Oregon Ducks Need Love

Currently living in Spokane, WA, I was pleasantly surprised recently when I heard a friend of mine relating a story about running rapids in Southern Oregon on the Rogue River.  This wild and scenic part of the Rogue River remains my favorite white water rafting river that I've had the privilege to manipulate in my youth.  When Mat spoke about a very well known rapid, Blossom Bar, I knew exactly where he was referring to.  This particular place along the river wasn't always available as a river running possibility.  In the days when there was much mining and wood cutting in the area, the workers needed a pathway for the logs to flow down and not get hung up there.  Dynamite was necessary to create a small crease for logs, and later, rafters to flow through this scattering of large, house-sized rocks.  I recalled all the times we climbed the shear cliffs to scout the rapid before we plunged into unknown outcomes - whether we live another day or tip and drown or smash into one of the jagged rocks that infest this garden of boulders to puncture our raft and be left stranded.  The cliff that represented the bank of the river at this point was the final destiny of peace and calm before the terror and anxiety of this maneuvering challenge.  One last breath is always taken in the eddy on the left hand side of the river that leads the waters through the safest route of the first drop, then all chaos blurs the vision and intensity soars when you hope you remember the discussed oar strokes and shifting to point the front of the raft directly toward the next obstacle so you can use your power reverse stroke to pull you and your passengers away from the eminent danger of flipping - oh, and there's the next obstacle.  The adrenaline rushes just thinking about it!  My friend, Mat, probably had a different experience than all my trips because he wasn't in a cushy raft, but a small, vulnerable kayak.  At the time, his white water skills weren't equivalent to this real life test.  After a couple flips and a small delay, he was able to make it through to the end and have a story to tell about for years to come.  He wasn't sure whether he was wanting to continue this crazy trip or not, at one point or another.  He had a moment when he could have chose to get in the guide raft and just float the rest of Blossom Bar with the skilled guide, or get back in the water and brave the rest of the obstacle-laden rapid.  As the man that I've become to know, he chose the tougher decision and went for it.  Now, though he did not mention it, I know that he must have stopped at the lodge that rests a few kilometers down the river from Blossom Bar rapids called Paradise Lodge.  After surviving Blossom Bar, anything would be paradise.  Paradise Lodge is a nature feast with large fish swimming near the bank before climbing the trail to the building, and possibly seeing the black bear that they feed in the fenced area, and wandering deer passing through the property.  It's a thing of beauty - especially if you made it with all your gear intact and passengers in one piece and a raft that's not destroyed.  The Rogue River in Oregon is definitely my future destination spot some day where I would love to bring my kids along to show them, as I was shown, how wonderful it is.  Now, I don't want to take away any greatness from the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, because that is truly an amazing trip and quite overwhelming and intimidating, but the many little things in Oregon on the Rogue makes that place more special.

White water rafting is not the only special and meaningful thing in Oregon for me because I really enjoy college football from the small town of Eugene.  The Oregon Ducks have had quite a solid run, themselves.  Coach Mike Bellotti really got things started from an inconsistent program and worked many years into something more steady and dependable.  Then the four years with Chip Kelly saw all that potential really come together to find success in the Bowl Championship Series era.  Unfortunately, Oregon hasn't become the home of many elite athletes nationwide and missed out on big wins against significant teams.  Oregon's potential still looms and the football program has yet to peak.  Sure, the Ducks get the occasional star athlete that comes in and makes an impact, like Haloti Ngata and Dennis Dixon and Jonathan Stewart and T.J. Ward and Patrick Chung and Jairus Byrd and even back several years when Dan Fouts was the starting QB for Oregon.  Now we are seeing more and more Ducks being successful at the next level.  This shows that Oregon is really coaching up the talent they get from high schools.  Not so much now because the Ducks are able to recruit more highly skilled talent recently.

I have been studying the recruiting process more and more and have found many interesting trends that have happened in the past and what we find in today's recruiting practices.  The sure thing I found is that the Southeastern Conference definitely has the strong hold of elite talent every year.  I've said it once and I'll say it again, "The SEC should dominate every non-conference team they play every year and leave no doubts on the field who the better team is."  The non-conference games shouldn't ever be close, unless it's against USC or Ohio State or Florida State.  Based on recruiting and the pay that the coaches receive and the capacity of each stadium, the SEC schools are expected to dominate every facet of the game - in my eyes.  Luckily, they don't and I can find fault in their inadequacies and make claim that the conference is not as deep and powerful as advertised.  I can look at the previous decade of recruiting on scout.com and rivals.com and see exactly why the SEC has won the national championship game seven years running.  Anyone with a brain can figure this out and it can't be denied, but how can there be any team out there that can be competitive with an elite SEC squad?  Yet, a few years back when the undefeated Auburn Tigers played an inferior Oregon Duck team in the national title game and Auburn needed a last minute field goal to break the tie and win the game by three points.  How could that game have been so close?  Very improbable, was the thought prior to the game.  Interesting to note, that since that year, the head coach of Oregon has been promoted to be an NFL coach the same year that Auburn's head coach was fired.  It reminds me of that song from that 80's group C+C Music Factory, "Things That Make You Go, Hmmm."

So, why is it that according to rivals.com, that of the last 11 years, an SEC school was ranked #1 or #2 or both in 10 years?  To me, it's obvious, but it may have something to do with the schools' locations are considered to be in the best parts of the country and the coeds are prettier there than anywhere on earth.  I suppose I was just born in the wrong part of the country.  That's too bad!  There is talent galore in so many states in the south like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.  Plus they can dip into Texas and the Carolinas for additional talent, but sometimes California kids are swept away to the East coast.  Who wouldn't want to?  They win championships over there, right?

The other research that I've been doing is trying to determine which schools are recruiting hot-beds and get athletes to flock there for football and determine why.  I wanted to know whether a winning tradition is a huge part, or whether it is the coaches that work so diligently for elite recruits, or if it is consistency and an upward trend to improve that has these kids picking one university over the others.  I looked up on stassen.com for some statistics that might enlighten me with a brilliant discovery, but found more confusion than anything else.  I also found that stassen.com is very up to date on its information because when I searched to find the highest winning percentages over the last 16 years, schools that were penalized with sanctions and had to vacate wins in the past, like USC, Alabama, Ohio State, North Carolina, and Penn State (hit the hardest) were already calculated in the percentages.  The 16 years represents the BCS era and seemed like a good starting point to search for consistency in a program.  Now, with Boise State at #1, TCU at #10 and Utah at #17, the rest were huge schools with a great winning tradition in the top 20.  I saw some surprises due to the current trend of winning or losing in recent years, for instance, Alabama was not found in the top 20, but probably would have been without the vacated wins that would have put them just above Utah.  Another example was Tennessee at #20.  With it's current state of winning, or rather, not winning, they didn't seem to be someone that would be found so high up in the rankings, but I reminded myself that there were a few years early on in the BCS era when they won a national title and came close a couple other years.  Another surprise was seeing Oregon all the way up at #8.  Even without the vacated wins, USC would still show more losses than Oregon during that span.  Interesting.

With this discovery of information that I have searched, pondered, and p... wait, that might be heading somewhere else.  Anyway, I find it very interesting that Oregon has fewer losses than USC during the BCS era; even fewer losses than Alabama and Michigan and FSU and LSU.  All those aforementioned schools, with exception to Michigan, have won the national title at least once during this span.  This is crazy!  So why is it that Oregon has only been able to break the top 20 in recruiting classes since 2003 only six times and the top ten only once according to rivals?  Over that span of recruiting for Oregon, the Ducks have never topped the conference in elite athletes.  The Ducks have had the second best recruiting efforts in the Pac-12 three times behind USC each time.  On average, Oregon places at fourth or fifth in conference in recruiting each year.  The recruiting dilemma is why so many SEC schools repeatedly have several schools out-recruiting Oregon every year - even, Tennessee, Ol' Miss, and Vanderbilt recruited better than the Ducks this year in 2012.  Vanderbilt?!?  Really?  Is Oregon that bad?  Maybe it's the thought of Chip Kelly leaving for the NFL that has gotten recruits nervous about the program, or the potential sanctions that may be coming to Eugene soon.  Maybe these high school athletes are feeling a little like Mat's kayak, vulnerable and not in a cushy place and afraid to tip over a couple times.  Or maybe they don't think they can work as hard in practice as the Ducks do when they get dozens of repetitions every practice.  Maybe they are just afraid to win lots of games in college and choose Mississippi (remember how good Jeremiah Masoli was at Oregon, then his stupid off-the-field acts got him kicked off the team and he transferred to Ol' Miss where he wasn't effective at all and appeared like he lacked quarterbacking skills).  These recruits shouldn't have any reservations about Oregon and the potential Paradise Lodge that draws near after the hard fought battle of Blossom Bar's rocky sanctions.  Maybe the athletes are up on that high cliff and looking down on Oregon and analyzing the future and what's in store.  When in reality, even if there are a couple of flips in the early rapids, all one needs to do is what Mat did, that is, get back in the water and finish the ride and set your sights on that Paradise Lodge to celebrate the victory.  Mike Bellotti blasted that place with dynamite many years ago and now the Ducks are in easier flowing waters now with Chip Kelly departing and now Mark Helfrich finds himself in the same position Coach Kelly was in four years ago - Chip had never been a head coach and merely an offensive coordinator.  The last 16 years should prove that Oregon is here to stay with its longevity and consistency.

The last couple years of recruiting for Oregon have been solid and saw a couple shining stars changing from one great university to decide on signing with the Ducks on National Letter of Intent day.  I feel that Oregon has been on the brink of recruiting greatness but hasn't found that last springboard to get to that level of recruiting that is found in the SEC.  Oregon has needs at certain positions that can get them to win those big games, especially defensive tackle.  Haloti Ngata was the last dominant DT Oregon has had that is big enough to plug the holes in the middle and strong enough to push the offensive line back to cause a large disruption in the backfield.  With the 3-4 scheme the Ducks use, it would be ideal to get that beast-like athlete in the center of the trenches because there is so much speed flying around everywhere else.  I feel that Oregon needs to go after more tackles similar to Ngata and get depth.

Currently, Oregon has not offered scholarships to very many of the kids of the 2014 recruiting class that I feel they should be going after.  Coach Helfrich has decided to stay closer to home with most of the recruits and find the future starters in Washington and California.  California is an ocean of talent waiting to be discovered and Oregon has had much success with the players they pick up there.  The state of Oregon is not very helpful when it comes to elite high school talent that can demonstrate their skills at the next level from day one.  Arizona is another state that Oregon can tap into for many blue-chippers; however, I have noticed on scout.com that most Arizona kids who look at the schools in Oregon, seem to favor Oregon State and not even have the Ducks listed in their schools of interest.  I find that really strange.  I don't want to question Coach Helfrich and his tactics on recruiting ideas, but knowing that Oregon is #8 in average wins over the last 16 years tells me that it is time to expect the blue-chippers from all over the country to want to attend the University of Oregon and play football.  Don't undersell yourself, Coach!  It's a great university and it's in the Conference of Champions where football is gradually improving to be a consistent shareholder in the most anticipated BCS bowl games.  The facilities are in place to attract the best of the best.  It's time to be confident that Oregon will manipulate the obstacles and maneuver around the large boulders and get to Paradise Lodge, or that national title that has been elusive to the Ducks' consideration of being a powerhouse football program.

I can't compliment the perks of floating the Rogue River enough with mention of the Blossom Bar rapids and there's also a stop at Zane Grey's cabin, and touring the Rogue River Ranch is a must-see when you ascend to the lush, green field that you cross to reach the main house; however, I don't hear much about this river from river runners from most parts of the country and yet it remains this solid, technical river that should be ran by the best rafters.  Now, the same can go for Oregon Ducks and the nationwide blue-chip football players coming out of high school in 2014, where Oregon is solid and technical and should be getting those most elite players from anywhere.  Players like Da'Shawn Hand (DE from Virginia), Cameron Robinson (OT from Louisiana), Lorenzo Carter (DE from Georgia), Tony Brown (CB from Texas), Braden Smith (OT from Kansas), Leonard Fournette (RB from Louisiana), Jabrill Peppers (CB from New Jersey), Kain Daub (MLB from Florida), Khairi Clark (DT from Florida), Jamal Adams (S from Texas), Malik McDowell (DE from Michigan), Sam Mustipher (OG from Maryland), Elisha Shaw (DT from Georgia), and Deshaun Watson (QB from Georgia) should be giving Oregon a serious look because a combination of a few of them might make the difference between playing in a BCS bowl and playing in the BCS National Title game and winning it.  Oregon is now one of those programs that impact high school youth when they receive an offer in the mail.  The choices are difficult and the pressure is great for these young athletes to make such an enormous decision, but it seems that you can't go wrong with a solid, consistent program that has set the dynamite into the obstacles and blown the path to Paradise and will allow anyone a chance to start and play at any time, like Oregon has become.

So, to my friend, Mat, I thank you for your story of your experience on the Blossom Bar Rapids because of the fond memories that I have of that same place.  I am glad that your experience was similar to mine even though your trip was years after my most recent trip.  Like Oregon's football team over the years, the Rogue River has remained constant and solid.  As I am sure that Paradise Lodge was a welcomed sight for you and me both, Oregon is now ready to welcome those elite blue-chippers to get that elusive crystal ball that the BCS title games offer the winning team each year.