Grandpa Duck

Ducks win, 28-24, 2, 1, 304

If I were the uniform chief, Ducks would wear only optic yellow helmets. What we see is the reflection of light. When a QB looks down field, between the waving arms of rushing lineman, I want him looking for something that is easy to see. Certainly not green on green.

Yes, talent is a huge factor. Mario gets it here. Kelly won with Bellotti's players.

In a word, "No". Asked a question like this at Oregon Club a few weeks ago, a question about getting back-up players more experience, the responding coach said (paraphrasing, and I heard it second hand): "Listen, our jobs are dependent upon winning games. We play the players who give us the best opportunity to win." Our back-up QB's get lots of reps in practice every week, probably more than Brown because of his nicks and bruises. The coaches see them all the time. If they were performing better than Brown they would be playing in the games because that would give us the best opportunity to win. Don't think for a second that the coaches and players were not doing their very best to win at Columbus and Palo Alto, and everywhere we have played. It's their career! The philosophy that "All is lost because we are not going to play for the national championship, so let's just ditch the rest of this year and play the back-ups and plan on doing better next year" simply does not fly when you put yourself in the coaches' shoes.

Dissatisfaction after the disaster in Salt Lake, Saturday, has our message-board critics carping at Mario Cristobol. In the thread: “MC over-valued”, below, Cockroach says: “MC never will have higher ranking for the Ducks, Our only Hope is their another UNLV out there you will rescue us. The transfer portal will be many leaving the team. Who would want to be a receiver with the ducks? Hire Mike Leach.” “Now, if Jonathan would all of a sudden think he would look better in green and yellow than Halloween colors, that would be great.” chips in Haywarduck. “Progressing? What difference did you see in last night's No Show vs the 2019 No Show at ASU? In 2019 and last night, I saw 2 Ducks teams totally unprepared to compete and defeat inferior foes.” contributes Jon Joseph, before offering: “I'd take Kiffin in a heart beat. But why would he come?” “I think MC would make a fine O line coach.” suggests 1Ducker1. And on and on. The first rule of replacing a highly paid employee who has a multiple-year contract is to look where you’re going to land before you leap. So in the modern era, defined by my actual recollection of Duck head football coach transition, what is our history of finding that landing place after a head football coach departed? There was great excitement in our household when my Dad participated in the interview process for Len Casanova, 1951-1966. At Oregon, Cas had a winning record, (82-73-8). The “8” represents ties, an ancient outcome of some football games. Cas came to us from Santa Clara. That school discontinued football in 1992. Cas retired, and in the ten ensuing seasons, Oregon fired three “unsuccessful” head football coaches in succession: Jerry Frei, 1967-71 (22-29-2) Dick Enright, 1972-73 (6-16) Don Read, 1974-76 (9-24) If you think things are bad now, as a law student and then a season ticket holder during that decade, being a Duck fan could be very embarrassing. Then, the horror of all possible outcomes, in a so-called national search, we hired a Beaver. Rich Brooks, 1977-1994 (91-109-4} Rich did us a huge favor when he hired Mike Bellotti away from Chico State as OC, and followed Mike’s recommendation to hire his friend and former team mate at Cal Davis, Nick Allioti. When Rich retired in 1994, we hired his OC, Bellotti, from within. When Mike retired in 2008, we hired his OC, Chip Kelly, from within. When Kelly retired we hired his OC, Mark Helfrich, from within. (There’s a pattern here). We fired Mark, and in the first real head football coaching search since 1977, the Ducks found Willie Taggart. The best thing Willie did in his less than a year at Oregon was hire Mario Cristobal as his Offensive Line Coach and co-offensive coordinator. So in 2017, our only real coaching search since finding Brooks 40 years earlier in 1977, we produced Willie Taggart from South Florida. Just what are the primary responsibilities of a head football coach at a major program? Here’s my take: 1. Set the tone for a program that keeps the donors and majority of fans happy. 2. Hire and monitor the coaching staff. 3. Recruit, and in that respect, be a person who can go into a prospect’s home and gain the trust of his parents to shepherd their child safely through the extremely difficult experience of being a major college football player. After that, recruit, and then recruit some more. Head football coaches determine what the offensive style will be only when they hire the OC, who bases that style on the skills of the available players. Oregon runs the ball now because the QB who gives us the best chance to win is not a great passer, but is a far better than average QB running the ball. The OC, not the head coach, decides what the offensive style will be. Bellotti changed the direction of Oregon football as OC. Kelly changed the direction Oregon football as OC. Whether Joe Morehead changes the direction of Oregon football remains to be seen. Next year, probably with Ty Thompson as QB, maybe even this week, our offensive style could be very different. In four years Mario Cristobal is 34-11 (.755). Of all the Duck coaches named above, only Chip Kelly did better. Kelly was a rare “find” in New Hampshire when Bellotti picked him to become his successor. Some would argue that his skill as a tactician does not transfer to running a program. His major deficiency being garnering that trust from parents of players. Which one from the following list of schools where some of our head coaches have been employed jumps out at you? Santa Clara, Chico State, New Hampshire, South Florida, Alabama. Does anyone really think there is someone out there, someone willing to live in the Pacific Northwest and put their career into the PAC-12, who will do better than Mario? This is not a time for a leap into the unknown My great fear is that Mario’s wife Jessica and their two sons, Mario Mateo and Rocco will grow weary of the rain and cold in Eugene and they will all encourage our coach to move on to some place with a fairer climate, like where he grew up, in the SEC.

On reading the above to my beloved spouse, she suggested an edit. Scherr’s collision was “. . . in the arc.”, not in the zone. I need lots of help. Fortunately, it is close at hand.

. . . and win. Trailing against Oklahoma throughout the game at the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas, the #9 Duck women's basketball team pulled out a 98-93 win. Most likely that will pit them against #1, South Carolina, tomorrow. Down nine at half, and seven at the third quarter break, some really hard play made the difference. Nyra Sabally, 30 points, and Maddie Scherr played much of the 4th quarter with four fouls. Crucial for the win was a drive by Scherr ending in a collision with an Oklahoma defender that the officials called a charge. Coach Graves was right on them, insisting the defender was in the zone. The officials checked the monitor and reversed the call. Scherr made both free throws, putting OBD up by four at 88-84. Lots of free throws by Sabally (2), and Sedona Prince (3-4) later on Oklahoma fouls to save time sealed the win. Time for football. More later.

Alabama up 3-0 v. Arkansas

First play, after SMU punt, Cincinnati throws deep to wide open receiver, 60 yds, TD!

Gameday guys “like” OBD today!

Mr. FishDuck, respectfully, while I get your point, I have a different take. For me, the ESPN people have an impact through what they say on game day and elsewhere, and who they schedule to broadcast. They do not have the final authority accorded the CFP. Most important, they do not have any impact on the play of the game. I doubt that Herbie and crew would rank OBD in the top six; certainly not at third. But we’re there, control our fate, and I like our chances. Our best football is yet to be played. A more inclusive playoff will be better than the CFP. And though I miss the certainty of meeting the Big-10 champ in the Rose Bowl every year, I do not long for a mythical national championship decided by pollsters. Gradually football is getting to where basketball has been since 1939. Maybe someday l’ll write you about my dream for the best of all college football worlds.

Ducks win 34 - 21, 2, 4, 208

Our Beloved Ducks are ranked #3 by the CFP, #4 by the AP, and #5 by USA (coaches). Other pollsters have a substantially lower opinion of our favorite players' and coaches' efforts. Sports polling has been around for longer than most of us. It was in the Sports Pages of The Coos Bay Times when I first began reading that predecessor to The World, in about 1947, at age eight. There was one published poll in our newspaper, the AP that is still around. Somewhat later, about 1950, the UPI, at that time the coaches poll, came along. Then they dropped out because they did not want to be a part of sports betting. During my lifetime sports polling has changed a great deal, as has college football. For the purposes of participating with more than 200 others in my nephew Pete’s college football pool, one of the sources that I rely upon for my ten weekly picks is the Massey College Football Ranking Composite, available at masseyratings.com. Wikipedia states the following about Massey: “Kenneth Massey is an American sports statistician known for his development of a methodology for ranking and rating sports teams in a variety of sports. His ratings have been a part of the Bowl Championship Series since the 1999 season. He is an assistant professor of mathematics at Carson–Newman University in Tennessee.” The Massey composite is made up of sixty, yes (60), different computer ranking “authorities”, including those you may have heard of, like USA Today, Associated Press, and Jeff Sagarin, to a about 57 you could care less about, like Weighted Win Paths and PerformanZ. Our Ducks do not rank nearly so highly with the rest of the Massey Composite prognosticators as they place with the recognized polsters. The average Duck rank for all 60 contributors to Massey’s list is 14.68. The range of ranking is #3, by “Joby Nitty Gritty” and the CFP to #34 by “Boggo”. To compare, Georgia has an average ranking of 1.07, and a range of #1 to #3, with two ranking them second, one third, and all the rest of them at the top. The Massey top ten is: 1. Georgia 2. Ohio State 3. Michigan 4. Alabama 5. Notre Dame 6. Oklahoma State 7. Cincinnati 8. Michigan State 9. Wisconsin 10. Oklahoma The Ducks come in at #13, up from #15 last week. Jeff Sagarin has us at #12. I write to encourage comments about the great discrepancy between where the more commonly known rankings place Our Beloved Ducks, and this composite placement by many computer geeks’ efforts, some of whom just may skew their computer programs to favor their favorite conference, or even a particular team. My own belief is that for so long as the earth rotates from west to east, teams in the west will always be at a disadvantage because the other teams play earlier in the day before many of the east coast sports writers, talking heads and self-appointed experts have imbibed in their favorite beverages. Our western teams are viewed through their diminished senses, if at all.

There have been few opportunities tor backup QB time. Coaching staff jobs are dependent upon victory. Thinking they should risk their employment on a kid with recruiting stars in all the close games we have had makes no sense. we have been exposing our QB to injury since Kelly came as Bellotti’s OC.

When ESPN games run over the next game starts on ESPN News, as it did tonight.

A loss would not impact the Ducks as much as it would put the PAC-12 even further behind in future CFP rankings.

Darren Thomas, if the Auburn debacle qualifies as a CFP by your standards. I was there. Two calls by officials that could have gone our way really hurt. DAT was called OB on a first quarter reception, killing a drive at about the 25 yd line. Replays showed he got a foot down. Then the Auburn RB was ruled not down when he was tackled on top of a Duck player. He did not keep running when he regained his footing. Duck defenders who could have hit stopped. Whistle should have blown, but did not.