Mark Helfrich on the hot seat? It’s time to tame the flames a little bit

Most college football writers enjoy a few aspects of their job more than others.

Transcribing.

Posting viral videos of off-field incidents, knowing that it has to be done in order to drive traffic.

Going through traffic to get to a game site.

Those are not fun parts of the job.

What IS fun?

Writing about bad (or great, but usually bad) play calls. 

Writing about epic games, especially in late November, early December, or January 1 in the Arroyo Seco.

And — last but not least — speculating about coaching vacancies, those current and those about to officially emerge.

It’s true that when a coaching situation devolves into a crisis, many jobs held by real individuals — not mere abstractions — are at stake. Men with spouses and children are plunged into uncertainty. This is why some members of our staff very conscientiously and consistently don’t like to play the speculation game with coaches. That’s an admirable position to take.

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[Full disclosure: The way some people react to coaching situations — because of the noble impulse to respect the person behind the job — is how I react to the larger theater of recruiting in college sports. The obsession with teenagers’ skill sets and (far worse) their life choices has never struck me as healthy. Is recruiting hugely important in college sports? Undeniably. That having been acknowledged, I think there’s a place for simply allowing players to be evaluated when they start practicing and playing in college. We can move from that starting point and not feel (as college sports chroniclers) that we’re missing something essential to this realm of competition. I thought this side note was important.]

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Humanity, decency, understanding — they need to be brought into every aspect of life, every discussion we undertake. Certainly, the crafting and formulating of an opinion must be accompanied by an ever-present sense of care, of genuine concern for both professionalism and the felt need to give human beings a fair shake. The two cannot be separated. If you’re interested in doing your job well, you’re interested in treating people fairly.

This does not, however, mean that criticism of coaches’ job performance should be withheld from daily college football writing. I’m not applying this as a rule for all writers, only for myself and in connection with my readership. Other writers get to establish and outline their own standards, but for me, criticism of coaching performance is a natural extension of what a college football writer should do.

In many ways, common ground can be developed between and among college football writers who have differing views on the subject of coaching criticism. The very simple principle applies to anything else under the sun. Like television — which can be used for great good or great ill — or political power (which is television on steroids in terms of its capacities to either help or hurt people), coaching criticism isn’t inherently value-positive or value-negative. 

It needs to be done responsibly. That’s what counts.

Perhaps some college football writers revel in the ability to write a coach-firing column in the second year of a coach’s tenure. However, I don’t do this for kicks. I wouldn’t write about the need for a second-year coach to be fired unless I had sufficient reason to do so. Moreover, insisting on a second-year firing as opposed to a third-year firing would require me to explain exactly why such an extreme and severe action would be necessary. I am well aware that encouraging a response not (yet) consistent with widespread industry practice would confer upon me an added burden of proof. I’d have to make a much stronger case compared to a third-year firing, and my third-year firing case would have to be much stronger than a fourth-year firing column.

Being responsible — knowing what the standards are (and aren’t) for each recommended action — lends coherence and consistency to this larger process of coaching criticism. Having explained all this, I can now focus on a specific case study: Mark Helfrich of Oregon.

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Many of you are surely skeptical of Helfrich’s long-term future in Eugene, in light of what has happened this season after the departure of Marcus Mariota. Skepticism is an appropriate position in relationship to Helfrich. However, not trusting that a coach will work things out must be balanced against a number of competing tensions and questions.

On a general level, not trusting that a coach will solve a given set of problems is not the same thing as KNOWING a coach (past tense) HASN’T solved problems and has conclusively whiffed in his attempt to fix a sagging program.

Helfrich hasn’t been failing for a long time at Oregon. He fell short of expectations in 2013, but he exceeded them to some degree in 2014. If Helfrich’s 2014 season had been a 10-3 Holiday Bowl season without a Pac-12 North title, this would be a COMPLETELY different conversation, which observers should be able to see.

Do we know if Helfrich is or isn’t a good problem solver? We can maintain our suspicions and thoughts, but we don’t have a past-tense “this happened, and Helfrich failed” finality in front of our eyes. This is a drama-cum-crisis in the making, but if a crisis emerges, we need to see Helfrich respond to it. Framed slightly differently, treating Helfrich fairly in this situation means that one needs to allow him to attempt to fix things. This means that having a 2016 season in which to fix 2015 should be a bottom-line absolute, no questions whatsoever.

Oregon administrators might be worried that this is a Gene Chizik situation in the making, from Auburn in 2012. The Tigers, national champions in 2010 thanks to a wonder-working quarterback in Cam Newton, went downhill after Newton left. Oregon in a post-Mariota world could be following this same path, and that has tons of Duck fans rightly concerned.

However, before pulling the quick trigger and firing Helfrich this year, remember:

1) Chizik didn’t bottom out in the first year after Newton left Auburn — it was the second year after the national title.

2) Helfrich was promoted from within, whereas Chizik was hired from Iowa State when he became Auburn head coach in 2009, replacing Tommy Tuberville.

3) You’re not seeing Auburn fans calling for Gus Malzahn’s head, even though his post-2013 resume looks pretty shoddy right now. Tiger fans are willing to ride the Gus Bus for another season. They are fanatical about their football on the Plains, but they know they need to give their coach a chance. Any strongly-felt sense in Oregon that Helfrich really does need to be fired after one really poor season is the product of unfamiliarity with long-term football success, not to mention unfamiliarity with the pressure and scrutiny brought about by said success.

4) If you do fire a coach, you must always consider not just the replacement itself, but the odds of getting the guy you want and then the odds of getting a very strong number-two choice should the top choice decline or not become available on the market.

5) Making a national championship game or some other similar accomplishment should almost always buy a coach extra time. A coach should be seen as having earned more time on the job when he accomplishes something special. The only exception should emerge when said coach is found to have done something scandalous. Then the equation changes… but that’s not Helfrich’s situation in Eugene.

6) If Oregon does fire Helfrich one year after making the national title game, and Chip Kelly stays with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2016, what other rock-star coach (and naturally, Helfrich wouldn’t be fired unless the Ducks felt they could land a top-tier name) would want to come to Eugene, knowing that he’d face such intense “win-or-else” pressure?

The Ducks might not be soaring, but the idea of firing Mark Helfrich now, in 2015, just doesn’t have wings. This idea doesn’t fly.

A coach who achieved so richly in 2014 should get 2016 in which to try to repair 2015.

Being fair to a human being means that you give him (or her) a reasonable chance to address a problem once it develops. If Mark Helfrich really is on the hot seat, we need to pull the plug from the electrical heater in the living room.

 

About Matt Zemek

Editor, @TrojansWire | CFB writer since 2001 |

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