Talk about a perfect storm - an injured Beavers squad whose coach quit mid-season and whose interim coach had a kid that week (lol @ game planning) marches into Autzen to take on a healthy, highly motivated Ducks team. I thought for a minute Taggart was going to go for 100. instead, he pulls out the raincoats in the ultimate "you did not beat us. we took our ball and went home last year. but that team of quitters does not exist anymore. deal with it" troll. I literally had a friend text me "will making the potential recruits stay out in the cold for hours watching this bloodbath be a bad thing?" as a fan, just beautiful.
Oden2 wrote:I still don't think Chip returns to college with how much he hates recruiting
thought he'd take an offensive coordinator position in the NFL instead of retreating back to college. he had two chances at the NFL. it is what it is. reminds me a bit of Eric Mussleman, who the Beavers should totally hire. although Clownzano, really being "more of a Tinkle guy", would disagree.
Oden2 wrote:Supposedly its Beau Baldwin to the Beavs. As an Oregon fan I think this is a FANTASTIC hire but I'm an outsider.
and as a Ducks fan, I think that's a terrible hire. Riley 3.0!
in all seriousness, Baldwin is great offensive coach. some Ducks fans threw his name around last season as a darkhorse candidate for the Oregon job. as a Nevada fan, I was bummed to hear he was the runner up to Jay Norvell.
Oden2 wrote:Chip officially goes to ucla. Very shocking, I didn't think ucla had the muster to land that kind of coach.
UCLA has some high level booster trying to do to UCLA what Phil Knight did to Oregon - literally to the point they hired the same firm to copy Oregon's facilities.
Norm2953 wrote:It looks like Chip is going to hire a number of coaches with Oregon connections. Chip likely is his
own OC but Mark Helfrich is going to be the QB's coach. Cal looks to lose many of their assistants
if Beau Baldwin gets the OSU job for couple of their coaches likely will be going to UCLA to be with
Chip. Chip's coaching staff might look a lot like the Duck's staff from 2012 and it will be interesting
to see how much they can win with greater access to talent in Southern California.
will he?
Allioti is retired.
Coach Cam is done and still has ties to Oregon.
Frost would have to turn down the Nebraska and Florida jobs to get a demotion in order to work under Chip again.
at this point in his career, Greatwood seems like the loyal type that would likely stay under Wilcox versus jumping ship after one season.
Pellum is trash.
Radcliffe still has a job coaching non-football sports at Oregon.
so who does that leave?
Azzinaro is a lock.
Helfrich could return, but that would involve relocating his family, giving up potentially millions in Nike money, and accepting the fact that he is not cut out to be a head coach.
Neal might return for a DC gig. but if you are Kelly, is that someone you really target?
Osborne might want to return to coaching...?
Oden2 wrote:In a way ucla is pretty low pressure as he can probably get away with 7 and 8 win seasons there.
UCLA is losing the Rosen one and expectations in Chips first year are 7-8 wins. good luck with that.
honestly, given the choice between Chip coming back or retaining Leavitt, I'd choose Leavitt. as others have pointed out, Oregon's offense isn't exclusive to Oregon anymore. this means we're back to having the team with the best players and the coaching staff that can best adapt their schemes to the talent they have being what decides wins and losses. that's what's so great about the current coaching staff and the massive uptick in recruiting. a ten year old could have beat the Beavers today calling nothing but running plays for Freeman because the talent gap on the offensive and defensive lines was so big. and the best part is, recruiting is sustainable whereas always coming up with an innovative offense is not so easy.
in a sport with 128? teams, his offense can still work. this isn't the pros where DCs have figured out all of Chip's nuances, or where Kaepernick can go from a Super Bowl level quarterback to unemployed in two seasons because 29 DCs were able to figure out how to stop the pistol formation. I figure Chip's UCLA tenure will go down one of two ways:
very unlikely - Chip is completely flexible, innovates the game for a second time, and continues his early 2010s success
most likely - Chip lives or dies by the talent he recruits. just look at a grad transfer like Vernon Adams being the difference between Oregon potentially being a playoff team and being a team that fires their head coach a year after playing for a championship. lucky for UCLA fans, Sam Bradford has no college eligibility left.
still, it all starts with building a staff. his UCLA contract was cheap as far as market value goes. so if UCLA is serious about winning, it's on them to pony up for a top tier supporting staff like Oregon did with Taggart. the concerning part for UCLA fans is that Chip's tenure as a psuedo-GM ended horribly. he really doesn't have an extensive network of assistant coaches at the college level, and he has been out of the college game for half a decade. by no means a lock to fail - just a harder position to be in.
best of luck to him - and by that I mean I hope he's a big enough thorn in USC's side that there isn't a dominant team in the south when Herbert peaks.
