Playing to "Not Lose"

George Schroeder wrote about Nick Aliotti and how it's hard to "win" being a defensive coordinator. And I can say in general I agree. However, I think Nick has a double standard in the eyes of the head coach. Here's what I mean. George wrote, "We know Oregon ranks 10th in the Pac-10, and 104th nationally, in pass defense. We know the Ducks are seventh in the league in scoring defense and total defense, and rank 74th and 75th nationally in those categories."

So what if our offense ranks 10th in the Pac-10 and 104th nationally in passing? What if if we ranked 74th in scoring and 75th in total offense? I know exactly what would happen, CHIP KELLY WOULD BE LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB! Why? Because MB would be nudging him out the door. Ok in all honesty, I don't think Mike would do that after 1 season. After 2 or 3 almost with certainty. So why has he not done so with Nick? Because they are friends. Which I've stated before is ok, but enough is enough. You guys can still be friends after you've parted ways.

But I think George put it best at the end of his article with regards to Aliotti. "If he complains, he comes off like a whiner. If he explains, it sounds like excuse-making." Because that sounds like a man who knows he's doing a horrible job and has a friend that will bail him out.

It's Time....

It's time to talk about it... we all know that Mike Bellotti and Nick are friends (which is fine) but when friendship come between the success of the Oregon football team, that is NOT fine.

We all remember in 1998 when UCLA was an absolute POWERHOUSE in college football. They would plow through just about every team they faced. What was their downfall that year? Their defense that gave up 29 points per game that year. And gave up 87 points in their last 2 games!

Year in and year out Oregon will have athletes on both sides of the ball. They will come to Eugene for many reasons. The uni's (LeGarrettte Blount) or the state of the art facilities (Haloti Ngata). And it's sad to see that these players are not playing to their full potential.

When asked about the play of his defense in a poor game he will respond with "them" and "they." However when asked about his defense on the rare occasion that they play well, he will use words like "we" and "us."

If you've ever been abound Nick in a social setting his mouth is dirtier than a sailor and he tells dirty jokes just about every other sentence.

But the bottom like is that Oregon will not make it to the next level until he is gone. And I hate to bring this up, but we all remember what cost us a shot at a national title in 2001:

Our defense gave up 49 points to Stanford....