Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Oregon Football is Down but Not Out

College Football, one of the greatest sports that our calendar has to offer. From Labor Day Weekend to Thanksgiving Weekend, ESPN televises nonstop College Football coverage from 6AM Seattle time all the way until 11:30 at night or until ESPN's Pac 12 game that is advertised by #Pac12AfterDark.

It is the best time of the year as long as you have your Saturday's free in the fall. After conference Championship Weekend, the upcoming season almost begins immediately as preparation for Bowl Week and LOI Day is just around the corner.

This is just a sample size of what Power Five Head Coaches go through on a yearly basis. That is, until the coaching carousal is in full swing and your University's Head Coach prematurely leaves for a better job offer leaving in this case the University of Oregon in a state of an Emergency that is shaking the city of Eugene right now.

In under 365 days, Wille Taggart put together a top notch recruiting class and a fairly competitive football team. In fact, the team likely would have snagged a 10 win season if it wasn't for the injury to star Quarterback Justin Herbert.

Incoming recruits are likely going to leave with Taggart as well and that isn't good news for Oregon that is in need of some reinforcements if it wants to get back to a Rose Bowl type level.

As great as College Football is, it has some things that leave me scratching my head. One of those things is players decomitting to a school after a coach leaves/fired. WHY is this even allowed? We live in a college football world that seems like its a religion for some schools but for most players college is a step closer to a career in something other than sports. Therefore, players should commit to the campus itself and not the Head Coach.

After being in college, I can tell you first hand that I picked my school based on what I wanted to study and not where my High School BFF was going and players should do the same. Maybe this would create more parody around the landscape or maybe it woyldn't leave fan bases feeling gutted like Eugene is right now.

More importantly, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that Taggart is moving on. I'm not happy how things transpired but this was bound to happen eventually. Realistically,  there are only a dozen or so 5*  coaching positions and because of this, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that there is this much shuffling going around. In theory, most coaches are either fired or get hired with a better program within four years and that is about the same time as a players college career is. To me, signing a LOI should guarantee that school at least one year at that program.

I hate what Taggart did to be honest with you. I feel he had this plan in the back of his mind all along and it was classless. I do believe something good will come out from this. Too much talent across America not to win at least a handful of games every year and this is too proud of a University to let this program go back to being 2-10 and 3-9 year after year. There's only one direction to go from here. Up! #DoSomething

2 comments:

  1. Not happy but I do not think Taggart could have anticipated that the Florida State job would open this soon - this is a program that has had a very long tenured head coach history. It is too easy to say Taggart planned this - he had no reason to expect the FSU job to open up.

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  2. Fair enough but FSU could have been any SEC school or ACC school

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