Less than 24 hours after Oregon fired its head coach for the first time in 40 years, several players addressed the media for the first time.
Freshmen Troy Dye and Brady Breeze, as well as junior Doug Brenner, took the stage at the third floor of the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, a place where now former Oregon coach Mark Helfrich used to sit, to answer questions about Helfrich’s firing.
Helfrich was fired Tuesday night after meeting with Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens. Mullens said in a press conference later that night that he had become worried about the “direction of the program” and that it was on a “poor trajectory.”
The players shed light on some of the details of the previous night and shared their thoughts and emotions on the situation.
“I mean it’s difficult,” Dye said of the firing. “He’s the guy that recruited me, came into my house, told my family he had my back and I had his back. It hurts a little bit, but it’s business. It happens.”
Breeze called Helfrich a “father figure” for himself and many of his other teammates. He added that the possibility of Helfrich getting fired had come up before among players.
“Nobody was really expecting it to happen,” Breeze said. “It just kind of happened so fast.”
The players said that they received a text Tuesday night at 6:38 p.m. which called for a team meeting at HDC at 7 p.m. For Breeze, the late notice and urgency of the text was a sign that something was wrong.
“We obviously knew something was going down and it wasn’t gonna be good news,” Breeze said.
Once the team had gathered in the locker room, Helfrich entered with his family and broke the news to the team. He told the team he loved them and that he would always be there for them. He then exited and Mullens entered to address the team. He assured them that he would do his best to try and find a high-level replacement. Once Mullens wrapped up his speech, he was off to Matthew Knight Arena to formally announce the decision to awaiting media members. Many of the players went up to Helfrich’s office, formed a line and one by one said their goodbyes.
“It was pretty emotional,” Brenner said. “He was pretty upset about it. … sad to see him go.”
Brenner, Dye and Breeze also addressed concerns that have hovered around the team all season, like issues involving team culture and, as Mullens put it, “trajectory.”
Dye didn’t exactly agree with Mullens take on the team’s direction.
“In my opinion, I thought we were bouncing back and going upwards,” Dye said. “I’m sorry Rob Mullens feels that we were going down, but Helf had us on the way back up.”
Breeze, whose uncle is former Duck Chad Cota, has spent time around the program before enrolling this summer and said that culture was different this season than in prior ones.
“I’ve seen the culture change a little bit,” Breeze said. “It’s changed from more of a team thing back when Chip was here and when Mark started it was all team, team, team. Then I noticed this year it was more individual. Guys were kind of doing it for themselves, or so they could go to the league and not really worrying about how the season is going; more worried about what their stats are.”
Dye agreed and said that some players had developed an attitude of entitlement this season.
“You look at the Colorado game, you look at their sideline, you look at the Oregon state game, you look at their sideline and then look at our sideline; it’s just two different attitudes,” Dye said. “Half the time we thought we’d just come into the game and it was ‘oh we’re playing against this team, they’re just gonna lay down,’ but that’s not the case.”
Mullens said in his press conference Tuesday night that for the first time in decades, Oregon would look to hire an outside coach. Brenner said that he doubts players will get much of a say in the decision making process but is confident that Mullens will make the right decision.
“It’s kind of an interesting and exciting time to see where that goes.”
Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris