Powells leave Oregon, take over at University of Washington

Is it really so bad for the Ducks as many in this thread saying?

Powell is a proven good coach. But I wonder if he knows anything about identifying young talent and recruiting smart. I'm going blank on all the names. But it seems like a pattern is emerging where Oregon is recruiting distance runners that look great on the surface. They achieved amazing times and victories at the high school level. But they seem to lack the upside and frankly don't look very athletic. When Lananna was in the picture at Oregon they had the savvy to find a talent in Wheating who was primarily a soccer player and didn't log any amazing times on the track in high school.

Ryan Foreman wrote:

Is it really so bad for the Ducks as many in this thread saying?

Powell is a proven good coach. But I wonder if he knows anything about identifying young talent and recruiting smart. I'm going blank on all the names. But it seems like a pattern is emerging where Oregon is recruiting distance runners that look great on the surface. They achieved amazing times and victories at the high school level. But they seem to lack the upside and frankly don't look very athletic. When Lananna was in the picture at Oregon they had the savvy to find a talent in Wheating who was primarily a soccer player and didn't log any amazing times on the track in high school.

I am not a fan of Oregon but what are you talking about?

Was Wheating's recruitment savvy, or pure luck, or something in between? There's dozens of athletic "what-ifs" that don't pan out at most programs. How much time did Vin really spend recruiting Wheating? Do you give Powell credit for Stanosvek? Walk on to AA? Have to imagine Andy did most of the recruiting grunt-work when Vin was there anyway.

Recruiting at Oregon is all about getting blue-chip recruits, while giving out as little scholarship as possible. If you're at Oregon, you simply don't spend your time looking under every rock for a diamond in the rough. Can't do it, and I'm sure they've lost out, but they also get a ton of good kids. Seems like their current crop of freshmen will do pretty well. Not sure if they look athletic enough for you.

And as usual, leaving out the tremendous loss on the women's side. Very bad for the Ducks.

Its becoming clear that Oregon has declined as a program as far as scoring points in the NCAA championships. Keep in mind that for a couple years Oregon scored major points off of Devon Allen winning the hurdles 2 years in a row. He was a football player. If you take Cheserek out of the picture Oregon's scholarship athletes scoring points in the NCAA has almost completely dried up for the past 3 years.. It seems like the decline began right around when Lananna was phasing himself out of the program.

I'm just speculating. Here is what I know. Andy Powell has proven to a very good coach of distance runners. Oregon has had highly regarded recruiting classes the past 4 years. Maybe it has just been a string of bad luck with athletes not panning out. But its becomes an oddly consistent pattern of athletes not panning out in recent years. So it leads me to question is the recruiting really that good.

I disagree that Oregon is all about recruiting blue chips. Obviously there are certain distance runners like Rupp and Cheserek who Oregon is going after. With runners like that the trick is to almost convince the recruit to not go pro. Otherwise, I would argue that Oregon has unique resources with contacts and money to travel to go across the work and look under some of the rocks.

In any case, the main point I want to make is that Oregon has been on the decline for a few years now. They did almost nothing in the recent NCAA championships. So how can Powell leaving Oregon be that bad for Oregon? A lot of the bad stuff has already happened while Powell was at Oregon. Powell is not taking Hayward Field and Oregon's Phil Knight connection with him to Washington.

Athletes are already asking to be released, and not who you might think.

indefensible wrote:

Boxley Bored wrote:

More great hires by AD Jen Cohen. This is huge for UW, arguably the best track coaching hires in their history. There is plenty of D1 talent in that state plus California, but most of the coaching hires over the years have been less than impressive.

I bet everyone who defended Metcalf and criticized feels dumb right now. This is a massive upgrade.UWn can attract the top coaching talent available, why would they keep around Metcalf who has been causing headaches for a while?

Calling the kids who reported him snowflakes, criticism the administration caving in to the complaints, etc. is foolish. The AD knew she could easily bring in someone better and delivered. Big time move by the AD.

I guarantee you nobody on the team who liked Meltcalf is complaining about his departure now!

The administration being wise to let Metcalf go, this being a good hire, and the kids who complained being snowflakes are not mutually exclusive.

Murcia is now the " Director of Track and Field " . That will be north of $ 150 K annually . She kind of grows on ya . Level headed

Quack Quack DuckQul wrote:

Athletes are already asking to be released, and not who you might think.

I am sure a lot of them will be released and go north to UW. Both of them are great coaches/people that have relationships with their athletes beyond just prescribing workouts and holding a stopwatch.

Jeff Johnson told Lananna about Wheating.

Quack Quack DuckQul wrote:

Athletes are already asking to be released, and not who you might think.

ClonedDuck wrote:

I am sure a lot of them will be released and go north to UW. Both of them are great coaches/people that have relationships with their athletes beyond just prescribing workouts and holding a stopwatch.

That would be good, but what makes you sure that they'll be released?

Looks like Licari is out:

http://gohuskies.com/news/2018/7/11/track-field-stevenson-named-associate-head-coach.aspx

It sucks to lose Pat. A lot.

It's pretty clear the new coaches were instructed to clean house, period.

I am glad for the UW vaulters that they brought in another pole vault person. Toby is also a very good pole vault coach, and I was very concerned they would hire some random jumps person who wasn't a good vault coach, or try to get a volunteer PV coach.

I like Toby and it is exciting to have another great PV person move to the area.

But I would have preferred they kept Pat.

Why is it “clear” the Powell’s were instructed to clean house? It couldn’t be that they have their own ideas of who they want to work with on their staff? You get one shot at a P5 HC gig, why would you not surround yourself with the best people you know and have confidence in? And represent a change to a new outlook and way of doing things? Pat had a great run at UW, but things dropped off quite a bit this year, which didn’t help his chances.

They should have kept Pat.

Nothing against Toby.

Pat had 7 NCAA champions and I can’t even remember how many all-Americans (70?) on probably close to zero scholarships. Everyone respects him athletes wise. As a fellow coach I think of Pat as one of the good ones.

This is a shame.

I agree they should have kept Pat, and nothing against Toby. They should hire Nate Wilford the LJ/TJ guy out of Tacoma.