Five Lessons for the Padres From Ohio St and Oregon Football

hopes to emulate Ducks coach Mark Helfrich in motivating his team to victory. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

2) Leadership and Good Coaching

Ohio State is led by two- time national champion Urban Meyer (with University of Florida) while Mark Helfrich is the relative new kid on the coaching block here. Yet don’t think either coach has been lucky enough to have the right players at the right time. When Meyer took over Ohio State- it was after previous coach Jim Tressel had resigned after a NCAA violation scandal involving a cover-up. Therefore his first at Ohio State despite an undefeated regular season was banned from a bowl game. Oops.

Helfrich took over the massively successful and popular Chip Kelly – and therefore had to be almost perfect just to be AS GOOD as Kelly. Helfrich though had paid his dues as a coach. He started back in 1997 as a graduate assistant at Oregon. Then he was a QB coach for several schools before becoming the Oregon Offensive Coordinator under Kelly from 2009-2012. His first season they lost to Stanford and Arizona before winning their bowl game but people were disappointed. This year, Arizona foiled the Ducks again before they got revenge in the Pac 12 Championship game.

For the Padres? The fan base seems divided on just what role Bud Black does or doesn’t play on this team. I’m on the side that this year he has to get it done on the field. He has the talent, and now we will see what he is made of.

Like with Helfrich at Oregon – I like the consistency of the message from the coach’s corner and will be watching closely to see how Black does now that he has an offense to work with. Black and pitching coach Darren Balsley are seen by many as the Padres secret recipe to helping pitchers turn their careers around(see Tyson Ross, Ian Kennedy, Aaron Harang, Jason Marquis, etc) so we will see if that can be duplicated and the Padres can be lead to new heights.