A lot of mystery and speculation is surrounding the Oregon football program heading into the summer. The team lost Chip Kelly as its coach, Kenjon Barner as the leading rusher, its best offensive lineman and most of its top defensive players. The team’s best returning players, Marcus Mariota and De’Anthony Thomas, have extremely high expectations to live up to. Mariota is expected to elevate his game to the next level, which really means the Ducks want him to be a Heisman finalist-type player. Thomas will likely start the season as an every-down back, a position he may be physically unable to play. Simply, the season could go many ways.

The best-case scenario:

It is easy to profile a season and say that the best-case scenario would be said team winning the national title since, of course, that is the best possible outcome. But that is lazy and unrealistic.

Best case for Oregon this season would be to achieve what Duck fans, realistic Duck fans at least, have become accustomed to.

Oregon needs to beat Stanford for revenge and try to limit their slip ups against lesser teams to one. The national championship is probably out of reach, but the Rose Bowl is expected, and rightfully so. The team is extremely talented.

To get to Pasadena, Oregon needs its stars (Mariota, Thomas, Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, and Colt Lyerla) to grow the same way they did the year before. The Ducks need their receivers to vie with the running game for the most important part of the offense, and to perform them. With Barner gone, they don’t have a real running back that they are comfortable using to grind out games. The receiving core needs to alleviate some of the pressure placed on the ground game. Whether that be Josh Huff,  Keanon Lowe, Daryle Hawkins or someone else, it is crucial that the Ducks are able to take to the air.

The worst-case scenario:

The worst case is simply that Oregon has a mediocre season. The team is too talented to stumble into the bottom half of the conference, but some things could surely go wrong.

There are many questions surrounding Helfrich, who was relatively unknown until Kelly started talking him up as his successor. He likely has expectations placed on him that he won’t be able to fulfill, and every move he makes will be under a microscope. Not every coach takes his team to the Rose Bowl in the first year at the helm. It is very possible that he might falter a bit in his first couple years.

Another possibility: Thomas gets injured. Byron Marshall needs to prove himself in fall camp, and he might not be able to. Oregon has been spoiled with prolific backs, but Marshall might not be able to produce the way Oregon running backs have in the past. If so, Thomas could end up carrying more than he can handle. If forced to run primarily between the tackles, the wear and tear could stop him from playing a full season.

Another very plausible scenario is that the defense struggles after losing so many impact players. With so many players rotating in to the starting role, some hiccups are to be expected. Playing in the Pac-12 with up-and-coming programs like UCLA and Washington, nothing comes easy. Oregon could be in trouble.

DuckSeason is the Emerald’s yearly football magazine for the upcoming season. This story has been republished from the magazine.

Kat Mertz has yet to take the sideline for a regular season game, but she has already begun making her mark on the Oregon soccer program. Replacing Tara Erickson as head coach in December, Mertz claims to have already instilled a new culture on the program.

“There have been a lot of changes,” Mertz said. “Just the emphasis on the style of play, the emphasis on creating a team culture and a team respect. I think any time a new coach comes in there’s obviously some transition and growing pains.”

Mertz has six new players coming in, five of them freshmen, and has seen a few leave as well. Brynne Konkel has medically retired and will remain with the team as an undergraduate assistant coach, Ally Aschbacher has forgone soccer and committed to the Oregon track team, Kelsey Foo will sit out the season with a knee injury and four other players are currently seeking to transfer to other schools.

“We’ve had some people decide that Duck soccer isn’t really what they wanted to do,” Mertz said. “The make-up of our team is going to be a little bit different from last year, which is great. We needed to make some changes.”

Mertz feels that, with some of the women leaving and some just coming in, it has given her a unique opportunity to make the changes she felt necessary. Sophomore Mia Gunter is possibly the gem of the incoming group. Gunter transferred from West Virginia, where she was a contributing part of a Big 12 championship team.

Mertz said she will likely place Gunter in the midfield. With stand-out mid-fielders Mo Fitzgerald and Scout Libke graduating, there is a lack of depth at the position and Gunter will have the opportunity to contribute right away. However, Mertz was apprehensive about naming her a starter due to the impressive work during the spring by mid-fielders Maryn Beutler, Kira Wagoner, Ryann Davie and Lilly Archer.

However, Gunter has an edge to in the competition to start: post-season experience.

“None of these players have played in the post-season,” Mertz said. “Obviously that’s our goal, to get into the post-season. It will be nice to have some leadership and guidance from a player that’s been in the post-season and understands the pressure.”

The importance of that experience is not lost on Mertz, who is fully aware that she was hired with the expectation of taking the Ducks to the post-season. She also knows what a tough task that might be given the talent in the Pac-12, but feels that the team is improving steadily.

“I think we are focused and playing with a little more passion,” Mertz said.

While she has already impressed with her recruiting and discipline, Mertz still has a long road ahead of her. Taking a team that was a Pac-12 bottom-feeder and turning them into a conference champion is a lot to ask. She’s optimistic, though, and looks forward to seeing what her girls can do when it counts.

In a constant effort to improve, the Oregon baseball team has seven athletes participating in summer baseball of some form. Most notably would be pitcher Tommy Thorpe.

Thorpe is representing the United States as a part of the national team playing in the 39th USA-Japan series.

However, Thorpe isn’t alone. Garrett Cleavinger, Scott Heineman and Darrell Hunter are all playing for the Cape Cod League.

Nick Catalano is playing for the Alaska Baseball League, while Mitchell Tolman and Kevin Minjares are playing in the California Collegate League.

All-American Cole Irvin played three games with the Collegiate National Team but was recently released. Irvin had a 0.00 ERA in 5.2 innings pitched, allowing just two hits while striking out nine.

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As the active NBA offseason continues, rumors of trades for Blazers All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge have been everywhere. Most recently, it is believed that the Golden State Warriors are seeking the Portland big man. The Oregonian has more.

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With back up guard Eric Maynor inking with the Washington Wizards, the Blazers first round pick, C.J. McCollum, has been given the spot of first guard off the bench. Is he ready for serious NBA minutes?

In wake of the NCAA sanctions report handed to Oregon, Duck fans have mixed feelings. On one hand, Oregon got off as close to scot-free as possible. But the slap on wrist left Oregon fans confused. If the infractions were so minor, why did the investigation take 27 months? Why were fans forced to endure the uncertainties? Was it all really worth it?

The Oregon athletic department and the NCAA claim that all committed infractions were accidental. Maybe so, but even if the Ducks didn’t knowingly dance with the devil, they are still guilty of the incompetence that spurred the whole mess. Ignorance, in this case, is not exactly bliss. Furthermore, Oregon refuses to acknowledge that this may not be the end of the unpleasant relationship between Oregon and the NCAA Committee on Infractions. If the oversight, which persisted over several years, happened before, what’s ensuring it won’t happen again? If a serious change hasn’t been made, the three-year probationary period could end up being more than just a slap on the wrist.

One step Oregon took was hiring a new chief compliance officer, Jody Sykes, but athletic director Rob Mullens admitted that one position isn’t an end-all for possible infractions.

“It’s important to note that compliance isn’t the responsibility of just an office or an individual,” Mullens said. “It’s the culture you create. It’s the responsibility of everyone in our department and everyone associated with our program.”

In addition to the limbo Oregon went through for more than two years, the team will continue to pay for its mistakes. On the surface, the loss of a scholarship over the next three years doesn’t seem costly — Over the past four years Oregon has only used 83 of its 85 available scholarships — but with college football recruiting as competitive as it is, it’s impossible to say with certainty that it will have no effect.

Lost in the shuffle of it all is that Oregon’s accidental cheating didn’t result in any quantifiable gain. At the hard of the investigation was Oregon’s relationship with Willie Lyles and his connection and influence with Oregon recruit Lache Seastrunk. Oregon was able to ink Seastrunk, but he saw such minuscule playing time due to Oregon’s log-jam at the running back position that he transferred to Baylor. Now, he’s a preseason candidate for the 2013 Heisman trophy. Why put so much illegal effort into recruiting for the most sured-up position?

Oregon lost $93,741 in scholarships, spent nearly $210,000 in legal fees, will now be limited to 37 paid recruit visits and will be on probation. Worst of all, though, was the 27-month-long investigation that put a stain on the Oregon program. After it’s all said and done, the NCAA has nothing tangible to show for it.

“With the 54th pick in the 2013 NBA draft, the Washington Wizards select Arsalan Kazemi,” said future NBA commissioner Adam Silver Thursday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Kazemi was the lone Duck to be drafted, going late in the second round to Washington. He was immediately traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. Statistically, Kazemi, being drafted where he was, doesn’t have a great shot at a long and lustrous NBA career. In 2010, the average length of an NBA career was a little more than six seasons. The average for players who played a career average of fewer than 12 minutes per game was two.

However, Kazemi has a few things going for him. First, advanced stats guys love him. He has a great motor, a knack for rebounding and does a lot of things on the court that don’t show up in the box score. In today’s NBA, that’s huge. Every team in the league, in some form or another, has hired an advanced stats guy as a consultant. This will help Kazemi’s chances of staying in the league immensely.

“Kazemi is another favorite of the analytics crowd,” Chad Ford wrote on ESPN.com. “He’s not a great scorer, but he’s one of those guys who just makes everyone around him better.”

Second, and most important, Kazemi fell into an ideal situation with the 76ers. They easily had the best draft in the league, trading for the projected first overall pick (he slipped to sixth because of character issues), Nerlens Noel. They traded their All-Star point guard, Jrue Holiday, to get him, but also received a 2014 first round pick. With their own first rounder, the 76ers nabbed Syracuse point guard Michael Carter-Williams to replace Holiday.

Aside from having some exciting new players on his team this season, Kazemi will benefit from the plan in Philly. The team is in a rebuilding stage. Andrew Bynum will likely not play for them, Holiday is gone, and all the focus is on developing young players. They have zero playoff aspirations and will likely be in contention for the first pick in the 2014 draft. This means that Kazemi could possibly see more playing time on Philly than any other team in the league.

However, there are some uncertainties. The largest is that currently they have no coach and haven’t expressed definite interest in anyone.  The rumors coming out of Philadelphia are that the front office was waiting to see how the draft played out before starting their coaching search. They want to hire a guy who’s on board with the plan and can develop their young players, which could end up working out in Kazemi’s favor.

It will be a few years before the 76ers are a threat in the playoffs, but they have put themselves in position to have a very bright future. Kazemi has a great opportunity to get playing time and prove to the organization that he can be a part of that long-term plan. His good attitude in the locker room and hard work on the court should do nothing but help his chances. It really is an ideal fit for the Oregon fan favorite.

Arsalan Kazemi was drafted by the Washington Wizards in the second round of the 2013 NBA draft with the 54th overall pick. The Wizards then traded Kazemi to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The 76ers quite possibly had the best draft of any team, headlined by a trade between them and the New Orleans Pelicans. The deal send point guard Jrue Holiday to the Pelicans for the sixth overall pick (Nerlens Noel) and the Pelicans 2014 first round pick. Noel was the consensus choice to go first overall, but unexpectedly slipped to sixth. The 76ers were also able to draft Syracuse point guard Michael Carter-Williams in the first round with the 11th pick.

Kazemi, who transferred from Rice to play his senior year with the Ducks, made the most of his one year at Oregon. He averaged 9.4 points and 10 rebounds per game for Oregon while shooting almost 60-percent from the field.

Kazemi instantly filled a void for Oregon with his high basketball IQ and his tenacity for getting rebounds. He quickly became one of the leaders both on and off the court and was a huge part of Oregon’s post-season run.

When Chip Kelly left Oregon for the NFL, Duck fans voiced their opinions. Some ranted to their friends, others took to Twitter and, in an extreme case, some did doughnuts in the lawn of the former coach’s Eugene home. Whatever the situation was, the on-again, off-again relationship between Kelly and the NFL left Duck fans feeling betrayed.

The departure from Oregon was tough for fans to swallow, but there was a silver lining; as Kelly left, so did most of the blame for the major violations Oregon had committed.

Rumors started to swirl in the 2012 offseason about Kelly being in talks with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Kelly eventually turned down the NFL offer, claiming to have “unfinished business” at the University of Oregon. After Oregon’s 2012 campaign, rumors again flooded the internet.

Kelly was linked heavily to the Browns and Bills, but eventually said that he would be returning to Oregon. Then he signed with the Philadelphia Eagles.

When the Committee on Infractions released its report on Wednesday, Oregon was hit with meager penalties amounting t0 three years probation and a loss of a scholarship for two years. The harshest part of the penalty, an 18-month show-cause penalty, was placed on Kelly.

Ironically, the show-cause penalty, which bans Kelly from coaching college football for 18-months, will likely bare no consequences because he fled to the NFL. However, had he stayed at Oregon, the penalties could have been more devastating. By hitting Kelly with the show-cause, the NCAA is placing most of the fault on him and not the Oregon football program.

Whether or not that factored into his decision to split for the Eagles is hard to say. In a press conference after the sanctions report had been released, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens said that Kelly called him earlier in the morning to apologize for his hand in the violations.

“He’s a genuine guy,” said Mullens. “He was disappointed, of course, but he did apologize and said, ‘Lets go forward from here.’”

Mullens also pleaded Kelly’s innocents, quickly reminding media that the report states that the infractions were unintentional and said that he doesn’t believe that Kelly’s reputation will be tarnished.

“We were very fortunate to work with Chip,” Mullens said. “You saw his statement today, I thought that was very genuine. He was a great coach. He was very committed to compliance and so I think that will be his legacy.”

Some fans might disagree with Mullens, claiming to still feel betrayed, but they would be forgetting something; that show-cause penalty wasn’t just tacked on because Kelly left for the NFL. Had he stayed, he would have been ineligible to coach for 18-months. Oregon would have been forced to fire him. Aside from that, the penalties might have been stiffer had he still been employed by Oregon.

Not only did Kelly create a culture and brand in Oregon in his short, four-year tenure, he took the blame off of the football program. It ended up being the best case scenario for both Oregon and Kelly.

After a 27-month investigation, the NCAA Committee on Infractions released their report on the seven major violations that the Oregon football program was accused of committing.

Full coverage can be found here.

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Because the investigation was so long, the Emerald has put together a timeline showing how the program got to this point.

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At 2 p.m. Wednesday, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens addressed the media to express the administrations thoughts on the sanctions. Video and written coverage can be found here.

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During the investigation, former head coach Chip Kelly continually declined to comment on the ongoing investigation. Wednesday morning, after the report had been released, the Philadelphia Eagles issued a statement from coach Kelly on the matter.

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Finally, in non-Oregon football news, New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez has been arrested for first degree murder. The Patriots released Hernandez just before police made the arrest.

When Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens took the podium to address media after the NCAA announced its sanctions for the football program, the message was clear: the punishment fit the crime.

“I’ve been aware of the facts for a long time,” Mullens said. “I thought it followed the facts. It’s what we thought it should be all along. For those of you who read the summary deposition, it’s substantially consistent with what we expected and self-imposed in that process.”

It is indeed close to what Oregon had previously suggested as punishment. Instead of two years probation and a loss of one scholarship over three years, the NCAA gave the program three years’ probation and a loss of one scholarship over two years.

For Mullens, Oregon, and Duck fans everywhere, the sanctions have incited a sigh of relief of sorts. The 27-month-long investigation brought anxiety-fueled speculation of bowl bans, massive scholarship loss and the like. When it was all said and done, the Ducks got a slap on the wrist.

As slight as the penalties are, Mullens and the NCAA claim that this will have an impact on the football program. The scholarship loss won’t likely inflict much pain — Oregon has only used 83 of its 85 available scholarships over the past four seasons — but the amount of paid recruiting visits Oregon is allowed might. The NCAA has limited the amount of paid visits allowed to the UO from 56 to 37, four shy of the 41 annual visits Oregon has averaged during the past four seasons.

“The penalties are in place to impact the program and they will impact it,” Mullens said. “It’s a very competitive environment for elite-level college athletes in a number of sports, including football. Anytime you lose the opportunity to have people visit your campus, particularly, given what we have to showcase when people visit, it will have an impact.”

Now, with the suspense of the sanctions in the past, Oregon can look to the future. Already  branded with repeat offender status in addition to probation, Oregon can ill-afford more slip ups. To combat its bad habits, Oregon has hired Jody Sykes as the chief compliance officer.

“She’s exactly that — a chief compliance officer” said Mullens. “But it’s important to note that compliance isn’t the responsibility of just an office or an individual . It’s the culture you create. It’s the responsibility of everyone in our department and everyone associated with our program. That’s what we’ve built here over the past couple years and that’s what we will continue to build upon.”

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In a statement issued by the Philadelphia Eagles, former Oregon coach Chip Kelly responded to the NCAA Committee on Infractions report on recruiting violations committed by the football program:

“Now that the NCAA has concluded their investigation and penalized the University of Oregon and its football program, I want to apologize to the University of Oregon, all of its current and former players and their fans,” Kelly said in a statement. “I accept my share of responsibility for the actions that led to the penalties. As I have I stated before, the NCAA investigation and subsequent ruling had no impact on my decision to leave Oregon for Philadelphia. I have also maintained throughout that I had every intention to cooperate with the NCAA’s investigation, which I did.”

It is possible, though unlikely, that the NFL will take action against Kelly. In wake of sanctions handed down to Ohio State University in 2011, former Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel resigned from his head coaching duties. Shortly after, Tressel was hired by the Indianapolis Colts as a consultant, but had to serve a seven week suspension.

There are obvious differences between the two cases, the most important being the fact that Tressel initially lied to the NCAA. The Committee on Infractions echoed in their report what they had been saying all along; Kelly was honest and compliant.

While the sanctions will likely not affect Kelly in the NFL, his departure from Oregon could have been a major factor in the Committee on Infractions decision.