If you had to fire one coach on the coaching staff right now, who would it be and why?

[dthomas=ddixon]

The OC blame game just always feels too convenient. I don’t know the inner workings of a football staff but it seems obvious that a scheme and individual play calls during a game are always at the mercy of the player execution and ability. Is the OC responsible for our OL having poor technique and constantly whiffing blocks or is that the fault of Terry? Is Mehringer, the TE coach until this year (TEs have been pretty damn good under him, btw), responsible for Moore sailing passes against OSU or his overall inconsistencies?

Just seems like the success of the OC is heavily dependent on the ability of the position coaches to coach up their position groups. And clearly there are position groups all over this team that are severely lacking. Mehringer certainly deserves some blame but all of it? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

[SuperDuck]

Personally, I don't think we've seen enough work from the Coordinators to make a long term judgment.

There's no doubt (in my mind) that Mehringer was the reason for our struggles against BSU and Okie State. Telegraphing plays by the QB stance is inexcusable!!! If we end up one loss from getting into the CFP, we can blame him.

Regarding everyone else, there are going to be new faces in new places every year, from coaches to players, trainers, facing new teams with new coaches and new schemes, etc. We're going through a transition period right now, and it's not an easy thing to do to replace 2 coordinators of the caliber of Stein and Tosh. That's especially true when last year our defense was very good (except against Indiana in the playoffs), and the offense was averaging 38+ per game.

We have no choice but to allow these guys to get their feet under them and move forward one week at a time.

Personally, I think the Ducks will beat USC. Their defense has been awful so far this year, with the exception of Fresno State, who they shutout.

After USC we get a bye week and some time for some guys to heal and get back on the field. I think we'll be close to mid-season form by then.

My .02 cents.

[SuperDuck]

The OC blame game just always feels too convenient. I don’t know the inner workings of a football staff but it seems obvious that a scheme and individual play calls during a game are always at the mercy of the player execution and ability. Is the OC responsible for our OL having poor technique and constantly whiffing blocks or is that the fault of Terry? Is Mehringer, the TE coach until this year (TEs have been pretty damn good under him, btw), responsible for Moore sailing passes against OSU or his overall inconsistencies?

Just seems like the success of the OC is heavily dependent on the ability of the position coaches to coach up their position groups. And clearly there are position groups all over this team that are severely lacking. Mehringer certainly deserves some blame but all of it? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Okay, I agree. It's not ALL on the OC. Sometimes things do run down the ranks.

[pezsez1]

I agree he doesn't deserve all of the blame, but over the first two games he mostly showed that he simply carried all of our problems from last year into this season. We simply need better coaching than that. And then when you start having all of these issues with all of these players/groups underperforming, and the vanilla playcalling, and just not looking prepared at all at the start of games, then the answer of "which one coaching change" might do the most good becomes clear, at least to me. Oregon has a systemic problem. Is it more likely that everyone is bad at their jobs, or that their leader isn't putting them in positions to be successful? I mean how many of us have had bad managers who never should have been hired for their positions? It's a pretty common thing whether we're talking about football or any other field.

That said, there is zero chance that Lanning will tarmac anyone. He's repeatedly shown too much sense of loyalty for that. So we just need to get through this season and hope for the best. Maybe everyone grows up at lightning speed and we pull a rabbit out of the hat. Fingers crossed!

[ducksrock]

Ive gotta agree with PezSays, on this one...Lots of problems on this team to fix, but offensive play calling has been predictable and "whoever" thinks that a 1st down pass play shouldn't be utilized now and then, we'll I dont know what to tell ya...Seems no defense truly needs to watch for signs of pass or run play calls on 1st down...Its almost always a run play...
If that run play doesn't result in a substantial gain, we are behind the chains...OVER AND OVER AGAIN...

Not true, sometimes first down is a screen.

More times than not, just saying...

[rockthief]

Is anybody up for a quarterback draw once in awhile? I don't remember seeing one lately.

[pezsez1]

I feel like they've promised Dante they won't make him run. Otherwise we would have done that more often to help uncork the offense. Nothing throws a defense into disarray like a mobile QB.

[dthomas=ddixon]

I agree he doesn't deserve all of the blame, but over the first two games he mostly showed that he simply carried all of our problems from last year into this season. We simply need better coaching than that. And then when you start having all of these issues with all of these players/groups underperforming, and the vanilla playcalling, and just not looking prepared at all at the start of games, then the answer of "which one coaching change" might do the most good becomes clear, at least to me. Oregon has a systemic problem. Is it more likely that everyone is bad at their jobs, or that their leader isn't putting them in positions to be successful? I mean how many of us have had bad managers who never should have been hired for their positions? It's a pretty common thing whether we're talking about football or any other field.

That said, there is zero chance that Lanning will tarmac anyone. He's repeatedly shown too much sense of loyalty for that. So we just need to get through this season and hope for the best. Maybe everyone grows up at lightning speed and we pull a rabbit out of the hat. Fingers crossed!

If he “carried over all our problems from last year” doesn’t it follow that those problem didn’t generate with Mehringer? It strongly suggests that the issues are systemic, as you say, which you can argue he should have fixed but I don’t think an OC has that much power. If the issues are things like an entire position group (OL) being poorly coached, what can Mehringer actually do? If anything, something like that forces him to be vanilla and predictable in order to keep the OL from being totally exposed.

So he’s darned if he does, darned if he doesn’t. If he opens up the offense and our OLs poor play sabotages every play, he gets blamed for bad playcalling. If he caters the play calls to a fundamentally poor OL and a QB who confidence shatters the second things don’t go perfectly, he also gets blamed for running a predictable offense.

And the fact that these issues have persisted through 3 different OCs also points to systemic issues. Especially since the previous two OCs seem to be pretty darn good HCs. So if Mehringer responsible for recognizing and fixing all these issues? I guess you can make that argument but the other coaches, directly responsible for the poor play of these positions, are conspicuously absent from the blame game.

And ultimately, isn’t the guy who hired all these coaches who everyone wants fired far more responsible? I don’t get the logic of wanting every OC canned while giving Lanning and all the position coaches a pass.

[UofDuck]

I’m amazed how quickly people are going for the jugular on Coach Meh. He’s been the OC for 3 whole games. Especially Pez who gave Alliotti a 10 year pass when our defenses were regularly sub-standard. It’s a double standard.

Is our OC any good? I have no idea yet. It’s only been 3 games. At least give him a chance to work it out. Besides, OK State might end up being really good AFTER they had an early season ugly game. I suspect their fan base sounded like ours after their first game loss to Tulsa. Now they want to kiss the coaches ring. So typical of fans these days.

As typical, I think our OLine is slow to develop, but they will and when they do our offense will improve in lock-step. I’m not sure why OLine play takes so long to gel every year, but it seems to.

Lastly, I’m far more worried about our defense. I see massive deficiencies in a very experienced defensive squad and I’m not sure why. We just don’t seem to move well. We are often off on coverage assignments and we seem to be a few steps behind on a lot of plays. That is troubling.

[bellsduck]

I’m amazed how quickly people are going for the jugular on Coach Meh. He’s been the OC for 3 whole games. Especially Pez who gave Alliotti a 10 year pass when our defenses were regularly sub-standard. It’s a double standard.

Is our OC any good? I have no idea yet. It’s only been 3 games. At least give him a chance to work it out. Besides, OK State might end up being really good AFTER they had an early season ugly game. I suspect their fan base sounded like ours after their first game loss to Tulsa. Now they want to kiss the coaches ring. So typical of fans these days.

As typical, I think our OLine is slow to develop, but they will and when they do our offense will improve in lock-step. I’m not sure why OLine play takes so long to gel every year, but it seems to.

Lastly, I’m far more worried about our defense. I see massive deficiencies in a very experienced defensive squad and I’m not sure why. We just don’t seem to move well. We are often off on coverage assignments and we seem to be a few steps behind on a lot of plays. That is troubling.

Doesn't surprise me at all. People on this board wanted Stein's head for most of the time he was here.

[pezsez1]

I’m amazed how quickly people are going for the jugular on Coach Meh. He’s been the OC for 3 whole games. Especially Pez who gave Alliotti a 10 year pass when our defenses were regularly sub-standard. It’s a double standard.

Because Alliotti had a philosophy that worked without needing a multi-million dollar payroll of 4* and 5* recruits three deep on the roster. He was a damn good coach who knew Xs & Os, knew how to adapt, knew how to motivate, and consistently did more with less.

Coach Meh (and his defensive counterpart) are doing less with more. Can you imagine how bad our defense would be right now if these guys were working with Alliotti's average recruit? Nick Alliotti with THESE cornerbacks and THIS defensive line would have been a nightmare!

It's not even respectful to Nick Alliotti to drag him into this convo. I'd flip this season's clown show for Nick Alliotti in a heartbeat.

Hopefully these newbies grow up fast and show they're worth not looking for more qualified candidates.

[bdkipe]

The reality we have turned on every coordinator we’ve had here. The only few I can remember in my time as a Duck fan, that weren’t raked over the coals at some point were Waters, Leavitt and Tedford…and Helf as OC because we all knew Chip called plays. People threw fits about Bellotti, Koetter, Borges, Ludwig, Chip, Crowton, Frost, Lubbick, Arroyo, Moorhead, Dilly, Stein, Aliotti, Pellum, Hoke, Covid season Avalos, DeRuyter and Tosh. Also that “Edge Principle” bro from the mid 90’s. Now add Mehringer and Hampton.

We’re nothing if not consistently on-brand in our demand for blood.

[Everythingsducky]

The reality we have turned on every coordinator we’ve had here. The only few I can remember in my time as a Duck fan, that weren’t raked over the coals at some point were Waters, Leavitt and Tedford…and Helf as OC because we all knew Chip called plays. People threw fits about Bellotti, Koetter, Borges, Ludwig, Chip, Crowton, Frost, Lubbick, Arroyo, Moorhead, Dilly, Stein, Aliotti, Pellum, Hoke, Covid season Avalos, DeRuyter and Tosh. Also that “Edge Principle” bro from the mid 90’s. Now add Mehringer and Hampton.

We’re nothing if not consistently on-brand in our demand for blood.
[

I agree mostly about the witch hunts. But the expectations for this group, are WAY higher, being media hype, NIL dollars out there, or whatever. On the same lines, some of the coordinators you mentioned, have flamed out, like, out of any meaningful football period. So, there is justification on some fronts. Look, Ducks expectations are on a totally different level now. The player money available is not an issue. The decisions internally can, and certainly should be questioned, with the massive resources available. From Lanning on down. Anyone that takes any coaching position on this team, shouldn’t take anything for granted. Dan included. This isn’t what we all knew as college football any longer, it is strictly a business (loyalty be damned, unfortunately), and should be treated as such. To think this is all fun and games like in years past…couldn’t be further from the truth today. So, I have no room for apologists. This is a results based business, as harsh as that sounds. For the record, I loathe today’s game. Almost wish we could go back to backstage bag men, and limited transfer ability.

[Phalanx]

I must be the odd Duck, because I still just enjoy the games and hope my team wins. I'm old enough to remember when the Ducks were terrible and got taken to the woodshed by UW every year, so it's just fun to play winning football and have my team in the mix with the big dogs. The game experience I am seeing described above sounds miserable, like people should get a different hobby. This isn't Alabama; we don't expect championships or we shoot the coach. Oregon will lose a game once in awhile and it doesn't mean the whole place should be burned to the ground. Coach Lanning lost both his OC and his DC, and both of those guys took people with them. Replacing all of that without missing a beat is a tall task - nobody here could do it. This whole thread after one loss is pretty cartoonish, like you just became a fan a few years ago or something.

I am under the impression that the team schedules relatively weak opponents at the beginning because there are still kinks to work out. We see it in basketball every year - the team isn't usually firing on all cylinders until at least January, and that's in a good year. It was unfortunate to actually lose a game this time, but the game in question was kind of a ridiculous setting - 9 a.m. start time on the road and then forced to wait hours while the day got hotter and hotter. Nobody looked like themselves, least of all Moore. He looked a lot better on Friday. Let's just see how it goes with USC, who is lucky they didn't lose to Rutgers on Saturday. Traveling is hard.

[buckmarkduck]

I don’t care who the OC is. You can’t run a great offense when the OL sucks. Fire Terry yesterday. This is 2 years of crap from his unit, and a vet unit that started terribly 3 years ago.

Then if I could fire another coach, it’s the LB coach. He continues to pound the table against taking transfer guys. When it’s clear we need help at LB.