by Ken Goe: 503-221-8040; kengoe@news.oregonian.com blog.oregonlive.com/pac10 , The Oregonian

face early test

at Boise State

LOS ANGELES -- C hip Kelly made his national media debut as Oregon's head coach Thursday at the Pacific-10 Conference football media day.

If the Ducks' season goes over as well as he did, they might find themselves playing next January in one of the Big Boy Bowl games.

Kelly looked relaxed, comfortable and in command while cracking wise during the formal news conference in a crowded hotel ballroom, then entertaining reporters afterward at lunch with an explanation of why the UO offense owes its existence to the Pythagorean Theorem.

Oregon's spread, he said, "is actually ancient instead of futuristic. It's all math."

In the Ducks' case, the numbers are staggering.

The Ducks led the PAC-10 last season in scoring offense, rushing offense and total offense. Jeremiah Masoli, a human pinball of a quarterback last seen by a national television audience in the Holiday Bowl shedding Oklahoma State safety Quinton Moore like he was a candy wrapper, was the PAC-10's top rushing quarterback and fourth-best passer.

Oregon had two running backs rush for more than 1,000 yards last season, and the Ducks scored 32 points or more 11 times.

"We start by talking triangles a lot," Kelly said, explaining why Oregon's offense dates to the Greek mathematician Pythagoras. "We want to be in equal lateral triangles in spacing on offense instead of right triangles."

Kelly's eyes twinkled, but the math is no joke. It's Kelly's offense, and the gaudy statistics earned him his new gig as Oregon's head coach.

But the transition from top assistant to top guy isn't always seamless. Witness the fumbled handoffs from Don James to Jim Lambright at Washington, from Mike Price to Bill Doba at Washington State, from Bo Schembechler to Gary Moeller at Michigan.

There is some built-in pressure that comes with succeeding a successful head coach. Mike Bellotti won more games than any coach in UO history. He was coming off a national top-10 finish when he stepped aside in March en route to becoming athletic director.

Washington's Steve Sarkisian, the PAC-10's other rookie head coach, is taking over a team that was winless last season. The Huskies can't get worse.

Kelly opens the 2009 season with Boise State, Purdue and Utah. If the Ducks are 0-3 heading into their PAC-10 opener against California, Kelly will be less than a month into his maiden season and already have one of the warmest seats in college football .

But if Kelly feels any pressure, he disguised it well. He opened his segment of Thursday's news conference with a joke about the furor in the Southeastern Conference over the mystery coach who failed to name the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner as the first-string quarterback on the preseason all-SEC team.

Sitting next to UO cornerback Walter Thurmond III, Kelly drew laughter by saying: "First off I'd like everyone to know that both myself and Walter Thurmond voted Tim Tebow as first-string SEC quarterback."

That drew laughter. The identity of the SEC coach has been revealed as South Carolina's Steve Spurrier.

Later, after the obligatory question about his relationship with Nike co-founder Phil Knight, Kelly deadpanned: "Me and Walter, we love Phil Knight."

That got chuckles too.

"I enjoy a laugh every once in a while," Kelly said later. "I think there is a perception that I'm a gruff, East Coast guy. I don't know where that came from."

Substitute "no nonsense" for gruff. Or, maybe, "fearless." There aren't many PAC-10 teams willing to play the Broncos in Boise on the Smurf Turf, where they are 61-1 in regular-season home games since 1999.

"I'm not trying to be bowl eligible and win six games," Kelly said. "We talk about being the best. To be the best, you've got to play the best. If you want to be recognized on a national level, you can't schedule a Johnson State and an Adams State and hope people respect you."

At UCLA, USC, California and Arizona State, playing at Boise State would be an unacceptable risk. The Broncos don't play in a BCS conference but they're good enough to beat BCS teams. Why take the chance?

For Kelly, the question is: why not?

"I don't get caught up in that," he said. "We just want to play."

That could be dangerously naive. Or it could mean that Kelly has swaggered into the head coach's suite at the Casanova Center with the kind of brash self-assurance the Ducks need if they seriously expect to make a run at conference kingpin USC.

"Off the field, he's laid back," Thurmond said. "When it's time to practice, it's time to go. There is no messing around, no playing around. It's, 'Let's get the job done.' It seems like he's already been a head coach before. He's a natural."

We'll have a better idea about that on Sept. 3 in Boise. But Kelly faced his first hurdle Thursday.

And he cleared it. With room to spare.

Ken Goe: 503-221-8040;

kengoe@news.oregonian.com

blog.oregonlive.com/pac10

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