Willie, we dodged a bullet!

[Alan]

Seeing Slick's struggle at FSU while entertaining is an eye opener. His corny "Do something" and "Have a great day... if you want to". Seem even more idiotic now with the unveiling of that ridiculous "turnover Backpack". The FSU fans are having a meltdown right now and as one member here stated Willie won't last two seasons if one. The biggest difference between fans at Oregon fans and FSU fans experiences with a new head coach named Taggart is we Duck fans were coming off a disappointing Helfich era post Chip Kelly, we were already suffering. FSU fans are fresh off a Jimbo era and are or were on a high, all the sudden they are falling in a hole and still in free fall. We duck fans were pissed when Willie took the Oregon Jet to recruit Texas and diverted it to Florida to take the FSU job but in hind site with what we know now we probably could have came up with airfare ourselves pretty easy.

The one good thing Willie did do here was bring in some all star coaches who can recruit and motivate, it makes me wonder how well Willie can actually recruit, his first two games at FSU sure won't help recruit kids. Another example of how great the post Willie era is, in one off season Cristobal and staff have put a clamp on penalties, I think we have nine in two games and two of those came from coaches errors, 12 men on the field, at least four came in the fourth quarter of blow outs...when they cleared the bench. Willie runs a loose ship, Cristobal does not!

I don't feel sorry for FSU fans, I won't rub it in but I will sit back and smile with a cold beer in my hand while watching my Ducks on the rise again We dodged a bullet!

[midwestduck82]

Willie did help the program in the short time he was here. He helped assemble a staff that we can respect. Bringing in Cristobal and Leavitt were the best changes since they hired Chip. Salavea is an amazing D-Line coach and person. Cristobal bringing in Maestro, Feld, Dennison, and Williams appear to be great hires. Now it's time to see how well they can make adjustments against quality opponents. I want 9-11 wins a year and a chance at a quality bowl. Mostly, all I need is the joy of watching a competitive program that makes a competent game plan. I'm glad Taggart made a stop in Oregon. Bringing Cristobal and Leavitt together might be one of his best career accomplishments as a head coach.

I don't feel sorry for FSU fans, I won't rub it in but I will sit back and smile with a cold beer in my hand while watching my Ducks on the rise again We dodged a bullet!

Yup

[northbeachsf]

The biggest thing for me with Willie ilast year was the complete lack of discipline during games. We led the FBS last year in penalties and it looks like FSU is headed in the exact same direction. I watched a little bit of the FSU game last night and it is not just that they were racking up penalties, it is the type of penalties they are getting. You can live with the occasion PI or personal foul for being aggressive, etc. Last night was almost all mental error type stuff (offsides, illegal man downfield, procedure call, false starts). I only watched part of the third and fourth quarters and they had several huge plays and a TD negated while I was watching due to mental mistakes.

IMO, It doesn’t matter how well Willie recruits or who he hires. This is a culture issue that he creates and it is not going to change.

Soooooo glad we have Cristobal running the show now.

[AshlandDuck]

The Helfrich era that produced a Heisman, the first-ever playoff victory, and a title game appearance and overall wasn't what I would call a disappointment. Also, considering the recruiting advantage FSU has, I'm not sure Jimbo Fisher's 7-6 2017 is much worse than Helfrich's 4-8 2016 considering that team had three close losses by a total of nine points. They also started out the season ranked #24 as opposed to FSU's starting rank of #3.

[chapelhillduck]

Willie lost me when he was still coach with the obvious lies to our faces about his interest in FSU. He was always a “Nole” first and that became apparent over time. That’s who he is.

Cristobal is going to have his own stuggles, but I at least feel like him and the staff feel like they are “Ducks”....at least right now. We’ll see what happens when Miami or KState etc comes calling.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Alan]

The Helfrich era that produced a Heisman, the first-ever playoff victory, and a title game appearance and overall wasn't what I would call a disappointment. Also, considering the recruiting advantage FSU has, I'm not sure Jimbo Fisher's 7-6 2017 is much worse than Helfrich's 4-8 2016 considering that team had three close losses by a total of nine points. They also started out the season ranked #24 as opposed to FSU's starting rank of #3.

I have to disagree with most of your statements, when they replaced Chip with Helf the downward spiral of the program began. Helf did recruit Marcus under Chip, I have to give Helf credit for that but that first year or two Helf had Chips team and Chips recruits, he also still had Aliotti. The second year Aliotti left and the disappointment began, enter DP, enter the bickering amongst the staff, the lack of player development to be topped of with the hire of Hoke and the second half meltdown in Helfs last bowl game. Marcus got a boost from Helf and ran the same system under Helf, I can't give Helf all the credit for Mariota, but I will give him the lions share. I believe the Helf era was a big disappointment.

[Duck07]

How could anyone not come away feeling disappointed during that time when we all wanted to see Mark succeed? Here's a guy who grew up in the state rooting for Oregon, was smart and knew the X's and O's, was a part of our recent, wild success and played his own role in it all and by all accounts, is actually a nice person. Then we did do those things with Marcus and afterwards it all fell apart with no answers and no hope in sight. Some of the things that made him great as an OC were also unfortunately things that made it more difficult for him to be able to recruit in this day and age and be an effective HC.

The old game threads are still up and you can find plenty of people who posted during that first season that Mark wasn't cut out for the job and it wasn't just the usual crowd who were having those in game reactions they normally do when we're not up 21-0 right out of the gate.

[Duck07]

The thing about little willie is that the last coach who lost to Boise State in their blue Uni's for their debut turned out alright.

[midwestduck82]

The Helfrich era that produced a Heisman, the first-ever playoff victory, and a title game appearance and overall wasn't what I would call a disappointment. Also, considering the recruiting advantage FSU has, I'm not sure Jimbo Fisher's 7-6 2017 is much worse than Helfrich's 4-8 2016 considering that team had three close losses by a total of nine points. They also started out the season ranked #24 as opposed to FSU's starting rank of #3.

Was it the Helfrich Era that produced a Heisman and first-ever playoff victory or the last remnants of a Chip Era? I think the latter. Helf is better suited at running parts of a program instead of a whole program. I liked Mark Helfrich. Willie Taggart was who I wanted to replace him. Now that they're gone and I'm glad they're gone.

Since I brought up Helfrich. I'm looking forward to see what he does with the Bears offense.

[Duckenstein]

Helf had chips players including the best player in the country.

Those teams coasted for a couple years on what Chip built.

Then he hired DP, stuck with him, and then hired Hoke. It beggared belief.

He turned the second best team of the past decade into shambles in less than four years.

The Helfrich era that produced a Heisman, the first-ever playoff victory, and a title game appearance and overall wasn't what I would call a disappointment. Also, considering the recruiting advantage FSU has, I'm not sure Jimbo Fisher's 7-6 2017 is much worse than Helfrich's 4-8 2016 considering that team had three close losses by a total of nine points. They also started out the season ranked #24 as opposed to FSU's starting rank of #3.

[justducky0]

The Justin Show Podcast was saying this all last year that Taggart was skating by and was really not the great of a coach.
Oregon dodged a huge bullet by FSU taking him off our hands. We have already seen in two weeks better playcalling against vanilla opponents than we saw all of last year.

The Taggart you saw without Herbert is the real Taggart.

[greenyellow]

The Helfrich era that produced a Heisman, the first-ever playoff victory, and a title game appearance and overall wasn't what I would call a disappointment. Also, considering the recruiting advantage FSU has, I'm not sure Jimbo Fisher's 7-6 2017 is much worse than Helfrich's 4-8 2016 considering that team had three close losses by a total of nine points. They also started out the season ranked #24 as opposed to FSU's starting rank of #3.

You also have remember that Fisher lost his returning starting QB, Francois, to a season-ending knee injury in their first game and had to play a true FR for most of the season. He essentially had to deal with what Oregon was dealing with, except for the entire season. If Oregon had to start either Alie or burmeister for an entire season, I doubt Taggart would have gotten the team more than 5 wins.

[dphi]

The Justin Show Podcast was saying this all last year that Taggart was skating by and was really not the great of a coach.
Oregon dodged a huge bullet by FSU taking him off our hands. We have already seen in two weeks better playcalling against vanilla opponents than we saw all of last year.

The Taggart you saw without Herbert is the real Taggart.

It's very apparent now how much Taggart benefited from his coordinators and position coaches, of which most stayed here thankfully.

[Hoagduck]

I think the best revenge is success. I won't actively root against Taggart, him coming to Oregon was a net positive, and I think as a fan base it doesn't serve us to look petty.

[FlDuckFan]

I think the best revenge is success. I won't actively root against Taggart, him coming to Oregon was a net positive, and I think as a fan base it doesn't serve us to look petty.

I only root against him because I tried to warn some coworkers about him and they called it sour grapes. Other than that I don't really care, Oregon got the better coach in the end.