DazeNconfused

If you call Mike Leech and Shark who is 48 boring and Is Mike Leech or Sark at Texas boring and predicable play callers? The odds another young OC is going to do as well as Dilly are long. I've wrote about Dilly and he was taken under Mike Norvell's wing at a very young age. I'd like to assure to Duck fans that there isn't many 32yo OCs out there with Dilly's resume he brought - they aren't growing on trees. There is a real risk with young green OC of him having struggles. Dilly wasn't the rule - he was the exception. Consider this play caller list of mid 40yo to older this year who all had top 15 offenses Josh Hupel, Kalen DeBoer, Chip Kelly, Bill Obrien, Ryan Day, Todd Monken, Mike Norvell, Phil Longo, i think Tyson Helton called plays this year after he lost his OC. Then consider 39yo Lincoln Riley and Rhett Lashee were Top 15 as well. 39 yo Jeff Lebby at Sooners, Ole Miss was top 15 with Lane Kiffin's offense but he stopped calling plays. Then consider these names: Dan Mullens, Tom Herman, Billy Napier calling his own plays at Florida, Joe Moorehead who was great without Mario, Kendal Briles is now 40. The cream of the play callers in college football are the 39yo and up crowd - go figure. Now if you want good young play established callers then the list is much shorter: Garret Riley at TCU i think is 34, Zack Kittley is around 32 Texas Tech. These are the only young guns off the top of my head who have a few years calling plays! The next group is they young guns who have zero FBS play calling seat time: Brian Hartline, Brennan Marion, Arbuckle at Western Kentucky was a 1st year OC but I think Tyson Helton called plays, The UTSA passing game Cord whose name I can't recall is another up and comer. The fact is the only Dilly's out there are Garret Riley and Zack Kittley - after that its young kids with zero FBS play calling or OC seat time. That might sound exciting but it's super risky. I hope this post serves well in combating the idea there is a wide pool of Dilly type young OCs to hire from. The fact is it's a limited hiring pool. EDIT: I forgot coach Boles threw out decker and Bray to other young OCs. So we are now up to 4 Dilly types I can think of to hire from.

The recruiting players for your schemes and installing new schemes line is overblown. I think it's a cop-out. Our players were recruited by all the top schools - its' not the talent. It's coaching and development that decides if you win with the talent you have. Sure you might have couple busts. It's not like Mario brought in a bunch of kids who ran the Wing-T for offense and a 4-3 defense. Most of the players are blue-chips who were inn spread offenses and modern defenses to defend them. QBs aren't coming in never taking a snap out of the shotgun. Mario took this roster with AB and went 10-2 in the regular season and made the pac-12 Champ game. Lanning with a much better QB went 8-3 and missed the Pac-12 Champ game. Lanning was more competitive with the last two games lost to top 25 teams coming by 7 combined points. But Lanning has a much better QB and offensive scheme. The reason why the Lanning's team fell short of the Playoffs and Pac-12 Champ game was coaching. Dilly was good but a green play caller. Think about all the first half poor play calls at WAZZU inside the red zone. Dilly had some bad 4th down play calls in the last two losses, the cute formation and fumble in the UW game. The Ty reverse call in the Utah game. The 4th down jet sweep to Franklin in the OSU game. Dilly choked on some big calls this year, period. We all know how Lanning choked on some big high risk decisions that also cost us games. With a new staff the growing pain mistakes you expect is not getting the best out of players, the staff needing to learn to coach players up better. You don't expect the new staff to coach up the players well enough to go to the Playoffs and then have the coaches make ridiculous in game decisions and calls that robs the players of all the hard work they put and crushes their dreams. It's not the players or the coaches ability to get them game ready that tanked the dream. It was the coaching game calls that is to blame. We have never seen a coach at Oregon choke like this ever - at the same time his team was melting down to boot.

Brandon Buckner, Jayden Navarrete, Anthony Jones and Baby Winston signed last year, Terrell Tillman could convert back from TE, Jabril McNiel. Maybe Trevon Mae slims back down. Of course some of them hit the portal as well. We have three edge commits. We might grab some portal edge guys

He might flip to UW. But Jimmy Lake who was a elite DB coach is gone and UW's DBs were poor this year. Also we still have Top 120 recruit Avante Dickerson who was recruited as a corner in the 2021 class. Florence and Tucker were 2022 kids who were Top 150 or so. We are chasing Roderick Pleasant who is Top 60 kid but won't sing until Feb in the late period. Coach Meats son has been working another really good DB trying to flip him to Oregon - they both were here for the UCLA game together.? or was it the UW game? With the transfer portal going to be open can kids not sign and wait until Feb? You could lose your scholly to a portal kid at one of your top schools of choice. We have 24 commits in the class right now, not a lot of spaces left.

I think Phil and the other major donors could make a stink and get Mullens fired pretty quick if they ever felt it was warranted. Money rules college football - and they are a lot of money. Mullens is much easier to replace than the big donors.

Dude we are going to disagree. There is plenty of history of ADs telling head coaches to make a staff change or hire a more Vet OC or DC. GM's in the NFL do the same thing! That doesn't mean the AD or GM hand pick a list for the head coach. But you can take it to the bank they tell them the direction that they want him to go. For example - Clay Helton was in the hot seat at USC - the AD told him to fire his DC and OC. He went and got Todd Orlando and Kliff Kingsbury for two days. ADs have told inexperienced head coaches you can't hire a first time play caller - period. They've told head coaches who have promoted from within a OC or DC who bombed that they got to fire him, and get an experienced one. It's not out of line for Mullens if he wanted to tell Lanning he can't hire a first time play caller as his OC. Mullens could tell him he doesn't want the risk of a unproven play caller, he wants a Vet OC. He could also tell Lanning he wants an OC that doesn't need time watching over so Lanning can focus on his defense. So Lanning would have two choices, go get a VET OC or step down. Why do you think a head coach like Mike Ditka wanted all player personnel power when he came back to coaching in the NFL for the Saints? He'd swung enough pull to get it but he did poorly like when he traded his whole draft away for Ricky Williiams. ADs dont hand pick lists for a head coach - but they can set the direction that they go. Does the AD at Bama tell Saban what direction to go? No. But Lanning and other young coaches, or coaches on the Hot Seat get told by ADs what direction to go, or they are told to fire an OC or DC. If the AD wants the head coach to change the direction of the program he tells him. All ADs unless they retire will move onto another AD job some day and need to show they were a good steward of the program they were at. If your defense is about dead last in FBS then the AD has every right to tell the coach to get new DC or get out. Will Mullens tell Lanning what direction to go with the OC hire? Who knows, but if he does it's something that happens all the time. If I was Mullens I'd tell Lanning to go get a VET play caller onto this staff because I want some older wisdom and leadership in the mix. period. There are over a dozen OCs Lanning can pick from to hire to fit that bill.

I'd take Chad Morris! That's another Vet OC. He was at Clemson with Dabo as he built the program up. I'm aware some don't think much of him and want to tie him to Bo Nix's performance at Auburn hos sophomore year. The fact is Bo wasn't good under all three of his OCs, including Dilly. Bo's passer rating is up around 40 points this year and he is throwing for 2 yards per pas more the last I looked. If anyone gets blame it a combo of HC Gus Malzahn's system, and Bo being immature. Morris art Clemson had Taj Boyd as his QB and he put up around 10,000 career yards and over 100 TDs. He also was able to recruit Deshawn Watson to Clemson. I wonder if we could even get Brady to consider coming west? He seems SE type guy.

That's not how it works man. Mullens is part of the Admin. His job is be the steward of the program and protect the Oregon Brand. To call him the "accountant" isn't fair. Mullens isn't going to let Lanning hire Art Briles as OC and bring his baggage to Oregon and tarnish the Brand. He probably wouldn't even hire his son Kendal Briles as the OC because he was at Baylor under his dad and the stink is on him as well. The USC Prez Carol Folt put the brakes on the Urban Meyer hire because of his baggage. Admin runs these schools and the football coach isn't a God. Mullens hired Lanning and he can fire him tomorrow if he wants. That's how much weight Mullens swings as the AD. Mullens and his staff have vetted every hire Lanning has made and will vet the next OC on any level they please

Thanks for your thoughts my duck friend.

Won't be surprised to see Delgado, Crocker and Brevard hit the portal as well. I expect the new norm is guys buried on the depth chart to move. Ducks will go to the portal and grab guys to replace.

Poor Joe didn't know he was going to Mario's no offense prison to be shackled. lol

Yes we win without the onside. We didn't punt until halfway through the 4th quarter. We had a 38-16 lead halfway though the 3rd with the onside. But we held them to 3 FGs, picked DTR off once. We scored 6 TD and 1 FG before that first punt. The onside wasn't needed.

Its all good. We often agree and don't on this. I don't take it personal. Thanks for reading my article and my take. I just gave you love on another thread, you had a great psot. Really, really nailed you a good take!

haha.. we aren't agreeing on the other thread.. but this post is solid.. great take!!

Some good points. And a QB who put it all together

To be fair Arroyo leaving was like the feeling you get after an impacted wisdom tooth is pulled and has healed. I was a happy Duck

and lots of questions

Of course he thinks he can pull of the ASU job. Just like 4th and 2 from your own 29 is a no brainer for Lanning

I guess your in the camp of letting Lanning do Lanning, the AD has have no need to do a post season Eval and tell him to pump the breaks.

He did the same darn thing two weeks later after the UW game and went for it on 4th down on his own 29 yard line. How's that learning? lol I'm going to go out on a limb and say not many Duck fans expected the rookie coaches mistakes to be epic blunders. You can ever recall and FBS head coach going for it on his 34 and 29 yard line when he could have punted, and lost both games. Twice in the same year. Lanning set a epic fail benchmark we might never see broken and I for one do not trust his judgement. Add in the meltdown in the end vrs OSU and he the shine is off Dan. Lets say we let him choose his own OC, fine. Then we should hire a in-game management advisor to stand next to him all game and tell him the right move to make. I've lost faith.

Your aware that Phil was consulted by Mullens in the coaching search and signed off on the Lanning hire? Phil is basically Mullens boss.

Lemme put it this way. If Lanning dont make those crazy decisions that lost us those two game he is 11-1. First year HC on the verge of the playoffs. He is on everyone's short list. His agent is working us for an extension. Lanning is being talked about as the guy to replace saban at Bamma. Lanning cost himself millions of dollars with bad decisions! My guess is $30 million because he could have doubled his contract! He cost Oregon millions in branding, bowl payout, ect.. You can chose to see the bright side. I'm going to admit he wasn't terrible - but he shot himself in the foot in the worst of reckless ways. He is probably the first HC to go for it at his own 34 and 29 when he didn't have to and lose twice in the same year by a combined 7 points.

I haven't see anyone in this thread say "Mullens needs to find the right OC"... It's not uncommon with a young coach or a coach on the hot seat for the AD to tell the HC you need to make some changes. The AD is the steward of the Program. Mullens telling Lanning he wants a veteran coach for the OC hire is not unheard of. He would let Lanning do the search and give final sign off. Lots of ADs have final sign off. I doubt Mullens is letting Lanning hire Art Briles and all his baggage. It wouldn't surprise me if the ASU AD told Dilly he wants a DC hire who has been a former HC to help mentor Dilly. Dilly would do the search and find the right fit. My whole article is my take Lanning needs a older and wiser OC to be the adult in the room. It could be Mullens lets him go get who ever he wants? I will say the odds of getting young OCs and not having trouble are greater than with older proven OCs.

We can agree to disagree. Lanning improved the team compared to the Utah blow outs. No. It doesn't matter who we lost to down the stretch. What matters is he made bonehead decisions he made that cost us the games and how his team melted down in the OSU game. There is a saying your only as good as your last game and Lanning wasn't good Saturday. Lanning made us the national college football joke Saturday.

Lanning's reckless decisions just caused him to drive the Bentley he was gifted the keys to into the ditch. He had the 7th best roster talent, world class facilities a QB who was at the top of the Heisman watch list and the national narrative is that Lanning coached them out of the playoffs. Lanning's stock is DOWN, he isn't on any major schools short lists now. You can call it meddle, I call it being accountable to your bosses. Someone else with a first year coach might call it mentorship. IMO Lanning has lots of reasons to be humble.