“Goldilocks” Year

Topic

This is a recurring narrative from DDY that the 2000 and 2016 teams were the perfect blend of recruits from vastly different regimes. This got me thinking about this year’s Oregon team. Many of the leaders on their team were the last holdovers from the Helfrich era (Herbert, Dye, Throckmorton, Lemieux, etc) with some emerging stars from the WT/MC era (Penei, Kayvon, Holland, etc). Next year their roster will be majority WT/MC guys and it’ll be interesting to see how the team performs.

Will there be a “Goldilocks” year between CP and Lake or is it a seamless transition?

Replies

It will be if Eason returns.

A lot of next year will rest on QB play. Eason return means we will very likely have a great season. Him leaving doesn’t mean we won’t, but Sirmon is an unproven guy and we really won’t know.

If Eason returns, I think there is a good chance that then next 3 years could be incredible with Pete’s guys and Lake’s drive

If Eason returns this can easily be a 2015 to 2016 jump. Where you have a team who on paper only won 7(hopefully 8 games) but all the metrics suggest this was actually a 9-10 win team so that jump won’t be as big as many think we have to do.

That 2015 by most metrics was a 9 win team so in reality that was a 3 win jump plus adding two win John Ross was only a one win jump while many saw it as a 5 win jump.

As for Oregon, I think that is the elephant in the room that their fans don’t want to address. Helfrich came from a good program with structure so their older guys although experiencing 4-8 were sharing lockers with guys who played in national title games very recently.

Cristobal I don’t like him but his teams are disciplined. Taggart had them as one of the most penalized teams in the nation and Cristobal immediately had them as one of the best teams at not getting penalized.

Sadly I think he’s a better coach than we want to give him credit for. However, I do think he benefitted from Helfrich and to a lesser extent Taggart setting him up nicely. He inherited a first round talent at QB which is half the battle.

Yeah, I’ve begrudgingly accepted the fact that Cristobal may be a better coach than we give him credit for. He has a good DC now and has the opportunity to hire a good OC. They are going to be a problem if they continue to recruit at this level. If Eason comes back we should be favored to win the north over them next year as they will be grooming a new QB and OL.

Woof wrote:

Yeah, I’ve begrudgingly accepted the fact that Cristobal may be a better coach than we give him credit for. He has a good DC now and has the opportunity to hire a good OC. They are going to be a problem if they continue to recruit at this level. If Eason comes back we should be favored to win the north over them next year as they will be grooming a new QB and OL.

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I don’t think he’s a great coach. He’s just not overthinking it. Remember how hard he worked to get Penei Sewell? Yeah, now that kid is good. That’s how it works.

While we are busy telling ourselves getting Cooper Mack is just as good as getting Justin Flowe because of OKG crap, they are just like “okay, let’s just put the key in the lock.”

Dennis DeYoung wrote:

Woof wrote:

Yeah, I’ve begrudgingly accepted the fact that Cristobal may be a better coach than we give him credit for. He has a good DC now and has the opportunity to hire a good OC. They are going to be a problem if they continue to recruit at this level. If Eason comes back we should be favored to win the north over them next year as they will be grooming a new QB and OL.

Quote

I don’t think he’s a great coach. He’s just not overthinking it. Remember how hard he worked to get Penei Sewell? Yeah, now that kid is good. That’s how it works.

While we are busy telling ourselves getting Cooper Mack is just as good as getting Justin Flowe because of OKG crap, they are just like “okay, let’s just put the key in the lock.”

Quote

Cristobal’s greatest trait is sticking to the run and a dedication to physical offensive football. That and having a great talent like Herbert at QB. But notice Herbert is not the guy who’s really winning them games. They just keep pounding the rock.

Cristobal has brought a SEC mindset to Oregon which will work (big picture/law of averages stuff) 7 other Pac-12 teams each year b4 they even get off the bus which is we are physically tougher than you, and will run/prove it over 60 minutes.

For the 4 teams that shouldn’t buy into it if they are right, 1 is lost in their identity (SC with Helton), and 1 may have a coach who has peaked in what he can do and might be looking for a new challenge in the NFL (Shaw and Stanford).

That leaves us and Utah. We couldn’t get the job done at b/c of recruiting misses at LB and wr, and Utah who Oregon who smartly was going to make Tyler Hundley beat them which he couldn’t.

Cristobal or any coach for that matter doesn’t need to be great to be successful. Joe Paterno once said 85% of his wins are just waiting for the other coach to screw up.

Look at our two games? Cristobal in 2018 didn’t do anything special but waited for Pete to freeze and let clock run down on a 3rd and 1 and trust a freshman walk on kicker to hit a game winning kick.

In 2019? He stuck with the run but even with that UW wins if Pete didn’t get too cute with the idiotic wildcat and featuring his 5th best back.

Belichick famously in the SB vs Seattle didn’t call a timeout when he should have cause he saw our sideline was in chaos and knew Seattle was calling a play the players weren’t comfortable with.

Hopefully Lake realizes most of the time less is more.