Nothing of substance has prompted this so go ahead and shit on it if you must, but I’ll say it anyway: Mario Cristobal will win a national title at Oregon. This would seem unfathomable if this were 2012 and his tenure at FIU were just coming to a close, but his stint at Bama rejunevated him.
Cristobal is an elite recruiter and seems to be one of the only coaches in the pac 12 who understands that player development will only take a program so far. In particular, the talent the Ducks are stockpiling on the o-line will allow them to compete with any team in the nation in a few years. Of course you can’t win it all if you don’t have a great QB, and we’ll have to wait and see who they acquire in the future.
I think he’ll have Oregon in a better spot than Chip Kelly ever did because he understands how to put together an entire organization seamlessly. He’s already taking advantage of the resources Oregon has, and I think he’ll be the first pac 12 coach in a while to stick it to USC and pull the best talent from under their nose consistently. It’s clear from watching his press conferences that Saban taught him well, which could very well mean he’s extremely dirty, but so be it.
I’m not a Duck fan, but I just had this thought and decided to post it because it’s the off-season, and there really isn’t much discussion of other teams besides aggy and OU.