Talk about lose / lose

Former Nebraska AD Bill Moos says he wanted Chip Kelly not Scott Frost - Yahoo Sports

This is why I appreciate Uncle Phil. It feels like he's consulted for his opinion on certain things but his word is definitely not the end all and he trusts the people in the AD office to do their jobs. I wouldn't want to work in a program where donors have the kind of out-sized influence where they can overrule the athletic director.

Scott Frost…Mr. It is tough to recruit to Oregon guy.

A little late in the game to be lamenting over decisions made years ago. I think i would ride off into the sunset, and leave the luggage behind. Otherwise might as well call out who forced your hand, and really muddy Nebraska waters.

I am not sure how many years ago this took place. I might look for his book at the library but won't buy it. Honestly I wish Nebraska would have gone back to the B12. I bet many of their fans wish they would have or would now but the B1G tv money paid out is just too big to ignore. Yet I am biased when it comes to conference realignment ... too old school. I remember it bothered me a little, not a lot, when Arizona and Arizona State was joining the Pac8.

12 hours ago, Drake said:

Scott Frost…Mr. It is tough to recruit to Oregon guy.

Frost was right that it was and still is hard to recruit to Oregon. The worth ethic and recruiting chops that really made the difference. This isn't to say coaches before Cristobal and Lanning weren't hard workers but they knew their limits with the Oregon brand at the time.

Kelly had something unique to prich... Cool uniforms and a cool offense. Everyone caught up on the offensive side and for a while there tried to keep pace with uniforms.

Cristobal and Lanning has been able to approach recruiting a different way because of the brand laid down by their predessors and in turn both elevated recruiting.

NIL has also been a massive game changer for Oregon because they wouldn't have stood a chance with some players on this roster without it.

Recruiting to Oregon was hard and is still hard. Recruiting in general is super hard work. I know most of us wouldn't want to work the hours Lanning does.

So don't take Frost's old quote as a slight on Oregon. It was true that getting top end talent to Eugene was difficult and exceedingly rare. It was the reality of where Oregon sat back then.

Instead see Frost's quote for what it was... A moment in time where the Oregon brand was in its ascent but couldn't compete for to top recruits with the big boys. Things have changed in some massive ways.

He wasn't wrong then ... But that doesn't mean that a statement of a past era applies to the Oregon of today.

iubhounds, you piqued my interest a couple of weeks ago with the thread you began titled: "Having to Fly East for Games". That caused me to really think about scheduling. I hope to say more about that topic in the near future. Like you, when ASU and Arizona took the PAC from 10 to 12 I was concerned that it was a mistake. There may be an answer for us "old school" curmudgeons. I'm working on it.

As to Moos, I lived in Salem when he was hired as the Duck AD. He came there for "Oregon Club". I knew immediately that he was not a good fit for OBD.

8 hours ago, David Marsh said:

Frost was right that it was and still is hard to recruit to Oregon.

Apparently it is tough to recruit at Nebraska as well.

Btw…some of us ran businesses where 9 to 5 was for the employees.

Scott Frost was WRONG.

17 hours ago, David Marsh said:

Kelly had something unique to prich... Cool uniforms and a cool offense. Everyone caught up on the offensive side ...

Kind of a random off-season kind of question, did anyone actually ever "catch up" to that Kelly/Helfich offense that spanned 10 seasons? Thoughts?

2007: 38.2 ppg, 467 ypg, 5.9 ypp

2008: 41.9 ppg, 485 ypg, 6.6 ypp

2009: 36.1 ppg, 412 ypg, 6.1 ypp

2010: 47.0 ppg, 531 ypg, 6.7 ypp

2011: 46.1 ppg, 523 ypg, 7.2 ypp

2012: 49.6 ppg, 537 ypg, 6.6 ypp

2013: 45.5 ppg, 565 ypg, 7.5 ypp

2014: 45.4 ppg, 547 ypg, 7.3 ypp

2015: 43.0 ppg, 538 ypg, 7.0 ypp

2016: 35.4 ppg, 492 ypg, 6.6 ypp

I mean, maybe there is an argument about 4-8 in 2016; but, before the wheels finally fully came off, Oregon was still averaging 41 ppg and 519 ypg (and had over 400 yards of offense in all 8 games), then finishing 1-3 averaging 25 ppg and 437 ypg.

Helfrich certainly had to go; but, I doubt anyone is catching up with Oregon's offense in 2017 either if he did stay. Herbert, Freeman, Brooks-James, Nelson, Pharoah, Mundt. In the 7 regular season games Herbert was healthy, Oregon averaged 52 ppg and 550 ypg in Taggart's new offense, with a healthy Herbert and Helfrich, who knows where the offense might have gone? It still probably gives up about 50 a game though. 🙂

(As late as 2022, Chip still got 39.2 ppg and 503.6 ypg out of DTR, Charbonnet, Bobo, and Kazmeir Allen)

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by AnotherOD

3 hours ago, AnotherOD said:

Kind of a random off-season kind of question, did anyone actually ever "catch up" to that Kelly/Helfich offense that spanned 10 seasons? Thoughts?

They learned how to defend it and replicate it enough to nullify Oregon's uniqueness for recruitment more than anything else.

The offense took a dip in 2016 under Helfrich mostly due to the defense being so bad that the offense never had the ball.

1 hour ago, David Marsh said:

The offense took a dip in 2016 under Helfrich mostly due to the defense being so bad that the offense never had the ball.

Bad defense certainly didn't help, but I would imagine it had more to do with new/young QBs learning the Duck offense, then the season ending collapse. Given the pace Kelly/Helfrich liked to play, there always were plenty of snaps, so the offense always had the ball some. TOP of course wasn't good, but it never really was back then.

2011: 25:20

2012: 28.39

2013: 25:58

2014: 27:14

2015: 27:18

2016: 26:00

Snaps by offense/snaps defended:

2011: 72.5/76.9 (-4.4)

2012: 81.4/75.8 (+5.6)

2013: 74.8/80.2 (-5.4)

2014: 74.5/78.0 (-3.5)

2015: 76.0/80.5 (-4.5)

2016: 74.3/80.8 (-6.5)

1 hour ago, David Marsh said:

They learned how to defend it and replicate it enough to nullify Oregon's uniqueness for recruitment more than anything else...

My wild guess is that teams really didn't get a lot better defending it until it got widely adopted down to the high school level. Kids grew up facing it before college. Oregon's best run with the offense was arguably 2012, 2013, 2014; or, after 5 years of Oregon putting it on tape. In the back 5 years of the offense (2012-2016), the offense averaged about 2 points and 53 yards more than the first 5 years. Perhaps one could speculate:

Fine tuning offensive players to system > Teams figuring it out

I've kind of always attributed Helfrich's ultimate downfall not quite so much to just bad recruiting, rather having an unusually large percentage of busts and bad actors at the top 1/3 of his classes.

He actually got a fair amount of guys a lot of top programs were after who also should have been a good fit for his offense, there just were a bunch of busts (among the skill guys): Jalen Brown (143), Mahalak (177), Carrington (130), Griffin (60), Jonsen (73), Lovette (121), Merritt (123), Ofodile (120), Wallace (164), Wilson (four star, top 2 dual threat on ESPN, On3), and so on (Wilson and Jonsen were top ranked dual threat QBs - never played, Taj Griffin another LMJ, Lovette and Merritt were the #3 and #4 WRs in the nation, Carrington of course gets bounced from the NC game, and so on). If we wanna go all positions, throw in names like Prevot, Austin Maloata, Kaumatule, Okun, Osay Dunmore, Leiato, Tyrell Robinson...

( I definitely have a complicated relationship with the Kelly/Helfrich era 🙂 )

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by AnotherOD