Who do you think was the key Oregon Coach to set the foundation for today's success?

Oregon Ducks On SI

Geoff Schwartz Names Former Oregon Coach With Underrated...

In the era of coach Dan Lanning, Oregon Ducks football is in a second renaissance of sorts. With a 48-8 overall record since assuming the position of head coach

Thank you Coach Brooks!

Bellotti was Brook's O-coordinator during Brooks most successful years, 1989-94. In 1988 it was Bob Toledo.

2008 was Bellotti's last season as head coach. There were 9 coaches including Bellotti on staff. When Chip took over in 2009, he took the Bellotti slot and hired Helfrich to replace himself (Chip). The other 7 guys were the same in 2009 as they were in 2008. Chip had Bellotti's choices as assistants. I believe all 7 of those guys were still with Chip in 2012 - his last season.

Chip did increase the staff from 9 to 11, but as I recall, 7 of the 10 assistants were the same.

Over his four years, Chip hired Helfrich, Azzinaro, Frost. Interesting to contemplate whether Bellotti would have hired those guys?

Who said "One game at a time" and "The only thing that matters is that you improve each week?"

Brooks or Bellotti? I swear I'm not senile, but I'm not sure.

Edited 18 hours ago18 hr by BroncoSas

7 hours ago, HDuck said:

Over his four years, Chip hired Helfrich, Azzinaro, Frost. Interesting to contemplate whether Bellotti would have hired those guys?

I know Azz followed Chip into the NFL and to UCLA where Chip eventually fired him.

As for Helf and Frost... those guys were fantastic as position coaches and coordinators. Together they coached up the ONLY Heisman in Oregon history. Helfrich found Mariota and brought him to Eugene and coached him his first two years, redshirt and first year starting) and then when Helf became HC it was Frost who helped polish Mariota into the Heisman winner.

Both were great as position coaches and coordinators at Oregon. Were they good Head Coaches? Not really...

Though Oregon only made the National Title game twice... and Helfrich and Frost were at both of them. One of which Helfrich was the head coach for.. so that's saying something to. They didn't get the job done but arguably 2014 was the best season in Oregon history with a Conference Championship, a Heisman Winner, a Rose Bowl Victory, and a Title Position. Here's hoping Lanning tops that this season.

But yeah I think Bellotti would have hired those two guys. I think Bellotti did a better job building a cohesive staff.

An always interesting fan question about the rise of Duck football, was Oregon poised to begin the jump back in the early 1970s, but missteped and mishandled its chance through a series of bad decisions?

Starting in 1972, Oregon had gone 242-216-28 over the prior 50 years (with only one losing decade). Oregon head coach Jerry Frei, a 17 year member of Oregon's staff and 5th year HC, had gone 22-29-2, but 11-10-1 the previous two years behind the likes of Fouts and Rashad (including beating USC in 1970 and 1971 and being generally competitive outside a couple of paycheck games). The story goes the boosters club pressured the new AD (Norv Ritchey) to fire all but one member of what they considered Frei's 1971 "incompetent staff", after losing to the Beavers for a 5th straight time.

Included in those they wished to dump from Frei's young staff were DC George Seifert (two Super Bowl rings as head coach, retired with the second greatest win % among NFL coaches with 100 wins at the time), John Robinson (two National Championships at USC and member of the College Football-of-Fame), John Marshall (who went on to coach for 30 years in the NFL including two Super Bowl wins), Gunther Cunningham (who went on to coach 34 years in the NFL), and Bruce Snyder (15 years as a Pac-10 HC at Cal and ASU).

Frei refused and resigned. At the time, due to changes in how San Diego State was handling JC players, then head coach and future NFL Hall-of-Famer Don Coryell (who had gone 104-19-2 there) was looking for a way out of San Diego State (as he had relied very heavily on JCs and was unhappy with the changes). There was a push at the time to hire Coryell away but influencial boosters and Ritchey wanted young Oregon OL coach Dick Enright to have the job. Coryell sticks out one more year at SDS (before moving on to revolutionize NFL offenses) and Enright goes 6-16 and is fired in two seasons.

Oregon passes over keeping Frei (who went on to coach a decade in the NFL), or maybe Don Coryell, George Seifert, John Robinson, John Marshall, Gunther Cunningham, or Bruce Snyder to hire a 36 year old OL coach with only two years of major college position coaching experience.

Having another swing at it, Ritchey quickly internally promotes Don Read, who goes 9-24 over three seasons. Now stepping up for a third swing, Oregon in 1977 (under a new AD) pushes very hard for Bill Walsh (who was returning to college after feeling being "black balled" by then legendary but famously ill-temper Cincinnati HC Paul Brown). Walsh decides on Stanford over Oregon so Oregon targets UW DC Jim Mora (who eventually goes on to be an NFL HC for 15 seasons); but, he declines the job to stay for another season at UW (before becoming the DL coach of the second season of the Seattle Seahawks).

Brooks goes 24-49-4 his first 7 seasons at Oregon trying to dig out of the Ritchey, Enright, and Read hole (not helped by the scandal plagued early 1980s), yielding a 12 year run of 38-89-4. Brooks finally goes 28-28 in the five year run up to the 1989 Independence Bowl (finishes 91-109-4 in 18 years at Oregon).

John Robinson, George Siefert, Gunther Cuningham, John Marshall, Don Coryell, Bruce Snyder, Bill Walsh, and Jim Mora coulda been.

A sort of point of controversy (or at least against the common narrative) when Oregon AD John Caine hired Brooks, he also significantly increased the program resources at the time. In Brooks first couple seasons, he had one of the highest paid staffs in the Pac, and a greatly expanded recruiting budget (not to mention a still pretty new Autzen to recruit to). Caine perhaps is most well known for angrily resigning rather than accepting a demotion to fund raiser after running up a then controversial $375,000 in athletic department debt (losing money 5 of his 6 years in the position).

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by AnotherOD

Bellotti had a ready answer when Phil Knight asked him what he needs to succeed. An indoor practice facility appeared and Knight became Uncle Phil.

I guess the point was about good coaching hires changing the trajectory of the program?

If the UO had stuck with Frei and held onto a couple of his young coaches (like Seifert or Marshall) to take over (or hired Coryell or gotten Walsh or even Mora), might the program have built up to 8-3/9-2 type seasons sooner?

Might having an AD willing to invest in football paid off in dollars behind those winning teams rather than deficits behind those losing ones? By the mid-1980s when Nike really started to take off, might Phil have gotten more invested about a decade earlier? Might the 2010 breakthrough years have possibly happened 20 years sooner? 🤷‍♂️

Oregon started strong in 1987 behind a hot freshman quarterback named Bill Musgrave. 

In a bit of foreshadowing, Oregon AD Bill Byrne told officials at the Sun Bowl after the win over OSU that Oregon would guarantee the sale of “any number of seats they need, within reason.” And Sun officials acknowledged that, thanks to some untimely upsets of teams that had been considered locks for bowl bids, Oregon was a “serious candidate.”

For one day.

On Sunday morning, West Virginia (6-5) got the Sun Bowl bid against Oklahoma State (6-5). The Sun Bowl chairman explained “our decision was based on the East Coast television market.”

http://www.benzduck.com/journal/2011/3/20/circling-the-bowls-1964-1988.html

The Ducks flirtation with mediocre was a barrier.  Too many near .500 seasons in the Brooks era.

1984:  6-5

1985:  5-6

1986:  5-6

1987:  6-5

1988:  6-6

1989:  8-4 with Byrne closing the deal for the Independence Bowl

1990:  8-4

1991:  3-8

1992: 6-6

1993: 5-6

I can't remember all the circumstances of why the program wasn't able to take advantage in 1991, 1992, 1993?

AD Norv Ritchey was in a no-win situation in 1971. Jerry Frei in his five years as the Oregon football coach lost all five games to the Beavers. This was Oregon's 8th loss in a row to the Beavers, and the Ducks had only beat them 4 times over the past 23 seasons. The Portland boosters were out for blood. There was no Nike yet, and the Portland booster support was critical for financial reasons. The Ducks needed money and recruiting. Dick Enright was the junior coach on the Oregon staff, but he was popular with the players and boosters, and he had connections to southern California for recruiting. Enright was a failure as a head coach, but he had one major success, he beat the Beavers in 1972.

I appreciate the perspective but I'd argue the Beaver obsession was an AD not seeing the forest because of the trees; and, basically letting the inmates run the asylum.

In 1970 and 1971, while losing two games to the Beavers, Oregon did beat USC twice, an 8-3 UW team, and UCLA down in LA. The 1970 team had finished second in the Pac-8. Signs of things going the right way. Of course it is hindsight, but Frei clearly had put together an excellent, borderline historical, young staff. He also had brought in a bunch of talent: Fouts, Rashad, Newland, Blanchard, Tom Drougas, John McKean, Bill Drake, Lionel Coleman, Tom Graham.

Picking two head coaches that drug the program through 4 years of 11-33 after four previous years of 20-21-1 was a massive step backwards. 11-33 included only one win over a team that finished with a winning record (6-5). Its 11 wins were over teams with a combined record of 30-91 and 7 of 11 of the teams it managed to beat won 3 or fewer games).

He did go 2-2 against OSU as AD with his coaches, beating a 2-9 OSU team in 1972 and a 1-10 OSU team in 1975; but, honestly, not so much to hang one's hat on. We don't really care if the trajectory is right into the ground as long as we beat the Beavers?

Oregon football history:

242-216-28 (5 decades before Ritchey)

11-33 (4 Ritchey seasons)

4-7 (last year under Read)

40-66-4 (Brooks first decade)

51-43 (Brooks last 8 years)

116-55 (Bellotti)

173-50 (Post Bellotti)

Oregon sort of has the reputation of being horrible for most of its history; but, since 1920, if you separate the 5 Ritchey seasons plus 10 years Brooks took to dig out of it (15 years) you get:

1920-1971 plus 1987-today:

582-364-28 = 0.612

(would qualify for tied for 26th all time)

5 Ritchey seasons plus first Brooks decade:

55-106-4 = 0.345

(would qualify 136th out of 138 active all-time)

And again, I understand how boosters at the time might have pressured the young AD over the Beaver losses; but, only 2 of the 8 losses weren't close, by: 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 15, and 22. A somewhat forward looking AD should have seen talent and a trajectory; or, at least, understood there would be no guarantee a 37 year old HC with two years of position coach experience was going to be any better. In a sense I guess he was fortunate OSU finally went in the tank, but so did Oregon.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by AnotherOD

I'm just glad that we did not have to look back on the Justin Wilcox years.

2 hours ago, HDuck said:

Oregon started strong in 1987 behind a hot freshman quarterback named Bill Musgrave. 

In a bit of foreshadowing, Oregon AD Bill Byrne told officials at the Sun Bowl after the win over OSU that Oregon would guarantee the sale of “any number of seats they need, within reason.” And Sun officials acknowledged that, thanks to some untimely upsets of teams that had been considered locks for bowl bids, Oregon was a “serious candidate.”

For one day.

On Sunday morning, West Virginia (6-5) got the Sun Bowl bid against Oklahoma State (6-5). The Sun Bowl chairman explained “our decision was based on the East Coast television market.”

http://www.benzduck.com/journal/2011/3/20/circling-the-bowls-1964-1988.html

The Ducks flirtation with mediocre was a barrier.  Too many near .500 seasons in the Brooks era.

1984:  6-5

1985:  5-6

1986:  5-6

1987:  6-5

1988:  6-6

1989:  8-4 with Byrne closing the deal for the Independence Bowl

1990:  8-4

1991:  3-8

1992: 6-6

1993: 5-6

I can't remember all the circumstances of why the program wasn't able to take advantage in 1991, 1992, 1993?

I’d go Coach MB.

Brooks toiled and got us to breakthrough eventually, but MB sustained and grew. Brooks couldn’t quite bridge and build upon the Ogburn flirtation and regressed despite having Chris Miller in the 80s. I mean, he did finally progress from 89-94, but it didn’t really felt like we “belonged” until MB to me. Talk about a slow burn, wowsers!

My general recollection growing up in the 80s is we were completely dependent upon the starting QB being able to try to carry us to 6-5 to magically break through and make a bowl game. Oh how I used to dream of playing some crappy bowl game in December. The second there was a QB shoulder separation or a bad QB transition we were…terrible.