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“It’s disappointing,” the hall of fame coach said of Oregon’s third search for a head coach in the last five years.
(Mike Bellotti at Autzen in November)
Mario Cristobal is out and a search for Oregon’s new head football coach is underway.
What should the Ducks be focused on? The I-5 Corridor spoke with former Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti Monday morning to get his thoughts on Cristobal, Oregon’s vacancy, coaching against Bob Stoops in the Alamo Bowl and what exactly Phil Knight is thinking right now.
What do you make of Mario leaving?
Well, it’s a little disappointing as a coach that always tried to stay in a situation and continue to build it. I think anytime there’s turnover, it’s difficult for the program, difficult for the players, difficult for the coaches and their families. So that part has always been in the back of my mind.
The landscape has obviously changed in college football. I mean, with the transfer portal and NIL now, it makes the transferability — the portability of athletes and coaches and everything else — that much more fluid. It’s one of those things, as a coach, you used to be able to count on your recruiting, and when a kid signed you’d have them for four or five years — three to four years with the good ones — and you can sort of count on that.
Now you don’t have that.
When people get frustrated with coaches flip flopping, they need to look back and say, “Wait a second.” We’ve made it now where you’re not even sure your own team is going to come back the next year. You have to recruit them as much as you recruit anybody else. And now you also have to have the NIL support from community boosters, et cetera, to compete with everybody else. So it’s a whole other level and you can’t be involved with it, either. You have no oversight of it.
Mario’s situation is sort of interesting in that, I mean, he is from Miami. His mother lives there. His brother lives there. Certainly maybe his goal in life was to become the head coach at his alma mater and he got that opportunity. But you always hope that, especially when you’re seeing success and building something, that people will stay to continue building what they built until they achieve whatever the ultimate success that they want.
You were here for decades and there was so much stability and continuity. What would you have thought in 2008 if someone told you Oregon would go through four coaches in the next 13 years?
I would have been surprised, partly because of what Rich Brooks did and what I did. But it’s an interesting time, too. I had stability but people forget that I had four or five offensive coordinators and four defensive coordinators. That’s a huge part of your program, and as you have success, those people get poached. This time of the year is probably the most difficult time for a coach — especially a head coach, because now they have the early signing day. Then you have bowl game preparation, you have all of these things and you have coaches leaving and you’re looking around going, “Oh, who do I have to replace? Who’s going to replace my offensive coordinator, my defensive coordinator?” Or, if I had offers, I’m looking at it like, “OK, what’s best for me and my family? Where do I want to be?”
The difference is that I had offers. I had offers to the best programs in the United States. The best programs in NCAA football. But I chose to stay at Oregon.
Oregon has as good of facilities as anyone in the nation. It has as good of a support group as anyone in the nation, and I’m talking about administration and boosters as good as anyone in the nation. But obviously, there are draws, and the perception of some and the ability to go home, that’s the difference that I see. You always hope that somebody just comes in and decides that the University of Oregon is the best place and the place they want to be at for the rest of their coaching career, but that just doesn’t happen as much anymore.
How different would that story have been if someone was offering you $8 million a year?
Well, when I was head coach I had several offers to double my salary, so it’s all relative. But now we’re talking about generational money. It’s not just going to set you up, it’s going to set up your children and their grandchildren.
You know, there are only a few people who are coaching into their 70s. Most people have said by that time that they want to lead a real life. That they want to reconnect with family and see grandchildren in person instead of Skype or FaceTime. So it’s just different. The money part is great, but it is something that is making it difficult on athletic departments because they’re having to go outside for the funding of those kinds of coaching contracts. And when you do that, you have to give boosters more say — or let them believe they have more say — in how things should happen.
So, put on your athletic director hat again. What’s your No. 1 goal of this upcoming search?
It’s still to find the very best coach. And you don’t hire somebody just because you think they’re going to stay forever. You hire somebody because they’re going to help rectify the situation right now. The new coach is probably not going to be involved in the bowl game because he’s not going to know the players. You have two head coaches in DeRuyter and Moorhead on staff — assuming they both stay for the bowl game — so they can handle that part. The most difficult part is recruiting, and with that early signing period happening in a week or whatever, you have to get someone with enough cachet, enough name value, to keep some of the guys that committed to Oregon, or to swing somebody.
Nowadays, young college recruits commit to people. They don’t commit to institutions. Sometimes they do, but most of the time if you create a relationship with a player, he’ll go where you go.
Chip Kelly’s name has been floated a lot already. Talk of getting the band back together.
I don’t see that, but I haven’t talked to Chip lately. I think he’s pretty comfortable. And, you’re never going to get the band back together. That staff he inherited from me is gone. It’s not going to get back together.
Bob Stoops seemed to enjoy the heck out of being on the other end of Sunday’s Alamo Bowl press conference. What are the chances we see you taking him on as interim coach in the Alamo one last time?
It’s funny because my family is used to being at football games for Christmas. So, if they needed somebody, I would. But I’m not calling saying, “Hey, make me coach.” There’s two excellent coaches on staff. But if they need a figurehead that can show up and do some pressers so they can focus on football, I would step in for that. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Bob seemed so relaxed compared to Cristobal on that thing
Well, that’s partially because Mario’s still hurting from the Pac-12 championship game. That was not the way you want to go out if that’s your last game. It’s just difficult. He had a lot of issues and I’m sure he was torn between the two. I think Rob Mullens and Oregon did everything they could to keep Mario, and it’s certainly one that is frustrating. But also when you get to that point, you’ve also weakened that relationship. There’s always that question of, OK, how many times are we going to go down this road?
I don’t want to ask you to get inside someone else’s head, but because you were so close to Phil Knight, what do you think he makes of all of this?
I know what Phil makes of all of this. I’ve been there. I’ve been in both sides of that conversation with him, as athletic director and head football coach. I used to talk to him about opportunities and he was pretty honest and also, at times, indignant that I’d consider going anywhere else, because he put his life into making the University of Oregon a special place, and he’s done it not just with financial support, but with his influence and with his company’s influence. In his mind, it’s very difficult for someone to turn down that opportunity for another because he’s tried to make Oregon the very best place, whether it be football, basketball or track and field for men and women. It’s not just something that’s just poured into football.
I’m sure he’s probably not very happy.
— Tyson Alger
