Would Nine Wins For The Oregon Ducks In 2016 Be A Disappointment?

The Oregon Ducks open Fall Camp on Monday and once again expectations for the 2016 Football season are high, but how much is too much?

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The Fall Sports season officially kicks off with Football, and not to toot my own horn, but this will be my fifth year covering Oregon Athletics. After watching three seasons with Marcus Mariota leading the Offense, the Ducks now turn to another one year guy in Dakota Prukop, but are the expectations skewed in Eugene?

Many believe that if Oregon is not in the National Championship hunt, all is done. Some thing that Head Coach Mark Helfrich should be fired yesterday after a nine win season. I believe that the seat under Helfrich is still pretty cool. He did make a big change in demoting Don Pellum and bringing in Brady Hoke to work on the Defense, yet the questions still remain.

What will we see from the Oregon Ducks in 2016? The schedule starts out easy enough I believe to see Oregon entering the Conference slate at 3-0. Every year every team in College Football suffers from ups and downs. You can’t be ‘GREAT’ every season, although that is always the goal. You don’t have to go far into Coach Double Talk to see that one. So the Chess game resumes for Oregon in September. When we pick up the pieces in December, where will we be?

If health prevails I believe that 9 Wins will be the benchmark for this team, at least entering the season. Of course 9 wins could get you into the Pac-12 Championship, but you have to win the battle against Stanford, which once again is looking like the Pac-12 Game of the Year and a battle for Best Player between Royce Freeman and Christian McCaffrey.

Nine wins would be a success, if the team lands near the .500 mark I think that even more fans come out of the woodwork calling for Helfrich to be let go. OK, reality check people.

Last season, the Oregon Defense gave up over 28 points per game. Much of that was at the hands of the players on the field and inexperience, not necessarily that of the Coaches. At one point they did need to ‘dummy’ down the approach and as the season progressed it got better for a bit. The meltdown came in the end against TCU.

The fun begins on Monday with the start of Fall Camp and Autzen Zoo will have a full report. As it has been in the past, much of what is said….has been said before. However the team again begins fresh with a new face on Offense with Dakota Prukop and a household name in Running Back Royce Freeman.

The 2016 season gets started on Saturday, September 3rd in Autzen Stadium. The Oregon Ducks will host UC Davis.(2pm Pacific Time, Pac-12 Networks)