coach Cristobal, four of them are from the west coast. The rest are from the south and mid-west.

This is only true if the coach is only rushing the three DL, and that's usually not the case. There is almost always pressure coming from another part of the field. Very few situations where they'll only be rushing three. Its also been said that recruiting good LBs is easier than recruiting elite DL. I also don't think that Wisconsin would agree that odd fronts are poor against the run! This season the held opponents to 93 yards a game on the ground, with a 3-4 defense.

Typically, teams that can recruit the DL at a high level run a four man front. It allows them to get to the QB without having to bring extra pressure. That of course doesn't mean that they don't blitz at all. And honestly, it comes down to what scheme the coaching staff favors. Though it has been said that it's easier to recruit LBs vs elite DL. DL are different between even and odd fronts also, in terms of body types. In odd fronts, the DL are usually bigger and take up block to free the LBs.

I don't know that really guarantees a long term DC though. Coach Heyward wants to be a HC and is on record as acknowledging that the way there is to become a DC. His defenses could ballout for a year or two and he's moving on to be a HC. But, that's also not something that I think should be worrisome. The larger Coach Cristobal's coaching tree becomes, the more attractive an opportunity it is to coach for him.

You know if we do hire from within, Coach Wilson and Coach Chance are the ones with playcalling experience. I'm not at all saying that that the other two wouldn't be good choices though. I also have a coaching friend from Oklahoma that informed me that Heacock interviewed for the Ok St job when it was open, so I don't know that he wouldn't leave.

Just heard something that hurts. Coach Marcus Freeman had interest in Oregon, but the uncertainty of whether Coach Avalos was going to Boise or not played out too long. Notre Dame has since hired him.

I believe both will be a lot better after a full off-season, and I think there'll be an actual QB competition.

Defenses started playing Shough a little differently there towards the end, and I can't speak to what Shough is thinking on the field, but not being totally in touch with the system yet would play a part. Then to touch on the crazy season again, I don't think there was any week where the offensive roster was the same as the previous because of protocol. The same is true for the defense. Another note on tempo: Coach Moorhead switched between personnel this year more than he had before. I believe this was mostly due to the unavailability of a number of TEs for most of the season. In years past he would change formations, but stay in 11 personnel because he would just bump his TE out to WR.

I've seen some ponder the idea that there's interference by Coach Cristobal in Moorhead's play calling. I haven't seen anything outside of what Coach Moorhead has done outside of his other stops, other than the addition of the pistol, and I've done tons of research on his offense. In fact, eve with the pistol, he's running the same exact run plays that he's used everywhere else. As for the tempo of the offense, I'm not sure that players had a full command of the offense yet. That's understandable given that they replaced their entire offensive line, a new quarterback and learned a new offensive system on zoom. There was too much change for the kind of off-season this year presented. A lot of times the tempo looked slowed by players getting calls and processing. Of course, I don't coach for the team so I don't know that to be a fact. I think after a full and complete off-season, Coach Moorhead's offense will look just as fans dreamed when he was hired.

I actually didn't even think of that. Coach Norwood would be a solid coach. After reading your comment, I went to watch some of the UCLA and USC game since I haven't researched them and I do see some of the 4-2-5 stuff you mention among Coach Azzinaro's 3-4.

The intro to the article was originally written as if it were a foregone conclusion that he's leaving. After hearing rumblings of Coach Avalos being the favorite, I wrote the article just in case, so that we'd have a timely piece when the news actually broke today or tomorrow, as these were the dates I was seeing. Then a situation came up were an article was needed, so the intro was tweaked and used as a conversation starter for a subject folks were already thinking about. I would love to see Coach Avalos as the Oregon DC next season.