Purple_Pills
New Fish
By AZ_Duck
We're a smallish school in the Pacific Northwest.
Like Texas, our main rival is the state school up north (Washington) we don't really hate our instate aggy (Oregon State).
We like to joke that football was invented in 1994, because of this:
In reality, we had a longtime coach (Rich Brooks) that we tolerated through a lot of losing seasons because Oregon didn't really support football back then. The stadium only seated 41,000. The coaches' offices were in the basement of the gym, which was built in 1920. Facilities were, how you say, garbage.
That play galvanized the 1994 team, which went on to win the Pac-10 and go to the first Rose Bowl since 1958. Rich Brooks promptly got the $#@! out of town and took an NFL job. His offensive coordinator was a guy with a mustache made for 1980's pr0n named Mike Bellotti.
Bellotti was and is a really smart guy, and a pretty damn good coach. He kept the momentum from the 1994 season going in 1995, matching the 9-win total from the previous season, and beating the hated Huskies in Seattle for the second time in a row. There was some rebuilding in the late 90's, but the team progressed: 6-5 in 1996, 7-4 in 1997, 8-3 in 1998, 9-3 in 1999.
Another thing that happened was that we got our asses beat by Rick Neuheisel in the 1996 Cotton Bowl. This was in many ways more significant than the Rose Bowl appearance. After the game, a group of BMD's (as you call them) met with Bellotti and Bill Moos (the AD at the time) and asked what Oregon needed to do in order to sustain success in the Pac-10. Bellotti answered with a wish-list of facility improvements.
This was the first time that Phil Knight, uber-BMD, got involved with the athletic program. After the 1996 season we got an indoor practice facility, and the new outdoor fields and first fancy-schmancy locker room (to be replaced with the new fancy-schmancy locker room we have now) were installed. The stadium now holds around 60K, SRO. Its been sold out in excess of listed capacity (54,000) since 2002.
The program started having serious success. We beat a pretty good Texas team in the Holiday Bowl. We beat CU in the Fiesta Bowl in 2001-02 and finished #2 in the nation. Mike Bellotti called the BCS "a cancer."
Then we kinda went into the doldrums.
The team was still pretty good, and we were competitive in the league. But Bellotti was a CEO-type, and he gave a lot of leeway to his assistants, especially on the defensive side of the ball. He was interested in new ideas, and wasn't afraid to take chances. That's how he hired Rich Stubler from the CFL to run Oregon's defense for a year. That's how we had the worst defense in the country for a year.
In fairness to Mike, it is also how he developed an interest in the spread offenses that were beginning to pop up here and there around college FB. One of his first spread OCs was a guy named Gary Crowton. Crowton was a poor fit at Oregon and didn't last long. When he left, it was mutual, and there weren't really any bad feelings. Crowton suggested to Mike that if he was really interested in the spread, then the guy he needed to talk to was the OC at New Hampshire named Chip Kelly, who was the guru of the spread.
At the time Oregon had a kid named Dennis Dixon who was pretty highly touted but had never been consistent. One of Bellotti's shortcomings (in my view) was his willingness to use a 2-QB system when neither really won the job. That's how we ended up with A.J. Feeley and Kellen Clemens, and some other instances where we platooned our QBs. Dixon started out platooning.
Chip Kelly came to Eugene and made Dixon the guy. He got the most out of his not-inconsiderable talent. Behind Dixon and a talented roster, Oregon ran Kelly's spread in 2007 and made a lot of noise. Then a late hit against ASU damaged Dixon's knee. Nobody really knew how badly until the next game against Arizona.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/PzpOEdUdoM4
Have I mentioned that I $#@!ing hate Arizona?
Ryan Leaf's brother got hurt as well, we were down to our 5th string QB. We looked like $#@! against UCLA, and then something amazing started to happen. Chip Kelly coached up our 5th string QB to where he was almost sorta kinda decent in the Civil War, even though we lost.
Then Kelly coached him up and the team beat the $#@! out of USF in the Sun Bowl. Clearly we had someone special on our hands.
The following year, 2008, more QB attrition. We ended up playing a JC transfer named Jeremiah Masoli. Yet Kelly and Bellotti got 10 wins and an absolute ass-kicking of Oklahoma State to end the season. Bellotti was quietly pushed upstairs to the AD position. Kelly was the head coach.
People generally know the story from here - four BCS berths, oh-so-close in the NC game against Auburn, wins in the Rose and Fiesta Bowls. Kelly leaves for the Eagles.
Now we have a rookie HC who is something of a question mark - and the team stumbled through its last four games. Something that Kelly brought to Oregon was a relentless focus on what it could control as a team (everything else is a distraction) and winning the next game (the next game is the Super Bowl for us). You win the next game by being the best in practice every day. You are the best in practice by repetition, attention to detail, and technique. So far it seems like we've gotten away from that in 2013 (Rose Bowl comments, DC coordinator comments after Wazzu, Stanford and Oregon State games)... so the magic 8-ball for Oregon football seems to be saying "reply hazy try again."
One of the things that made Oregon Oregon was the focus running from the spread. Chip Kelly wrote this great article about his philosophy:
http://fishduck.com/2012/04/coach-chip-kelly-explains-the-oregon-spread-offense/
See also:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...elly-oregon-ducks-offense-more-familiar-seems
The new guy, Mark Helfrich, is supposed to be Kelly's disciple and chosen successor. However, the look of the offense IMO has been more akin to a pass-first spreak akin the Mike Leach's Air Raid than Kelly's run-first spread option.
That's why I think Texas could get the upset.
As far as the school goes... nice place.
Academics are middling. Oregon is an AAU school but its focus is more on undergraduate and professional education than research, and thus does not generate a ton of research money. There is no medical school, as the state's med school (in Portland) was spun off in the 1970's to become Oregon Health Sciences University.
A big dispute was getting an independent board of trustees. Historically all Oregon public schools have been under one board. This board favored the ag school that provided the extension services (Oregon State). Our last president tried to change this, was fired for his trouble, and actually won the war since the state Legislature passed a bill giving UO its own independent board this year.
The town is Eugene. I was never impressed with it when I was there. Eugene is 110 miles (exactly) from downtown Portland. I spent a lot of time on I-5 between Eugene and Portland when I was there. Supposedly it is much better now. YMMV. Lots of hippies emigrated from California to Eugene in the late 70's and early 80's which were not kind for hippies nationwide. It seems to be a bit of a bubble in that respect. The movie "Animal House" was filmed entirely on location at UO or nearby in Eugene or Cottage Grove (the final parade scene).
On the other hand, the Oregon Country Fair takes place in nearby Veneta every summer... so, um...
Yeah.
The girls are easy and drugs are widely available, so there is that.
If you can handle the rain.
We're a smallish school in the Pacific Northwest.
Like Texas, our main rival is the state school up north (Washington) we don't really hate our instate aggy (Oregon State).
We like to joke that football was invented in 1994, because of this:
In reality, we had a longtime coach (Rich Brooks) that we tolerated through a lot of losing seasons because Oregon didn't really support football back then. The stadium only seated 41,000. The coaches' offices were in the basement of the gym, which was built in 1920. Facilities were, how you say, garbage.
That play galvanized the 1994 team, which went on to win the Pac-10 and go to the first Rose Bowl since 1958. Rich Brooks promptly got the $#@! out of town and took an NFL job. His offensive coordinator was a guy with a mustache made for 1980's pr0n named Mike Bellotti.
Bellotti was and is a really smart guy, and a pretty damn good coach. He kept the momentum from the 1994 season going in 1995, matching the 9-win total from the previous season, and beating the hated Huskies in Seattle for the second time in a row. There was some rebuilding in the late 90's, but the team progressed: 6-5 in 1996, 7-4 in 1997, 8-3 in 1998, 9-3 in 1999.
Another thing that happened was that we got our asses beat by Rick Neuheisel in the 1996 Cotton Bowl. This was in many ways more significant than the Rose Bowl appearance. After the game, a group of BMD's (as you call them) met with Bellotti and Bill Moos (the AD at the time) and asked what Oregon needed to do in order to sustain success in the Pac-10. Bellotti answered with a wish-list of facility improvements.
This was the first time that Phil Knight, uber-BMD, got involved with the athletic program. After the 1996 season we got an indoor practice facility, and the new outdoor fields and first fancy-schmancy locker room (to be replaced with the new fancy-schmancy locker room we have now) were installed. The stadium now holds around 60K, SRO. Its been sold out in excess of listed capacity (54,000) since 2002.
The program started having serious success. We beat a pretty good Texas team in the Holiday Bowl. We beat CU in the Fiesta Bowl in 2001-02 and finished #2 in the nation. Mike Bellotti called the BCS "a cancer."
Then we kinda went into the doldrums.
The team was still pretty good, and we were competitive in the league. But Bellotti was a CEO-type, and he gave a lot of leeway to his assistants, especially on the defensive side of the ball. He was interested in new ideas, and wasn't afraid to take chances. That's how he hired Rich Stubler from the CFL to run Oregon's defense for a year. That's how we had the worst defense in the country for a year.
In fairness to Mike, it is also how he developed an interest in the spread offenses that were beginning to pop up here and there around college FB. One of his first spread OCs was a guy named Gary Crowton. Crowton was a poor fit at Oregon and didn't last long. When he left, it was mutual, and there weren't really any bad feelings. Crowton suggested to Mike that if he was really interested in the spread, then the guy he needed to talk to was the OC at New Hampshire named Chip Kelly, who was the guru of the spread.
At the time Oregon had a kid named Dennis Dixon who was pretty highly touted but had never been consistent. One of Bellotti's shortcomings (in my view) was his willingness to use a 2-QB system when neither really won the job. That's how we ended up with A.J. Feeley and Kellen Clemens, and some other instances where we platooned our QBs. Dixon started out platooning.
Chip Kelly came to Eugene and made Dixon the guy. He got the most out of his not-inconsiderable talent. Behind Dixon and a talented roster, Oregon ran Kelly's spread in 2007 and made a lot of noise. Then a late hit against ASU damaged Dixon's knee. Nobody really knew how badly until the next game against Arizona.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/PzpOEdUdoM4
Have I mentioned that I $#@!ing hate Arizona?
Ryan Leaf's brother got hurt as well, we were down to our 5th string QB. We looked like $#@! against UCLA, and then something amazing started to happen. Chip Kelly coached up our 5th string QB to where he was almost sorta kinda decent in the Civil War, even though we lost.
Then Kelly coached him up and the team beat the $#@! out of USF in the Sun Bowl. Clearly we had someone special on our hands.
The following year, 2008, more QB attrition. We ended up playing a JC transfer named Jeremiah Masoli. Yet Kelly and Bellotti got 10 wins and an absolute ass-kicking of Oklahoma State to end the season. Bellotti was quietly pushed upstairs to the AD position. Kelly was the head coach.
People generally know the story from here - four BCS berths, oh-so-close in the NC game against Auburn, wins in the Rose and Fiesta Bowls. Kelly leaves for the Eagles.
Now we have a rookie HC who is something of a question mark - and the team stumbled through its last four games. Something that Kelly brought to Oregon was a relentless focus on what it could control as a team (everything else is a distraction) and winning the next game (the next game is the Super Bowl for us). You win the next game by being the best in practice every day. You are the best in practice by repetition, attention to detail, and technique. So far it seems like we've gotten away from that in 2013 (Rose Bowl comments, DC coordinator comments after Wazzu, Stanford and Oregon State games)... so the magic 8-ball for Oregon football seems to be saying "reply hazy try again."
One of the things that made Oregon Oregon was the focus running from the spread. Chip Kelly wrote this great article about his philosophy:
http://fishduck.com/2012/04/coach-chip-kelly-explains-the-oregon-spread-offense/
See also:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...elly-oregon-ducks-offense-more-familiar-seems
The new guy, Mark Helfrich, is supposed to be Kelly's disciple and chosen successor. However, the look of the offense IMO has been more akin to a pass-first spreak akin the Mike Leach's Air Raid than Kelly's run-first spread option.
That's why I think Texas could get the upset.
As far as the school goes... nice place.
Academics are middling. Oregon is an AAU school but its focus is more on undergraduate and professional education than research, and thus does not generate a ton of research money. There is no medical school, as the state's med school (in Portland) was spun off in the 1970's to become Oregon Health Sciences University.
A big dispute was getting an independent board of trustees. Historically all Oregon public schools have been under one board. This board favored the ag school that provided the extension services (Oregon State). Our last president tried to change this, was fired for his trouble, and actually won the war since the state Legislature passed a bill giving UO its own independent board this year.
The town is Eugene. I was never impressed with it when I was there. Eugene is 110 miles (exactly) from downtown Portland. I spent a lot of time on I-5 between Eugene and Portland when I was there. Supposedly it is much better now. YMMV. Lots of hippies emigrated from California to Eugene in the late 70's and early 80's which were not kind for hippies nationwide. It seems to be a bit of a bubble in that respect. The movie "Animal House" was filmed entirely on location at UO or nearby in Eugene or Cottage Grove (the final parade scene).
On the other hand, the Oregon Country Fair takes place in nearby Veneta every summer... so, um...
Yeah.
The girls are easy and drugs are widely available, so there is that.
If you can handle the rain.
