'The dominant image on the front cover of the 2007 Oregon football media guide is coach Mike Bellotti. Same as the back cover, which has a second dominant photo of Bellotti, and the words "Fearless" and "Leadership" and "Intensity" and "Strength" and "Determination" and "Innovative." [The author knows the importance of understatement, of letting language do the work for you. He just lists the words; he just describes the photos. He doesn't comment. He knows we get the idea.]

Except they forgot one word.

Teflon.

When we last left Bellotti, he was muttering under his breath after the Las Vegas Bowl, having been run off The Strip by a herd of stampeding Cougars. His team had just lost its fourth consecutive game and sixth in nine tries. He was telling anyone who would listen that Brigham Young (11-2) wouldn't have finished in the top half of the Pacific-10 Conference, which wasn't exactly an endorsement of his program if he'd stopped to think about it. [Nice pleasant conversational, somewhat confiding, prose.]

So maybe you weren't surprised last month when Bellotti publicly lambasted Dennis Dixon after his projected starting quarterback hit .188 in 24 at-bats in the minor leagues. Bellotti chided Dixon for signing and going to Florida to give baseball a try, effectively sending a Code Red to any future player who dares to miss a summer workout chasing a dream.

Nevermind [Should be two words.] that a few months before, Bellotti was jockeying for the vacant athletic director job. In Eugene, what's good for the coach isn't necessarily good for the quarterback. [Drop necessarily to make this nice observation about hypocrisy even nicer.]

And so this season begins with people wondering if Dixon will find enough confidence to lead. And with the Ducks picked to finish sixth in the conference in the annual media poll despite big-time resources, deep-pocketed boosters, a pro-athletics administration and blue-chip recruits. [Reminds the reader that the university has given over its identity to rich sports boosters.]

But what about high expectations?

Oregon basketball coach Ernie Kent reached the NCAA's elite eight, but because of a history of underachievement found himself with minimal offseason negotiating leverage. Which is only to say that Kent apparently isn't as good at politicking and schmoozing as Bellotti. If Coach Teflon gives a speech at a coaching clinic, it should be titled, "How Cultivating Key Boosters Can Save Your Tail." [Some of this is sort of hokey. In fact, the whole teflon thing is pretty tired. But it's still a fine piece of writing.]

When Mike Riley underachieves at Oregon State, he's held accountable. So is Kent. And so is OSU basketball coach Jay John.

But Bellotti skates [Knows how to play his teflon metaphor.] unlike any other highly compensated employee of the State of Oregon. And he shares in a percentage of season-ticket sales. And he uses a university automobile and a Eugene Country Club membership, among other perks, that are afforded to him as part of his contract. There's something about the free pass that doesn't feel right. [Excellent nasty detail. And the final sentence has a good understated feel to it. Remember: High emotion is the enemy of argumentation.]

Oregon has lost five or more games in four of the past five seasons. Since the 2002 season, Bellotti's teams have zero bowl victories. The Ducks have lost, in order, a Seattle Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Holiday Bowl and a Las Vegas Bowl. [Ouch.]

Bellotti has passed around the blame for his shortcomings. He's changed offensive coordinators, season to season to season. He's changed starting quarterbacks, series to series. He's changed team captains, game to game. [Repetition of "He's changed" at beginning of each sentence an example of effective repetition. Careful when you try this. The line between effective and deadly is thin. You know who does this really well? Joan Didion. Take a look at almost any page of The Year of Magical Thinking for brilliant use of initial repetition.] What really has to change, though, are the expectations surrounding the head coach, because without it, I suspect Bellotti is going to underachieve, go winless in bowl games over the next decade and shake hands all the way to the university Hall of Fame as if life were a glorified booster luncheon. [Nice simile. Life as glorified booster luncheon is nice.]

Bellotti hasn't performed poorly enough to lose his job, but the cries for appropriate improvement and focus and results are strangely absent at the start of this season. [Drop appropriate. Way blah word.] His inconsistent body of work merits more public scrutiny. His failure to break through given his resources merits a lower threshold of tolerance on a campus where Kent, and other coaches, are held accountable.

For Ducks fans, the football season turns into the stuff of an 18th-century Alexander Pope poem. You know, "Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." [HE'S QUOTING ALEXANDER POPE. HOLD ME BACK.]

But Pope only said it that way because nothing rhymes with Teflon.'

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