Bellotti: Get The Hell Out!!!!
sandcrabs December 13th, 2007
Hey Michigan! Do you want a coach who can take your team to the brink of greatness only to act like a small timer from a high school and bring you down with a thud? Oh yeah, you just got rid of one. Listen up UCLA. For a cheap price you can have a coach who makes shaky decisions that cost your team not only an important game but also most of the season. Well, you just got rid of that guy too. Maybe an ad on Craigslist will do the trick.
Twice in my lifetime, the Ducks have had that magical season where the phrase “National Championship” is uttered. Their latest foray into this seemingly enchanted land has ended in near disaster. Not all is lost. Oregon is headed to a bowl game with a little momentum thanks to a gutsy 4th string quarterback who has had to grow up rather quickly. Mind you the location is past BFE (El Paso? C’mon!) and the opponent is a team that looks more and more like a pretender than a contender as uttered earlier this season.
Oregon should be at least playing in the Holiday Bowl. Instead due to a couple of crappy decisions from the sideline the Ducks’ players have to endure everything the west Texas town of El Paso has to offer (which is….um…..late night jaunts over the border to watch the donkey shows?). The Beavers are jubilant that they don’t have to serve a repeat sentence in this boring outpost (or is that outhouse) of the southwest. Bellotti stated that the rushed field goal was a result of miscommunication on the sideline. I can see that. After all, how difficult is it to tell somebody “Okay. After we lose a couple of yards making a stupid attempt to move the ball a few feet to the middle be sure to take the snap and spike it.”
Meanwhile be sure to turn to your special teams coordinator and say “Don’t send in your longsnapper and the kicker. We’re going to spike the next play.” I can see how that could be miscommunicated. After all, it’s not his job to….oh wait. It is, isn’t it? Mikey must have been thinking about the sunny San Diego weather (come to think of it, I hear the donkey shows just south of SD are just as interesting). To make matters worse our coach decides that in double OT to run a play that hasn’t worked since, oh I don’t know the Reagan administration, on a 4th and 1. Hell, even my best friend’s girlfriend knew it was coming (no offense, Ash). Stuffed. Brick wall of orange and black. Bye-bye San Diego. Hello BFE.
With all respect to Henny Youngman, “Take my coach, please.” As long as Mike Bellotti remains head coach, Oregon will always be an afterthought. A “Nice try, see you next year” kind of program. Pat Kilkenny, aka Daddy Warbucks, can provide coach an out to save face. Allow him to “spend more time with family” and go out and find that big time coach who will take Oregon where every now and then the loyal fans fantasize about. Don’t let the national perception that Oregon is full of lumberjacks and hicks who scrape their dinner off the road to continue.
Mike Bellotti has done a marvelous job of brining Oregon Ducks football out of the depths of dispair but has outlived his usefulness. National Championship chases bring in the blue-chip recruits but more importantly brings in money….lots of it. Bring a product that we can be proud of and also be arrogant of.
Ohio State vs. LSU? Please.
