If Mike Bellotti Were Still the Oregon Coach

First, Mike Bellotti is an Oregon legend, and rightly so. He is the winningest coach in school history, the man who oversaw the growth of the Oregon program from the occasional, modest, fledgling success of the Rich Brooks era to a Northwest football empire. Mike Bellotti won 116 games, and ranks number three all-time in the PAC-10 conference. He won two Holiday Bowls, two Suns, and a Fiesta. He took UO football to number two in the nation.

Mike Bellotti hired Chip Kelly and John Neal, and had the good sense to retain Steve Greatwood, Gary Campbell, Nick Alliotti and Don Pellum. Mike Bellotti signed Dennis Dixon, Jonathan Stewart and Patrick Chung to letters of intent. Phil Knight had the vision and the bucks, but Mike Bellotti was the architect.

But if Mike Bellotti were still Oregon coach, the Ducks would not have won the conference last year. He wouldn't have handled the disciplinary problems as decisively. There would have been an implosion after Boise. He wouldn't have taken the bold gambles that led to the win over the Beavers.

This last winter and spring the Masoli controversy would have dragged out, and he would have tried to keep the indispensable star in school, resulting in a nasty rift with the new school president and administration and a divided team. Had Masoli been dismissed, the issue would have dragged on into summer, and this year's starter wouldn't have been chosen at the end of fall camp. Coach Bellotti would have platooned Thomas and Costa, and gotten mediocre development from both. Neither would have been prepared for a 10-point deficit at Tennessee, or trailing 21-3 at home versus Stanford. Bellotti would have tightened his grip on the sideline, folded his arms, spent the second quarter screaming at the officials. The onside kick wouldn't have happened. He wouldn't have ordered the fourth-and-one gamble at his own 35. The Ducks would have gone into the locker room down ten at halftime, defeated and shell-shocked. He would have blistered them with a pep talk in the dressing room. And the team would have tuned him out, lost to the Cardinal 38-24, lifeless.

And the fast-talking innovator from New England would be 4-1 as the second-year coach at Kansas or Texas Tech.

Mike Bellotti had many gifts as a administrator of a program and a teacher of the game, but he wasn't as decisive as Chip Kelly, wasn't as willing to take a stand in a crisis. He wasn't as bold in game management. Watch tape of his pregame speeches in the last few years. The kids are waiting for him to stop talking. Mike Bellotti will be 60 a few days before Christmas. He left at just the right time.

Under Chip Kelly, Oregon football has a new attitude and a new confidence. Players who don't meet standards or face responsibility are asked to leave. The team ignores the score instead of being obsessed with it. And Oregon has reached a level of success and a potential for greatness it has never had in its history.

Coach Bellotti was the architect that oversaw Oregon's rise to respectability, and he deserves all the praise and credit in the world for the program's accomplishments. He was the perfect coach for that stage of the Ducks' development.

Chip Kelly, however, has brought an energy and a dynamism to Oregon football that wasn't in his predecessor's makeup. Oregon has lost the easily-intimidated bristly inferiority of the past. There's no playing not to lose. There's no playing down to opponents or inattention or loss of focus. Players know who's in charge, and why. The are twenty-five million reasons why, and a 5-0 record to prove it out. The best lies ahead. This team isn't done getting better.

Bellotti's teams sometimes fell into the trap of relying on their reputation. Kelly's teams are focused on earning one, in one-day increments.