Let's pause the angst about Oregon football recruiting

A few decades ago when there wasn’t much of an internet and no World Wide Web all we didn’t often learn much about recruiting until the letters of intent had been received. The Register Guard was our go-to for learning anything.

Yeah, there was some buzz about kids who might come to Eugene but there were no stars behind any HS kid’s names.

A lot of the better kids were sequestered by schools like Nebraska and Oklahoma who brought athletes on board just to keep them from playing elsewhere. Oregon got several future NFL players like Dan Fouts and Bobby Moore (Amahd Rashad) but not enough of them to bother the powers of the day.

Then a change. Scholarship limits, though without walk-on limits, spread the talent a bit though, again, not enough of them became Ducks. There was still not much notice until signing day and it came from the same sources.

Soon the WWW was an established thing and there was a lot more speculation about and rating of the recruits. Though our teams got better beginning with the tutelage of Rich Brooks any top athlete who wanted to wear green and yellow, and it was green and yellow in those days, had no trouble find a spot where he could start without elite ability if he tried hard enough.

Chip Kelly era brought dramatic change-- to recruiting and everything else

In the same era, a little later, enter Chip Kelly and his revolutionary game plane. There was still plenty of space available.

With Chip in charge the Ducks landed and a new plateau where people on the East coast knew there was a team out west other than Washington, UCLA and USC. There was still no crowd of tough to beat out studs to fight through to secure a roster spot. Oregon meandered around on that level until Mario Cristobal moved on to his alma mater.

With the hire of Dan Lanning the climb began and continued until now it ain’t so east to start on the team, or even hope to. That’s the big change. Not only is the staff not hoping to have adequate depth, they have developed superior depth. A new kind of kid has to want to join up.

Guys we have been excited to see on signing day, even those brought on by Dan, are moving on through the portal because they know they can’t get the starting minutes they can get elsewhere. More already on the roster now will soon see the light at the other end of that tunnel.

The HS kids willing to give it a shot from here on have to have the ability to compete. More than that, they have to engender the BELIEF and CONFIDENCE that they can win the top spots, perhaps not now, but soon. A lot of kids will pick easier choices.

That’s the kind of big change we, as fans have to recognize. Rather than stress at who we can’t seem to close the deal with, revel over the other choices who are that kind of player and be patient while these kids make their choices.

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