I see what you’re saying here and I do appreciate what Ernie has done. I don’t think he should be fired for what he’s done this year. I don’t think he should be fired for the peaks and valleys that have happened in the past. I think if you look at his body of work, he’s done a good job.

I also dislike the “well 10 years ago we were terrible, so we should be happy with what we have” argument . I hear this a lot when it comes to football. I think setting goals that are a stretch are great. Take my company for example…if you show during a year that you can achieve a certain level of performance, the following year you set goals to improve upon that. If you perform at the same exact level as the year before, well then you are just achieving expectations. If you drop in performance from the year before, you need to improve. Someone isn’t fired for this right away, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t rather hire someone that will exceed expectations and grow every year.

That was long winded…basically, if Ernie stays I’ll be okay with that. At the same time, I understand if the fan base, the donors, and the administration decides that we can achieve higher goals with a different coach. I don’t know that I consider that to be greed as much as I consider it to be ambition.

And great post by the way…

It was the first year that the game had coaching contracts in it. In order to not be fired, you had to meet certain goals. I’m one of those people that rarely played the actual football game and enjoyed playing “franchise mode” and simulating the games. I also liked to start with the worst team I could find and build it to a powerhouse. What would almost invariably happen is that I would have one freak good year (good senior class, easy schedule, a few games bounce my way) and I’d win the conference and maybe my bowl game too. The following contract expectations would then be something like “win the division 2 of the next three years”… except my seniors graduated while my schedule and luck regressed to the norm (i.e. got harder and worse). The fact that I was having the best recruiting classes in school history and that by the end of those three years had turned the program in to one of the better programs in the conference (when six years earlier they had just moved up from I-AA) was irrelevant because I didn’t actually win the conference two out three years. The reality was that the peaks were just that… peaks… which is to say that “reality” was somewhere below that level, but I was held to the standard of the peaks.

Oregon has been to the elite eight twice in the past decade, but it is not an elite eight level program… or to put it another way we’re definitely not one of the top eight programs in the country. We’re not top 16 either. Without actually doing the leg work, I’m not so certain we’re even top 32 (although we gotta be pretty close if not). Overall, the programs success averages out about were it should, and is definitely on an upward trend, despite this season. If we haven’t made another step up by the time the current recruits are leaving, then it’s time to look for another coach, especially if you’re not certain you can land somebody clearly better than Ernie.

Let him have a couple of years to see what the new facilities do for recruiting. Ernie has been associated with the U of O for a long time (since I was there!). He’s always represented Oregon well and his program is an asset, on and off the field.

Besides, I never want to get all whiny assed like the band wagon USC fans who put up a www.fireyourcoach website after every loss.

Keep in mind that I’m really more the pointy-ball type though…

The Gordon Gecko speech is more than tired. Over time some people seem to lose sight of the fact that it was meant as an ironic espousal of a morally and spiritually bankrupt philosophy.

But I don’t think it’s greed at play here that brings the Turk for Ernie. Ernie is not in trouble because the elite 8 is no longer good enough; he’s in trouble because too many have come to the realization that over time, the methods that have produced such peaks are unsound and not likely to replicate or produce better success. I don’t think Kent is expected to maintain or better elite 8 performance. I think people want to see a program that is fundamentally more sound, where elite 8 runs are more likely than the losing seasons that happen two-thirds of the time.

I don’t think the bar has been raised so much. I don’t think that elite 8 runs no longer thrill the faithful. I don’t think people are just greedy for more. I think they’re simply coming to terms with the greater reality of the nature of Kent’s success, and finding it something less than genuine.

By midway through the second paragraph I understood why you quoted Gecko and where you were going. I share your appreciation for the educational role of college athletics—a role that seems to be more discounted by guys like Kilkenny. But Kent is mostly in trouble not because boosters are greedy for more, but rather because they suspect that what they have has been overvalued—not unlike the real estate bubble. I’m not convinced people want more from Kent, as much as it is that they’re coming to believe they’ll get less from him in the future.

The present escalation of big-time college athletics is not sustainable. I think we’re nearly maxed out in terms of what fans and donors and corporate America are willing and able to pay. At some point, both demand and revenues will fall. The budget expenses, however, will keep going up. A shakedown is coming.

I’m sorry to see Kent on his way out. (I think he’ll be fired by Pat.) My own favorite memory of Kent was when he poked his head into Mac Court last March during the Pac-10 wrestling championships and my former UO teammate, Leonard Simon, who knew Kent’s family from Rockford, went over to chat with him about the wrestling situation. Kent stated that wrestling belonged at Oregon, and that you should never turn your back on these sons of bitches. (The SOBs he was referring to were Kilkenny and gang.) He was right on both counts.

though Ben Braun never achieved at Cal what Ernie Kent did at Oregon, and Cal was far more relevant than Oregon before either coach started in the mid-90’s, i still think there’s an important point to consider when talking about letting Kent go:

“who are you going to get that is better than him?”

in our case, Mike Montgomery was just sitting out there, doing TV work, so we got pretty lucky. most of the other coaches we might have gotten from mid- and low-majors probably wouldn’t have been nearly so worth it. i’m admittedly less familiar with your case, and if Oregon can go out and lure Mark Few or someone of that caliber away, i think it absolutely makes sense. but Kent is good enough that, to put it succinctly, “you could do a lot worse”. if Kilkenny pulls the trigger, Kent’s replacement absolutely has to be an upgrade.

But the one thing that bugs the hell out of me that the Ernie defenders never bring up is that he has been terrible at developing his “Big men”

And I can’t help but think that any decent college coach could have taken those two groups of players as far as the elite 8. In fact You could even make the argument that a better coach could have gotten past Kansas and/or Florida with those players. Not to mention getting at least out of the first round in ’03 and ’08

Somehow I find it oddly comforting to learn that Ernie has been well aware of the forces lining up against him. It makes him seem less like a lamb led to slaughter.

As for my school allegiance? Not that it should matter, but I’m an Oregon alum, letterman and season ticket holder since Musgrave arrived. I started going to UO games when Blanchard was playing. The Gary Payton avatar was something I created when I first posted on Building the Dam—which was how I came to join this network.

But I was hedging away from joining this blog because, well for lots of reason. One being the name of this sight is really really stupid. But then I read this post. This post is excellent and I agree with what you, OP, is saying here about Kent. I joined this sight because of this post. I can give no bigger compliment.