High school teachers around the world are often fond of saying, “If you diligently do all your homework, the tests will be a breeze.” Well, for the sixth straight year, the Oregon Ducks’ coaches have aced their first test of the season.
That’s because when junior college transfer linebacker Jonah Moi joined the fall practice last week, it didn’t just provide the defense with some added depth in the front seven, it quietly represented the reaching of an important milestone for the team and coaching staff. You see, Moi was the 22nd and final 2015 recruit to join the team, meaning that for the sixth consecutive year, every single Ducks recruit made it into school and onto the practice field.
That may not sound all that special, or even particularly noteworthy, but in the world of big time collegiate athletics, getting your recruits into fall camp can be just as difficult as getting them to commit in the first place.
Every year, prized recruits around the country fail to ever set foot on campus, for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s due to a lack of effort in the classroom, running afoul of the law, or an ill-advised Twitter rant, college coaches across the country hold their collective breath each year waiting for their newest players to arrive.
Heck. Just this year, UCLA lost top 200 WR Cordell Broadus on the eve of fall camp when he decided he would rather spend his college years slicing up movie reels in film school than slicing up defenses on the gridiron. Even with a famous father in show business, I sincerely doubt that Jim Mora and his staff saw that coming.
But, could they have? If you asked coaches at Oregon, the answer just might be “Yes.”
Sure, you can’t account for everything, but, just like the students they lead, the Oregon coaches understand that if you do your homework, you’re much less likely to find an unpleasant surprise on test day. Or, if you’re a football coach, on the first day of practice.
Ever since Chip Kelly took over the reins of the program in 2010, the Oregon staff has put a very stressed doing things “The Oregon Way,” and that applies to everything from the way players practice to the way coaches recruit.
The Oregon coaches have put a major emphasis on quality over quantity when it comes to recruiting the next “Men of Oregon” as they are so fond of saying. And, that’s not just because they only go after the cream of the proverbial crop. They have been notoriously stingy with their scholarship offers in recent years, often times not even extending an official offer to highly regarded prospects that may seem tailor-made for the team’s needs.
With the Ducks standing tall as the winningest program in college football since 2010, this isn’t exactly a situation where the coaches view the talent as “out of their league.” No, this is a conscious decision by the Oregon staff to carefully research and select every scholarship recipient with the meticulousness rarely seen in the wild world of recruiting
Yes, Mark Helfrich and staff spend just as much time digging into school records and interviewing teachers as they do talking to coaches and breaking down game film. And, that’s more than just lip service and coach speak. They know that while the players’ on-field actions are what will make or break their team’s success, that won’t matter one bit if they never even make it on the field in the first place.
That’s why you’ll often see the Ducks eschew offers to some glitzy five-star players in lieu of “lesser” players (relatively speaking) who are often lauded for not just their play on game day, but their dedication, passion and work ethic the other six days of the week, as well. It’s why you’ll see just as many Duck players with accolades like “high school honor roll” as “high school all-American” in their player profiles. That’s not an accident.
The Oregon coaches know that these high-character young men are the perfect fit to succeed playing Oregon’s unique brand of football. It takes a special breed of player to not just survive, but thrive, in the organized chaos that is football practice on Pape Field.
It also takes a special breed of coach to look beyond the star ratings and the recruiting services, to take the time to get to know their recruits on a more personal basis, and to find the type of student that is just as dedicated to the game as the coaches who have devoted their life to it.
Sure, there will always be a few misses, like Colt Lyerla or Cliff Harris. Guys that show you flashes of what you are looking for, only to let you down when it matters most. But, each and every year, there seem to be less and less players looking to take a shortcut to the top, and more and more players like Marcus Mariota, who is probably more likely to be pegged as a biology student than the baddest football player in the country.
That’s not just a coincidence, it’s by design. As every list of recruiting or draft busts makes painfully obvious, it takes more than bench presses and 40 times to succeed at the highest levels. It takes a certain personality type.
The difference between Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf in the combine measurable or Mel Kiper Jr.’s draft board was almost non-existent, but between the ears, the chasm was Grand Canyon-esque. It can be tough to put your finger on, but that’s exactly what Mark Helfrich and co are trying to do while out on the recruiting trail.
It’s because these coaches know that if they do their homework now, they won’t have to worry about the players doing their homework later. Which means that while other coaches are taking practice time to plead with their players to spend more time in the library and less time in the police blotter, the Ducks get to squeeze out a few more reps.
And maybe, just maybe, those will be the extra reps that help the Ducks pass the one test that they can’t seem to pass. The one that will help the Oregon Ducks graduate to the truly elite of college football. The one that gets you a crystal football and leather-bound collector’s edition of Sports Illustrated. The big one.
Maybe those high school teachers were on to something after all.
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