All righty then, the last vestiges of the Taggart era are now removed. Hopefully the program won't have any interruption in their great recruiting. Or not too many of them backing out of their commitments.

I think a lot of us want to see a head coach and a dynamic offensive coordinator working hand in glove. 

My dream is a great QB (is Ty Thompson that guy? I'm not sold. eed to keep the quality offensive lineman.  And big target receivers and big bruising RB's running roughshod.

We tried to warn Florida State fans and were ignored.

We will see if Miami fans do the same.

What became Cristobal clear this season is after one-year as co-offensive coordinator and 4-years as head coach...Justin Herbert made Cristobal look better than vice versa.

We were so happy to have some structure, clarity and discipline take over the program, we didn't see the looming decline in offense because Herbert disguised it well.

I am not talking about a Cristobal critic favorite...play calling. That is only one aspect of it. For me how players were or were not used; decisions when the team was playing poorly; game management, timeouts and so on.

Cristobal was a buzz kill to the Oregon offense and turned what was once a difficult place to play, Autzen Stadium, into a stadium where a Chuck E Cheese birthday party was more fun.

Last edited by DucksReign (12/06/2021 10:39 am)

Honestly, I'm glad Mario is gone.  I never thought I'd say that a month ago.  But I saw a team not ready to play 2 out of 3 weeks.  I saw an undisciplined team shut down repeated multiple drives, and extend opponent's drives, with silly / stupid / careless penalties.  I saw unsportsmanlike conduct penalties -- I can forgive those from a frosh early in the year but by the time you've been in the program for several months you should have the professionalism instilled in you that we are here to win, not to do stupid stuff, and everything needs to be focused, focused, focused on what helps us win.

I was ready for Helfrich to go because the team had lost the discipline and the focus of Chip's days.  Absolutely stupid stuff.  And Mario lost me.

I watched AB completely baffled and clueless as to what to do against Utah's defense.  He was obviously shell-shocked.  On 3rd and 13 he's dumping the ball off 3 yards over the middle.  And he's just eating sacks.  And either the coaches that we had couldn't scheme something to break the pressure and put him in a position to succeed or he wasn't doing what they were telling him.  But anyone could see he was shell-shocked and it wasn't going to get better.  

Other coaches say, "Hey, time to give the frosh a chance, maybe he'll have better vision."  Lincoln Riley did that against Texas.  Saban did it with Tua.  We just sent AB out to get pounded over and over again.  

I'm glad Mario is gone.  I could have tolerated poor clock management which cost us the Stanford game.  You'd think after a loss like that they'd discuss it and learn from it and improve.  I could tolerate never running Herbert because you want to protect his pro career. It might cost you some games but top level recruits will love you for that.  I could tolerate other dubious play calling because I figured you hope the coach will learn.

But I can't stand the indiscipline, I can't stand running out a team that doesn't care and is more interested in how many stars are after their name.  I want a team that has the pride to always compete.  I want a team full of Noah Sewells and Travis Dyes, guys who play their heart out even when some other guys hardly show up.  If the coach can't get that, then he's either recruiting the wrong guys or he's slack in discipline or he's sapping their desire in some other way.  It's on the coach when a team doesn't care.  

Yes, Mario has left the building.  I liked him.  But to be honest, I felt sick when I heard we were making him a huge offer because I didn't believe in him anymore.  I still like him.  He's the kind of guy people like and that's part of why he's a great recruiter.  I don't think he's been very forthright on this and that may hurt him because his recruiting shtick is that he's a straight shooter.  The way he left Oregon isn't as dishonest as the way Taggart did, but there's a lot of players probably feeling burned right now.  That will be used by recruiting rivals -- "Yeah, he says he's a straight shooter but the guys who he recruited to Oregon don't think so any more.  Did you hear what he said when he was given his contract?  And four years later, he's gone."

I don't wish him badly.  I think he did ok for us.  It's not like Taggart, I wanted him to lose badly at FSU, and got my wish.  I think I'd be happy if he won an ACC championship some time.  But that doesn't mean I wanted him to stay.  I'm glad he's gone.  Good luck to him, and good luck to us.  If we get a coach who isn't quite so good at recruiting but can actually motivate the players and instill the focus and discipline needed to succeed, I think we'll be happier with the results.  It's always more fun to root for an overachieving team than an underachieving team.  Hopefully we've at least flipped the narrative that you can't recruit to Oregon and we'll be able to recruit a competitive level of talent as well.

DuckInTheMountains wrote:

Sorry if that sounds like a rant. 

All good!  It just goes to show that multiple things can all be true at once.

The team was micromanged by a guy who developed a roster of players who micromanaged their positions and never really gelled as a team.  Great players on D like Sewell and McKinley who were overshadowed by KT, really good runners in Verdell and Dye but had to grind out every yard as defenses stacked the box and taxed our o-line.  The nicest thing to say about the QB is nothing (as a player).  

Miami is getting a good dude who can rustle up some talent and let them do their thing to the tune of an 8-10 win season every year.  But he is asked to be more- Howard Schnellenberger 2.0.  Time will tell if this is boom or bust, my guess is that after 3-4 years it will be a collective "meh."

 

Ah, a new member.  

He agrees with me so has passed the vetting process, as far as I'm concerned!

Welcome!

DuckInTheMountains wrote:

Sorry if that sounds like a rant. 

I liked reading your long post too.