Important decisions are being made in the athletic department offices.
How to salvage a good recruiting class in the face of coaching turnover.
Who will call the plays?
What will be the vehicle for the transmission of play calls? (Hand signals, message board or, my favorite, carrier pigeon?) How do we replace the two graduate assistants who were responsible for…something?
Yes, yes, big doings indeed. However, the important business is already underway. The sides have been chosen in the greatest online message board standoff in off season history. Here is how it is playing out.
Team Hellfire: This is the team that will tell you that no matter what record the Ducks have next year, it could not have been bettered by Chip Kelly. 7-6? ”Nothing could have been done about it.” ”It was injuries.” ”Who could have predicted the circumstances that led to defeats at the hands of Oregon State and Colorado? ”Give him a chance to recruit his own players.”
This will be accompanied by one of a selection of arrogant completion phrases: ”Move on,” ”Get over it,” and, because some people need to prove their manhood, “Period.”
“Mark Helfrich is Vince Lombardi. Period.”
Opposing Team Hellfire is:
Team Chips Ahoy: Coach Helfrich cannot win. If anything good happens, its because of Chip. A Heisman for Colt Lyerla? It’s because of Chip. A national championship season during which we knock off the usual Pac-12 suspects, Alabama, and the Pittsburgh Steelers? It was because of Chip.
Little heard from in this “fray to overheat 10,000 motherboards” is:
Team Rational Thinking: Let’s face it, being a sports fan has little to do with rational thought. Jerry Seinfeld said it best, “With free agency and player movement the way it is in baseball, we’re rooting for clothing.” Thank goodness being reasonable doesn’t get in the way of passionate conversation about the designated hitter (I hate it.), the way pass interference is called (Too tight. Make it be glaring or swallow your whistle.) and one and done college basketball (It’s hurting both the pro and the college game.)
That said, let’s take rational thought out for a spin with regard to the head coach of our beloved Ducks (about whom or how we love to learn). All we really know about him so far is that he seems to be a fine fellow. We are clinging to the hope, as expressed by former QB Nate Costa, that Helfrich was a vital cog in the offensive juggernaut that we have become.
So what ought we expect out of the ’13-’14 Ducks? Pick your message board team and let your vitriolic fingers fly. After all, isn’t that part of the fun?
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Kim Hastings is a 1984 graduate of Northwest Christian College. He cut his journalistic teeth as sports editor of a paper in his home town of Fortuna, CA, and, later as a columnist for the Longview Daily News in Longview, WA.
He saw his first Oregon game in 1977 and never missed a home game from 1981 until a bout with pneumonia cut his streak short in 1997. He was one of the proud 3200 on a bitterly cold night in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1989 for the Independence Bowl, and continues to be big supporter of Oregon sports. He is an active participant on the various Oregon Ducks messageboards as “TacomaDuck.”