Fire Bellotti

but can’t they still redshirt him again next year?

…and I don’t think he’s ready to be a head coach.

As far as Petersen, he’s a good coach. But, as Dave just said, what makes him all that great in the Pac-10? I am also of the opinion that in game coaching isn’t all that important. You must motivate and recruit. Oh, game plan can be huge. But there are very few coaches that are lights out at that, and you can’t think that you’ll get a coach like that.

Because of that, I also think that stability is incredibly important. For every time you fire someone to get better, and there’s a success story, there are 5 failure stories.

Bellotti is a very good head football coach, a good recruiter, and a good motivator. I don’t think we should throw that all away for a pipe dream that could more easily fail than succeed.

get away with giving him just one passing option and letting him do the rest on his legs

In particular, the fact that our defense has been so atrocious, causing us to lose games we may have otherwise won, has caused some of the frustration. Pre-season there were some unknowns, but the defense was allegedly solid.

ha. outstanding.

and the post.

True. Dumbing down the conversation is MY job. #$^&ers.

This entire post screams far too loud, “easier said than done.”

I would truly like to hear about your experiences at other programs there, what were they like, how did they contrast from us? This is a serious question, I would like to hear about this as it intrigues me what you mean.

I disagree with your conclusion that Bellotti dictates everything that goes wrong in the program and that everyone else is to blame for what goes right. Bellotti is a good coach. We are downright spoiled. When we start seeing 8-4 seasons, bearing in mind with a first year (not to mention 3rd string) QB leading us, we are completely losing sight of, well, how much worse it could be. We go to a bowl EVERY YEAR. The Huskies, one of the formerly cockiest programs in the nation, cannot say that. The Cougs, see above, ditto. If you told a Fusky in 1991 that they would go 0-11 in 2008, it’d seem absurd. We are not even close to what the ’90s Husky program was, which makes it all the more disheartening to see fans with such ridiculous standards.

Mike Bellotti does not call the defense, and did not for the first 5 or so games of the year. Nick Alliotti does. Direct blame there if you want.

Mike Bellotti does not call the offense. He did not call it during the game, the Boise State game, the USC game, nor the Cal game. Chip Kelly does. The lack of offense in these games was not Chip Kelly’s bad. We had to run the Wild Cat Offense, we had a first year QB starting against the most dominant program in the last 7 years of the Pac-10 conference, and among the worst weather conditions at a football game in recent memory, respectively.

Mike Bellotti’s sorry that his players can’t defend play action and that he can’t control the weather.

1. What other program(s) have the boosters and overall financial support, that we’re fortunate enough to have?
2. What other program(s) have the athletic facilities, that we’re fortunate enough to have?
3. What other program(s) have the fans (that travel home & away), that we’re fortunate enough to have?"

 So are you saying no other school has our level of boosters, ability to travel, and athletic facilities. First of all lets ignore that the 1st two points are likely highly related, but do you have any data or sources to back up these claims. It’s easy to say, look at Oregon’s relationship with Phil Knight, but he is only one person, a major person, but still only one. Don’t other schools have lots of less knights that more than make up for it. I would be surprised to learn that USC has less money coming into their program. What about major programs in other BCS conferences. If what you say is true, how give us some other details, like how much they are bigger.

On the travel argument, I reiterate the need to find sources for your claims. My guess is that I think this was more true in 2002 (when expectations going into the season weren’t as high as where we ended up), but I thought more recently Oregon has not traveled well to bowls (when expectations were higher). If you except this premise is fans traveling something that contributes to a teams success or something that is a consequence of a teams success. To be honest, it’s probably a little of both, but it would be foolish to simply count it as a resource without thinking about how we get that resource.

Finally, you make no reference to what the ducks have going against it, small boring town, not a "traditional" power house, crappy whether, not right next to fertile recruiting grounds are just a few right off the top of my head. You’re argument makes it sound like we have all the qualities a program could want for prolonged success, when that just ain’t true.

With the resources Oregon Football has at its disposal, the Ducks should legitimately contend for not only a Pac-10 title every season, but a BCS bowl berth.

 Ridiculous, the number of teams that have legitimately contended for a BCS berth (defined as finishing in the top 15 of BCS standings) every year for the past 6 years (I choose this because Oregon arrived on the BCS scene in 2002) is 0 (go here for the BCS standings), the only one to do it more than 3 times is USC (I just eyeballed that so I may be a little off). Maybe we should count USC’s presence in our conference as a negative because they are the most consistently good team.

The fact is there are like 10 teams that have finished in the top 15 twice in the last 6 years. I love Oregon, but your expectations are out of whack. The fact that Oregon teams can still be in the running 6 weeks into the season (like last year and Clemon’s senior year [I think]) is a testament to what Bellotti does

"The University of Oregon needs to adopt [a winning attitude on campus], and they need to do it immediately."

How does Bellotti institute this? He can’t demand more people shirk their studies to prepare for a pre-game rally? Is that what we want anyways? How does a campus winning attitude impact the team exactly?

"That season we ended up going to the now defunct “Seattle Bowl,” where we got beat by Wake Forrest."

A bowl, if I recall, we did not travel well to even though it was close by (part of the reason it is now defunct).

Reasons why most of your coach choices are ridiculous:

Mike Leach – Texas Tech – Why would he want to make only a small move up (outsiders would proably say lateral, and Big12 fans would say down) to coach in an area he has no recruiting connections with?
Ron Zook – Illinois – see above

Todd Graham – Tulsa – it’s a move up, but the recruiting problem still looms, plus I’m not ready to believe some success at Tulsa means he’s ready to make the jump
Kyle Whittingham – Utah – One of two good suggestions
And then there’s the obvious;
Jeff Tedford – Cal – Nope not this one, he just got new facilities, he’s not going to bolt
Chris Peterson – Boise State – The other good suggestion

"But when you sit back for a second and digest these fine candidates, are they better then what we have?"

Wha wha what! I did not expect logic at this point. Logic now? seems late, but ok I’ll go along

"I feel Bellotti is a great coach, and a good leader for our young men."

Sounds like a great coach to me

"The real issue lies within two aspects of the program;
1. Defensive Coordinator – Nick Aliotti"

Yup –I have only seen one person suggest we keel Aliotti on ATQ, and he/she was a Beaver fan, I hope this is all leading up to a good and reasonably novel suggestion.

"2. Overall support from the (academic side) University"

Novel check, good damn.

What does this mean? Should the statistics department be helping him figure out opposing coaches tendencies, should the marketing department be spending time creating the perfect recruiting pitch?

Okay, so how do we fix the above mentioned problems – it’s simple;
1. AD to Head Coach: “Mike, here’s the deal; I know Nick is your best friend, and you’ve been together forever, but he’s holding us back. We need to replace him, this off-season, or we need to replace the whole coaching staff, including you.”

Yup – you will get no disagreement

2. AD to University President: “Dave, here’s the deal; I need more support from your side of the university. The athletic department donated $10 million last year to you guys, and we’re still not be supported by professors, and most department chairs. I/we would like to launch a program, that the athletic department is going to pay, to start getting everyone on board. I’d like to inter-mingle athletics and academics in a good spirited, fun way, where we can all support the university.”

What problem does this solve and how does it solve it? Honestly this comes off like you are suggesting professors grade football players easier, but I don’t think that’s what you mean. I just have no idea what you mean.