As of this morning, Scout.com, Rivals.com and ESPN.com all have the Oregon Ducks ranked in the top five for 2018 team recruiting rankings. Considering that none of the coaches at Oregon have ever coached a game for the Ducks, that is quite a feat. Former Oregon Ducks head coach Mike Bellotti joined Chad and Travis on Rip City Drive Thursday to talk about the job that Willie Taggart and the Oregon coaches have done in recruiting.
Bellotti says that although Taggart has done a great job on the 2018 recruits, he’s done just as good of a job in getting the players already on the roster to buy in to his message.
“He’s done a great job exciting the recruiting path and energizing the recruiting and I think a lot of people forget, when you become a head coach, the first people you have to recruit is the former players – The players you inherit – And I think from what I read in the papers and what I see about their attitude and their feelings right now, they’re all in.”
Bellotti also says that Taggart just knows how to sell the Oregon program to high school kids.
“Obviously Willie and his staff have the ability to connect with people and they have the ability to sell the facilities and everything that’s there at Oregon. It’s still though, selling themselves and I think they’ve got a way in social media manners to get these people to believe in them.”
Bellotti, who has also been an analyst for ESPN for the past several seasons also talked about the Beavers naming Jake Luton their starter earlier in the week and what that does for the team.
“It sort of tells the team and tells everybody ‘This is the guy.’ He also will then get the reps. He [Gary Andersen] won’t stagger the reps between two different quarterbacks. So he knows he’s going to start working with the guys that he’s going to play with every day and everyone gets used to his cadence and the little nuances of where to throw the ball, how to lead somebody out of a break and how to read the coverage with this guy in the game.”
Take a listen to the great interview below.