Report: Oregon football to name Mario Cristobal head coach

Ask, and ye shall receive. That was the result out of Eugene on Friday morning as Aaron Fentress of NBC Sports Northwest broke the news on Twitter that the Oregon Ducks are expected to name Mario Cristobal as the team’s next head coach.

After Willie Taggart’s departure this week, reports came out that “most” of the Oregon players wanted Cristobal to take over as head coach. The team had already named Cristobal the interim head coach for the Las Vegas Bowl next weekend. Now, it looks like that move will be permanent.

Cristobal joined Oregon last year as the co-offensive coordinator under Willie Taggart. Before Oregon, Cristobal was the offensive line coach at Alabama.

According to the report, about 70 players signed a pettion asking the athletic department to hire Cristobal as the next head coach. It’s nice to see that Rob Mullens listened to the wishes of the team, instead of going out and making a big-name hire.

The next thing to watch for will be what happens with defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt. He’s made it known that he wants to be a head coach, so it’’ll be interesting to see what he does after not getting Oregon’s head coaching gig.