Oregon fires Mark Helfrich after 4-8 season

The Oregon football program has made a decision to go in a new direction. Whether they’ll stay in the uptempo offense will be up to the new head coach, but what’s for sure is that this likely ends the greatest era OR has ever known.

Even if Kelly is saying he isn’t leaving for OR, the opening ironically gives him a lot of leverage in figuring out his National Football League future.

Kelly is sitting there, 560 miles south of Eugene, wallowing in professional football mediocrity at 1-10 as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

Yes, Kelly has turned down overtures from colleges in the past. “I have not talked to anybody at OR expect Mark Helfrich”. “I haven’t talked to a college since I’ve been in the National Football League and that’s not my goal”.

Since becoming head coach, he has seen turnover at key positions with his coaching staff. He signed a five-year deal worth at least $17.5 million with the Ducks in February 2015.

“My goal is to be the head coach of the 49ers and that’s where I want to be”, Kelly said at the time. “So, I don’t know why it’s still a story”.

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Asked again if there any chance he’ll be the Ducks next head coach, Kelly tried to make it as clear as possible.

The Ducks, having lost to Washington, Washington State and Oregon State in the same season for the first time since 2002, are in a tailspin and this, of course, is cause for much giddiness around Seattle. But Oregon faltered this year with a five-game losing streak, and finished at the bottom of the Pac-12 North with just two conference wins. They hired Rich Brooks, who was the team’s coach until 1994.

Kelly left OR for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013.

It was the first topic of conversation when Chip Kelly met with the media on Wednesday in Orlando. He has family in OR and he grew up a fan of the Ducks. It was always as easy for the Ducks administration as next man up from the booth.

In 2009, OR became the first state to adopt a law – similar to the NFL’s “Rooney Rule” – that requires all public universities to interview a minority candidate for every open head-coaching job. However, perhaps the role of an in-house reporter requires a bit more nuance than one who writes for an outside source.

And yes, Kelly will be a part of this venture.

A win will (almost certainly) deliver Washington a berth to the College Football Playoff … and the Huskies will (almost certainly) open 2017 ranked among the nation’s top three. Just ask Nick Saban and his transition back from college to the NFL.

While many considered that the initial announcement read like a hit-piece, it’s important to consider that obviously wasn’t Moseley’s intention, and he was indeed hired to make critical assessments about OR football.