Originally posted on CampusAttic.com on October 1st, 2013
Once
the University of Oregon had the greatest football mind in the country who
revolutionized the game for four years as head coach, then he took a
professional job in Pennsylvania. That was about a hundred years ago, when Hugo
Bezdek became the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Funny
how history repeats itself. Then, like now, the successor was appointed from
within the program to maintain the success of the program, considered the elite
football team on the west coast. In 1918 it was Shy Huntington taking over,
Bezdek’s former quarterback during the 1916-17 Rose Bowl season (known as the
East-West Tournament back then). Today, it’s Mark Helfrich, the offensive
coordinator for the past four seasons.
The
off-season and early season panic displayed has been equivalent to the past
too. Oh sure, Oregon is winning big right now, but what about when they play
Stanford? How will Oregon ever survive without
Chip Kelly, clearly the good times are over! Never again will Oregon be
elite, the championship window has closed. Who’s going to call the plays with Chip now in the pros?
Everybody
just chill, Helfrich has got this. It’s all good. Under Huntington, Oregon was
still dominant for the years to come under his tutelage, and went to the Rose
Bowl (East-West Tournament) again in 1920. The problem was everyone kept
clamoring for Hugo to come back, conspiring to get him to return, never truly
supporting Huntington, which eventually led to a downward spiral of the
program. On the field wasn’t a problem, off the field though the lack of
support was a killer. Please don’t let history repeat itself on the next
chapter of UO history.
Remember,
the Kelly era didn’t exactly start off with a bang. No matter how much
scrubbing is done, the memory of Oregon’s embarrassing 19-8 loss at Boise State
to start the 2009 season won’t go away. Remember how Mike Bellotti, Kelly’s
predecessor, at one point came down to the sidelines to talk to Chip during the
game thinking Kelly was unsure of what to do? Or maybe Bellotti didn’t yet realize
that it’s not the athletic director’s job to call plays.
After
the game, and in the next few weeks when Oregon’s offense struggled, there were
plenty of cries to bring back Bellotti, that Kelly clearly wasn’t ready yet for
the head coach position, that gone were the good old days of…2008? You know how
reactionary you were in 2009, admit it, don’t make us dig up the twitter
archives prove it. Well, a little patience goes a long way, starting his head
coach career being called a mistake, ending his run with so much fan undulation
that there was even, well…this.
Chip
is in the NFL, and is the talk of the league despite Philadelphia’s early
missteps, supposedly changing the game as we know it. Even in the preseason,
broadcasters and media couldn’t gush enough about the pace, the system, the
brash cavalier attitude…why it’s as if they never once watched a single Oregon
football game over the past six years! Even when the Eagles lose, all the talk
is of Chip Kelly and his system.
Different
logo, but same ol’ visor’ed Chip
Nevermind
the fact that multiple teams have been running spread variations for some time
now, that no-huddle offenses have been seen before in the NFL, that teams try
to pick up the pace to keep momentum. Last season San Francisco reached the
Super Bowl running zone reads and other spread formations. Nor the fact that so
many high schools and colleges run spread systems, resulting in the upcoming
talent available for NFL drafts mostly coming from spread-variation attacks.
The
NFL has been long overdue in getting past the “gimmick” old guard mentality and
recognizing that football has been trending this way for a long time now, if it
takes Chip to finally get the grumpy old men of the league over the hump then
so be it. Why is it only now that people act like the spread is coming to the
NFL with Chip at the lead? It’s already been there, in multiple variations,
just as it had existed in college football long before Chip Kelly emerged at
Oregon. New England with Tom Brady consistently goes 4 or 5 wide, Pittsburgh
has run pass-based spread formations, San Francisco runs zone reads, as does
Washington…so why is Chip so revolutionary to the pro game?
In
interviews during summer workouts and fall camp, Oregon players and coaches
alike stressed that the system was so finely tuned that it is basically
automatic, whether it’s Kelly or Helfrich at the helm, or even with no coach in
the lead it could still function. That would make sense, as much of the genius
in the zone read spread system is its simplicity. Don’t overthink things, keep
it basic, be very good at select things without making it complex. If it’s
simple, why does it take a supposed genius to be at the helm in order to
operate it? The whole play card on the sidelines thing–how many plays can
possibly be determined from Scott Van Pelt’s bald head? Probably not in the
same depth as a typical college/pro playbook.
If
the coaches who spent the last six years studying under Chip know the system,
and the players who have been there for several years know the system…then the
obvious consensus shouldn’t be Chicken Little shouting the sky is falling
because Chip is gone, but a relaxed confidence knowing that since everyone
involved knows what they’re doing, things will be just fine.
Hey,
whiny Oregon fan! Stop complaining if we don’t score on every single play. I
got this, chill. (www.sbnation.com)
Helfrich
is far from an empty visor. He’s been molded to take this position, to keep the
train rolling, just like Huntington a century ago. Helfrich has spent four
years studying directly under Chip every nuance of the system; consider it as
Helfrich graduating Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelors of Science Degree in
Spreadology. Chip won’t be there to call plays you say? So what, Helfrich and
Frost both have picked his brain every step of the way for four years.
This
isn’t like Rich Brooks taking over a tattered program in 1977 amidst the worst
decade in the history of the program, lacking proper facilities or funding and
few play-makers, a program barely earning two wins a year. Today the deck is
stacked in Oregon’s favor because of the long-term efforts of Brooks and
athletic director Bill Byrne in the 1980s, Mike Bellotti’s unprecedented run of
success in the 90s and 2000’s, and tutoring Kelly–transforming the Oregon
culture while simultaneously investing in world class facilities to draw the
best talent to Eugene.
The
cupboard is far from bare, Oregon could have no coach and the talent alone on
this team would still be bowl eligible. With the premier coaching staff Oregon
still possesses post-Chip, anything less than a BCS-at-large bid would be a
disappointment, barring of course catastrophic across-the-board injuries
similar to the 1991 or 2007 Oregon teams…but so far so good, with Oregon
rolling along ranked #2 in every poll.
When
Brooks took over Oregon football had very little, Helfrich today has been
handed the cushiest position in the country.
Chip
lost his first game at the helm, so Helfrich is already one step ahead in that
respect. Yes, Nicholls State wasn’t exactly Boise State, yet the point remains
valid. In fact the only Oregon coaches to win their first game since the 1940s
are Mike Bellotti and Mark Helfrich, not bad company being associated with the
winning-est coach in program history.
People’s
memories of Kelly the infallible supreme leader is a revisionist historical
viewpoint, forgetting the way 2009 began, barely surviving games vs. Utah and
Purdue surviving on defense and other-worldly play from Walter Thurmond III to
carry the team, or the way in big games over his four years his teams only
sometimes delivered. Sure, it’s tough to finish much better than how the rest
of the Kelly era played out (46-7 overall record), but it was a rough
transition from Bellotti to Kelly at first, the Kelly to Helfrich baton pass
looks to be much smoother.
Yet
when Oregon rampaged over Nicholls State to open the season on August 31st,
much of the consensus was that of disappointment, that it should have been
more, that Oregon didn’t look as good as they should have if Chip was still
there.
A little perspective please on Helfrich’s first game…
-66-3 was the fifth highest scoring mark in school history
-Oregon set a new single game yardage mark in school history (771)
-It was the first time three different players rushed for 100+ yards
-It was the first time in school history Oregon ran for over 500 yards in a single game
-66-3 was the fifth highest scoring mark in school history
-Oregon set a new single game yardage mark in school history (771)
-It was the first time three different players rushed for 100+ yards
-It was the first time in school history Oregon ran for over 500 yards in a single game
Chip
never accomplished those, and Chip coached Oregon over FCS teams too. Nobody
had done any of those things, except Helfrich’s team. Compare those
accomplishments to Chip’s first game, where the team only scored eight points
and didn’t even get a single first down until the third quarter.
And
in the time since the Nicholls State game? Blowout wins over Virginia,
Tennessee, and Cal, all of them barely presenting a small speed bump as Oregon
rolled by.
Yet
for those in the stands or watching on tv with friends for the 2013 season so
far, has the general consensus been that of exuberance over the record-setting
performance, or frustration that Oregon wasn’t doing more? Are our expectations
really that high that anything less than absolute perfection leads to calls
that Helfrich isn’t doing it as well as Kelly would have? Helfrich isn’t Chip,
and Huntington wasn’t Bezdek, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
So
where does it go from here? The next game obviously. How about instead of
hand-wringing over hoping Chip someday
comes back or second-guessing everything
Helfrich does if results are not 100% up to fan-perceived Kelly standards, just enjoy the ride. That’s
the point. Players and coaches come and go. Oregon will win games, and lose
games too, but with the advantages now in place it will be a lot more of the
predecessor than the latter. It wasn’t that long ago when it was simply good
enough to just win the game.
But
who will call the plays if Chip’s not there? Scott Frost, who spent the last
four years learning Kelly’s system.
But who will lead the team without Chip? Mark Helfrich, who spent the last four years learning Kelly’s system.
But who will blah blah blah…doesn’t matter, the coaches and players have spent years learning exactly how this system functions. They got this.
But who will lead the team without Chip? Mark Helfrich, who spent the last four years learning Kelly’s system.
But who will blah blah blah…doesn’t matter, the coaches and players have spent years learning exactly how this system functions. They got this.
Everybody chill, Mark Helfrich has got this. After all, he’s a block off the ol’ chip.
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