It’s been over a year and a half since Mark Helfrich was promoted to the head coach of the Oregon football team and if anything’s clear, it’s that he has no set priority on making a sudden or drastic imprint on the program. Sticking by his mantra of just working with the process and being committed to getting better, the coach making his second appearance at Paramount Studios for the Pac-12 Media Days Wednesday expressed to reporters that an individual impact on a program known for its recent success and high expectations is not what he’s after.
“If our players are 100 percent committed to our culture, 100 percent to our process, that’s our mark,” Helfrich said.
Those through-the-roof expectations were evident even before he took the podium, with Oregon being voted as the clear favorite to win the Pac-12 Championship among media members, despite their absence in the conference’s title game the past two years.
Last year’s absence was directly related to Helfrich. After his first year as the head man in charge and nit-picking at certain areas of improvement, Helfrich felt marginal things such as missed tackles and execution problems negatively effected the way the season turned out.
As it goes with any profession though, Helfrich admitted that there were no lack of lessons he had learned from his first year in charge.
“There were thousands,” the once 16-year assistant said. “I don’t think you ever as a player hit the ‘okay I’ve made it’ realm and certainly as a coach it’s the same way. There are so many things that you couldn’t have prepared for.”
He couldn’t have prepared for Marcus Mariota’s knee problems midseason and with his Heisman candidate back and healthy, it’s apparent that the second-year head coach will be helped in the leadership category on offense with a third-year starting quarterback in Mariota.
Mariota forewent the opportunity to declare for the NFL Draft in order to come back for a final season at Oregon and when asked about what the biggest difference would be between last fall and this upcoming season, the answer was easy for the head coach.
“Leadership,” Helfrich said of the quarterback who passed for 3,665 yards and rushed for 715 more. “Just seeing him grow up, seeing him flourish, even on the field with him last year seeing how he interacted with his teammates. The greatest thing about him is his commitment. One of the best things of my day is watching him practice. He cares more about practice rep 13 in period 12 of seven on seven than anyone I’ve ever been around.”
As far as differences and transitions go for the man with the head set, Helfrich is keeping by his predecessor Chip Kelly’s advice: to simply be himself. Doing that, he’ll have no sights on changing any landscape or making it a top list priority to beat Stanford, just to continue to get better.
If one is making a prediction, that type of rhetoric will never stop for the Coos Bay, Oregon native who doesn’t think he’ll ever quite settle in to his coaching gig.
“I don’t think you ever settle in or just completely sit down and exhale and relax,” Helfrich said.”There’s another coach in this conference that told me when I got hired you won’t feel comfortable for two and a half years and I’m shocked by that. I understand what he meant. There’s just so many different aspects to being a head coach.”
Follow Justin Wise on Twitter @JWISE25