Yes, according to this story, the department of justice is poking around the story that Mike Bellotti got $2.3 million from the Ducks upon his departure for ESPN.

OK, guys, do you understand what this was about? The guy was talked into leaving his job as the head football coach — a duty that paid him close to 2 million bucks a year — to take over as athletic director, a job nobody in his right mind wants, and one that pays around $600,000 a year.

THAT’s why he was paid off. And as far as I’m concerned, he deserved that money for being a good soldier and giving away his job to a guy, Chip Kelly, who may not be as good at the job as he was.

And so, department of justice, why not spend some time trying to find out who is leaving pipe bombs in parks around the city? Or how about trying to find out why Oregon would offer Tubby Smith — TUBBY SMITH??? — $2 million a year to be its basketball coach. I can’t believe that actually happened. I mean, Smith isn’t your “it” guy who is going to create excitement around that program, is he?

I’d sooner give Tom Izzo $5 million a year than Tubby $2 million. You’d have a better chance of making the money back with Izzo than Smith. (By the way, it’s cool that all these coaches have agents, isn’t it? It’s so they can all say, “I haven’t been contacted by the University of Oregon” — because their agent has. They haven’t. Deniability is what agents buy you.)

I know, I’m off track. But so is the department of justice.

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With all the stuff swirling around the Trail Blazers right now, this story slipped under a lot of people’s radar. It seems pretty incredible to me that Mike Bellotti, after just one year as the school’s AD, gets a check this big just as a going-away present.

I like Bellotti a lot and have all kinds of respect for the job he did there as the football coach. But he was well paid for that. But what really disturbs me is this part of the story:

Bellotti signed the agreement on March 16, the same day he announced the dismissal of basketball coach Ernie Kent and the day before he signed a deal with ESPN to provide analysis and color commentary for college football games.

So he signed an agreement (yeah, I bet it was a tough negotiation to get him to accept this deal — and by the way, WHO signed him to this sweetie of a deal?) on one day and left the next day? I should have checked the Eugene Register Guard before I wrote this. Ron Bellamy has the whole story of this thing. The university president signed the deal and it’s pretty obvious — he was basically paid off for vacating his job as the head football coach a year ago.

Wow.

At a time when the school is looking to give a huge contract to its next basketball coach? And may have to give the football coach a bump to match the basketball coach?

Man, athletic directors aren’t expensive to hire, they’re expensive to get rid of. This is the same school that had to give Bill Moos $2 million to buy him out three years ago. And now, $2.3 million to say goodbye to Bellotti?

That’s just crazy.

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I should have mentioned this yesterday but I forgot:

The thing that also ticked me off last week was how many Duck fans torched Mike Bellotti. I heard all week, “I’d worry about us if this were a Bellotti team, but with Chip Kelly, I’m not worried.”

Come on, people. It was Mike Bellotti who has taken this program to where it is now. And it’s his players Kelly is winning with. I’m not demeaning Kelly in any way but Bellotti is probably the most important coach in the history of that school, in any sport.

Love the Ducks all you want, but honor your history. Mike Bellotti was special.

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After taking a week off, I never got around to talking about the Oregon-California game.

First, let me say I don’t want to take anything away from the Ducks. Nick Aliotti’s defense was as good as I’ve EVER seen it. I mean EVER. Against a team with real talent. The offense perked up, too.

But can I add one thing? California may have been the worst-prepared good team for a big game I’ve seen in a long time. That was a pathetic effort that just had to embarrass the Bear coaching staff. I mean, horrible.

The Beavers? Well, everyone is waiting for the inevitable turnaround but I’m not so sure it’s ever going to come this season. The skill position talent is OK, but the lines on both sides of the ball are really struggling and without that, the rest of the offense and defense are mediocre, at best.

And one more thing about Blount:

The thing I liked the least about what went down yesterday was the idea that Chip Kelly (with Mike Bellotti’s approval) decided to change the rules of Blount’s suspension because he didn’t think Blount would be able to do it without the carrot of playing football on the end of the stick.

See, this is EXACTLY the wrong message. What Kelly has done is change the rules in midstream, because he figured they’d be broken, anyway. He knew Blount wasn’t going to stick around under the original punishment (go to class, come to practice but never play in a game) so he changed the rules to make it easier on him.

What would you think about a U of O professor who gave Blount a history test but after seeing the player wasn’t going to pass it, yanked it back and handed him an easier one? It’s the same thing.

What are you teaching at Oregon? You can say you care about Blount but if you really did, you’d teach him that football isn’t the whole reason for college. Instead, Kelly gave in and basically admitted the only reason Blount is at Oregon is to carry a football. And, oh — by the way — Chip Kelly also acted in Chip Kelly’s best interests by allowing the guy a chance to come back and play.

And he’ll play. I’ve heard people say they don’t know if he’ll play much or not. My guess is, given the time to do so, Blount will be in excellent playing shape and will play A LOT. Kelly obviously likes the power back to go with the speed back — we saw that last season, and right now he doesn’t have a power back until Blount arrives.

And one more thing — why not make some of those “ladders” Blount has to climb public? How will we really know he’s climbed any of them? Are we going to have to take Chip’s word for it? Like we took his word that Blount would never play another game in a Duck uniform?

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Mike Bellotti officially moves into the big office tomorrow. I have no idea what it takes to be a good athletic director and I have a feeling not many others do, either. There are plenty of incompetent ones around and they seem to keep their jobs.

But I think Bellotti has a great blend of charm, poise and intelligence. I always thought he was a very bright guy who was a hell of a football coach. I believe his wit, charm and smarts just have to make him a very good AD.

I wish him the best of luck in what, in these times, cannot be an easy job. I hope the job makes him happy.

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That will be Mike Dunlap, a former head coach at Metro State in Denver and a guy who spent a couple of years on the Denver Nugget bench. He’s been at Arizona with Lute Olson.

Sounds kind of like one of those “head-coach-in-waiting” situations, doesn’t it? But Oregon wouldn’t do something like that, would it, Mike Bellotti?

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I don’t see Mike Bellotti with Ernie Kent’s blood on his hands.

Pat Kilkenny will take care of that little matter before he leaves in late June. He won’t make Bellotti fire Ernie. Yes, Kent has had the Ducks into the elite eight twice. It doesn’t seem to matter. It’s pretty apparent that some very influential people around that program want Kent out of there.

You see, in the big-time cesspool that is big-time college athletics, backers are writing some big checks. You don’t get into the Top 25 without people writing some big checks. It’s how it works. But when people throw a lot of money at your program, they want input. They want influence. So when you play that game, it goes without saying you surrender some control over the program to those who are underwriting it.

It’s like politicians. You don’t solicit large campaign donations without allowing access and influence to those who give you the money. It’s what made our country great, folks.

I think some of the Duck donors writing big checks — and I don’t necessarily mean Phil Knight because, quite frankly, I don’t know who it is — want a new basketball coach. And if they give enough money, they’ll get one.

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I’m not big on succession plans for coaches. It’s kind of stupid to annoint someone as the next big thing without going out in the real world and looking around for someone better.

In the case of the Oregon Ducks, Chip Kelly damn well be the second coming of Bear Bryant to justify the school — with all it has going for it — not putting that head football coach job out there for anyone who wants to apply for it. I believe, given all the money and facilities on hand, some of the best coaches in the country would have been interested in the job.

Now I realize Kelly comes from the cradle of coaches, University of New Hampshire, but how do we know he’s the best available candidate? I mean, he’s NEVER been a head coach and I’m not sure how a university can feel totally comfortable handing over the keys to a program to someone who has never soloed before.

There are so many things that occupy a head coach’s time that an assistant coach doesn’t have to deal with — from discipline, to media, to big-time donors, to recruiting decisions, to practice planning for the entire squad. Kelly is a man who wants to run the offense. It’s his deal. How much time is he going to have to run his defense? His special teams? How well will he do it? How well will he choose and maintain his coaching staff?

Of course, the school got lucky when it elevated Bellotti from a coordinator job and hopes to duplicate the feat. I’m just not so sure it’s always that easy. A couple of years from now, in fact, this is either going to look like the greatest hire in school history or the biggest mistake.

I can’t for the life of me understand what’s gotten into Bellotti. I think the guy is a heck of a coach. And I don’t think he understands what a lousy job it is to be an AD in today’s world of college athletics. The constant begging boosters for money, the compliance and Title IX issues, the facility problems — ugh. It’s all the bad parts of sports without the rewards of being with the athletes and winning games.

Athletic director jobs these days are for pencil pushers. Number crunchers. Or hucksters. They’re not for solid coaches accustomed to the adrenaline rushes you get from winning games in front of 100,000 people at Michigan. I think Bellotti, on the whole, will grow to hate that job after a few years.

And then what?

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After the Holiday Bowl there seemed to be a lot of speculation about Mike Bellotti having coached his final game at Oregon. It almost, to me, seemed to take on the proportions of wishful thinking. Sort of, “Good job, Coach — now, here’s your hat and coat, drive carefully into the sunset.”

Part of the problem with coaches is the same as it is with sports columnists — if you stay in one spot for a long time, it just gives you time to offend more people. You wake up at some point and realize that over time, you’ve offended just about everybody with SOMETHING you’ve done, said or written over the years. Sometimes those people just never forget. But in both cases they need to reflect back on the body of work.

My goodness, people — wake up! This guy has been a huge figure in Oregon football history and, like him or not, has been one of the best college football coaches in the country for years. And you want to hasten his departure?

I don’t think I’d be so anxious to show him the door. You’ve got a head coach in waiting, yes. An offensive coach. He looks promising as a successor but I’m not sure being the head coach at the University of New Hampshire for a few years means you’re going to set the Pac-10 on fire. The thing about elevating assistants to the big job is that you’re never sure what will happen when the buck stops at their desk. Responsibility changes people.

I’m not saying that Chip Kelly isn’t going to be a fine head coach (although I’m entirely unconvinced he’d be better than Boise State’s Chris Peterson). What I’m saying is, there’s an element of mystery there. Can he recruit and do it without landing on probation? Will he stay relatively free of scandal by running a clean program? Can he deal with the media and alumni responsibilities that come with a Pac-10 job? With Bellotti there is no doubt about any of that. He’s first class. Solid — one of the best around. Man, I’d be encouraging him to hang around as long as he wants.

And if I were Bellotti, I’d sure not be in any hurry to become the school’s athletic director. Ugh — that job has a big element of drudgery to it. It’s becoming the job for an accountant who can hustle money out of the wallets of well-meaning boosters — which doesn’t sound like fun to me. And Bellotti is going to miss having the contact with the athletes.

Think hard about this job change, Coach. And for those out there encouraging him to leave, be careful what you wish for.

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OK, sometimes I don’t pay attention to college sports as much as I should.

They’re paying Chip Kelly not to take another job. We all knew that. But I think the real crux of the thing is that the University of Oregon athletic department has so much dough, that’s really about all they’re paying him for. When and if Mike Bellotti does decide not to be the football coach anymore, the Ducks will consider Kelly as a candidate to be his successor.

But if it doesn’t seem like the right move at the time, they’ll just buy him out and hire someone else. It’s only a million bucks a year, after all. I mean, what’s the big deal? That’s chump change in Eugene.

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