Criticism of offense isn't anything new.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

The head football coach, standing in front of the weekly gathering of boosters, fielded a general question about his inconsistent offense and launched into an impassioned endorsement of his offensive coordinator.

He called him "an outstanding football coach." He said that the assistant coach "is not the problem with our offense right now. The problem is getting players to execute things that work. ...

"Changing the offensive coordinator isn't going to make a difference. I could bring in Bill Walsh, and he could have coached our offense ... and it would not have looked a lot different. ...

"I will make a change when I deem it a positive change, and I've done that in the past, but now it's not appropriate, nor will it help us.

"What will help us is getting better execution and, yes, maybe try a few more things, try different things, but you still have to put players in a position on the field where they have a chance to succeed. You can't ask players to do things they aren't capable of doing.

"That, to me, is the most important thing of coaching. Try not to put players in a position where they have no chance of success, and put them in a position where, with their abilities, they have at least a chance to succeed.

"It isn't always entertaining, and I wish it were, but it always isn't. ... It doesn't matter if we run the flea-flicker throwback reverse, or go back and throw the ball every first down, we still have to execute plays before they look good."

The head coach was Rich Brooks.

The date was Feb. 8, 1993, as Brooks spoke with local Oregon Club boosters several weeks after the Ducks' 1992 season, which ended at 6-6 with a loss to Wake Forest in the Independence Bowl.

The offensive coordinator was Mike Bellotti.

Two years later, almost to the day, Bellotti was named Oregon's head coach, Brooks having departed for the NFL after the Ducks, with Bellotti as offensive coordinator, won the Pac-10 title and went to the Rose Bowl.

The rest, for Oregon, has been history, and glorious history at that.

That scene came back to me with all the discussion about Oregon's offensive struggles in general, and red-zone problems in specific, this season.

Coordinators are convenient lightning rods for criticism, but consider how different the history of UO football would have been if Brooks had listened to criticism of Bellotti after the '92 season.

Remember, too, that there were grumbles about Dirk Koetter in 1997, when the Ducks were playing both Jason Maas and Akili Smith, and even about Jeff Tedford, canonized now by Oregon fans.

Ultimately, everything can come down to coaching, if you want. If the play doesn't work, it's on the coach. If the player hasn't developed enough to execute it consistently, it's on the coach. If the athlete physically can't do it, well, the coach recruited him. So it goes.

However, college teams can't hit the waiver wire. At some point, they are what they are, and if athletes like Joey Harrington, Maurice Morris, Reuben Droughns and Keenan Howry were among the best playmakers the Ducks have ever had, you might admit that they're special talents, tough to follow.

It's fair to say that the Oregon offense isn't very exciting right now, or explosive, or entertaining. The Ducks don't attack as much as they seem to probe, but then a lot of teams don't run up big numbers in Norman, and ASU's defense is not bad this year, and seven turnovers scuttled the Ducks against Indiana.

Not that it will mollify fans unhappy with offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig, but Bellotti offered a fairly realistic assessment earlier this week; he suggested that the Ducks "can open it up more," but said that would be contingent on better blocking, better throws by Kellen Clemens and a better performance by the Oregon receivers, who haven't done enough this season to help Clemens when he's put the ball close.

For Oregon, it could be that simple, and that complicated.