Former Athletic Director and influential booster Pat Kilkenny to speak on the state of Oregon Ducks Football.
Following Oregon’s embarrassing loss to the Stanford Cardinal, a team ranked 116th in Total Offense that was able to put up 50+ inside Autzen Stadium, columnist and radio show host John Canzano began the game of coaching intrigue that was sure to follow with this tweet –
Oregon Ducks booster Pat Kilkenny — former UO AD — reached out just now and requested a spot on Monday’s radio show. Noon. @750TheGame
— John Canzano (@johncanzanobft) November 13, 2016
Kilkenny served as Oregon’s athletic director from 2007 to 2009 and is perhaps the Ducks biggest benefactor after Phil Knight. That he holds a certain level of influence within the halls of the Hatfield-Dowlin complex is a given. But why he reached out to a local radio show following the loss remains a mystery. Oregon has always been a program with a certain degree of mystery surrounding it. Infighting and internal politics never leak out of its glass walls. And influential boosters certainly never go on air to… do what exactly? We won’t know until Monday but there can only be a few reasons why Kilkenny would, not just agree to go on radio, but ask to go on radio.
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Either a shakeup in the coaching staff occurs between now and then and Kilkenny comes out to sell the decision and the way the program is going to move forward.
Or, Kilkenny is going public with a show of support for head coach Mark Helfrich and the rest of the staff. If no news drops before midday Monday that would certainly seem the most logical explanation.
Still, it’s a strange thing for one of the big money boosters behind Oregon football to come out and speak publicly about the program (this isn’t Texas or Oklahoma). Either scenario above would seem to call for the voice of the Athletic Director, not a former Athletic Director. We can only speculate as to what will be said during the interview but it is certainly going to be something worth listening to.
Oregon heads to Utah to take on the Utes on Saturday for an 11am Pacific Time Kickoff on Pac-12 Network.Kilkenney