Oregon has fired coach Mark Helfrich after a disappointing 4-8 season, and just two years after getting the Ducks within a victory of the programs first national championship. Cheap Arizona Coyotes Jerseys .Helfrich was head coach of the Ducks for four seasons, leading the team to the first College Football Playoff championship game after the 2014 season. But Oregon faltered this year with a five-game losing streak, and finished at the bottom of the Pac-12 North with just two conference wins.After taking over when Chip Kelly left in 2013, Helfrich went 37-16. He had an $11.6 million buyout on his contract with the Ducks.Helfrich met with athletic director Rob Mullens on Tuesday night and was told was being dismissed. Helfrich issued a statement saying he was honored to have served at Oregon.It is with respect and disappointment that we receive this decision, Helfrich said. Plain and simple -- we didnt win enough games this season.At a news conference following the announcement, Mullens said that Oregon will look outside the program for candidates, and the new coach will make decisions about the current staff. There is no timeline for a decision, but recruiting adds urgency to the process.Mullens said he informed the players of his decision earlier in the evening.It was difficult, he said. Players were upset because they lost a family member.Ducks started this season ranked No. 24 in the preseason AP Top 25, but lost 35-32 at Nebraska in the third week of the season, starting the teams longest losing streak since 1996.The Ducks had a brief revival with a 30-28 victory over then-No. 11 Utah in Salt Lake City two weeks ago, but they ended the season with a 34-24 loss to rival Oregon State in the 120th Civil War game this past Saturday. The loss snapped an eight-game Oregon winning streak in the series.Afterward, Helfrich was asked about job security.Nobodys job is safe in college football, he said. Thats just the nature of the beast.Fan discontentment with Helfrich grew as the season dragged on and wins were scarce. Some questioned the wisdom of new assistant Brady Hokes new defensive scheme, or the reliance on graduate transfers at quarterback for the past two seasons rather than long-term player development.Didnt win enough games. I mean, thats blunt. But thats the fact. We have to own that part of it. And own the solution, Helfrich said following the loss to the Beavers.Whatever the reason, Oregons slide was a reminder of how hard it is to get good. And stay good.When Helfrich was promoted into the job at the start of 2013, he had the daunting task of replacing Kelly, who orchestrated Oregons hyperdrive spread-option offense and led the Ducks to their first national championship game appearance in 2010. An affable native Oregonian, Helfrich had served as offensive coordinator under Kelly and recruited future Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota.Helfrich went 24-4 in his first two seasons, including a loss to Ohio State in the first College Football Playoff championship. But last year he was challenged with replacing Mariota. He lured graduate transfer Vernon Adams from Eastern Washington, but Adams struggled with injury.The cracks were showing in that 9-4 season, the first with fewer than 10 wins since 2007. Losses to Michigan State, then at home to Utah and Washington State pushed Oregon out of the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2009.The ultimate embarrassment came in the Alamo Bowl, when the Ducks surrendered a 31-0 lead and TCU staged the biggest comeback in bowl history to win 47-41 in triple overtime.This season the Ducks brought in another graduate transfer at quarterback, Dakota Prukop from Montana State. But after five starts, Prukop was benched in favor of true freshman Justin Herbert.Herbert was one of the few bright spots in the dismal season, throwing for 1,936 yards and19 touchdowns with four interceptions in nine appearances.The overwhelming drag on Oregons success appeared to be the defense. The Ducks, who switched to a 4-3 scheme under Hoke, spent most of the season mired in the bottom of the NCAA defensive rankings. At times it appeared that the players didnt know their assignments.The defensive shortcomings were readily apparent in Oregons 70-21 loss at home to No. 5 Washington on Oct. 8. Huskies quarterback Jake Browning threw for six touchdowns in the victory, which snapped a 12-game losing streak to the rival Ducks.The issues on defense were again on display Saturday against the Beavers. The Ducks season ended without a bowl game for the first time since 2004. Oregon had finished every season ranked in the AP Top 25 since 2007.Mullens said he waited until Tuesday to put some distance between the emotions of the final loss.No one wanted Mark to be more successful than me, Mullens said. We were not competing in a number of games and we were on a poor trajectory.In the statement Tuesday night, Helfrich thanked his wife and family, the campus community, the fans, and his coaches and their families.Finally, to the players -- thank you, and I love you, he said. The future is bright for this young, talented team, and we will be supporting them and their new leadership.---More AP college football: -www.collegefootball.ap.org and -https://twitter.com/AP-Top25 Wholesale Coyotes Jerseys . On Mar. 16, coming off a "fight of the year" performance at UFC 154 the previous November, St-Pierre faced Nick Diaz at UFC 158 in what would be his eighth defence of the welterweight title. Using his superior athleticism, St-Pierre cruised to a five round, unanimous decision victory setting up a much-anticipated title defence against number one contender Johny Hendricks. Cheap Coyotes Jerseys China . And when it opened, every player was at his stall. Thats a sure sign that a team is in a slump and is searching for answers. "Its embarrassing to be at home and play the way we did," said defenceman Josh Gorges. http://www.cheapcoyotesjerseys.com/ . You can watch the game live on TSN at 7:30pm et/4:30pm pt. The Flyers had won seven of eight before dropping their last two outings on consecutive days over the weekend. Philadelphia was handed a 6-3 loss by the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon before dropping a 4-1 decision to the Rangers the following night in New York City.Day four of the UEFA A licence (part 2) began with a lecture entitled "Preparing the International Team". Steve Robinson, a UEFA Pro licence coach who is currently the manager of Northern Irelands U21 team, delivered the presentation.  The presentation centred on the Northern Ireland U17 team, and their progress to the Elite Stage of the European Championships. It was there that they faced the Netherlands, which was the focus of the lecture and practical session that followed. Robinson set his team up to play a 4-2-3-1 formation, to counteract the Netherlands traditional 4-3-3. He walked us through his reasoning for doing so, and one of his primary objectives was to stop the Netherlands playing at source - which means he wanted to disrupt their passing game by pressuring them in their own half. Robinson pushed one of his holding midfielders in his 4-2-3-1 formation onto the deep lying midfielder from the Netherlands, as the Dutch were playing with a traditional triangle shape in midfield (as opposed to the more attacking inverted triangle in midfield). This allowed Northern Ireland to force the Dutch into lower percentage passes into midfield or cross-field, allowing Northern Ireland to recover possession of the ball. The match ended in a 2-2 score, a result that pleased the Northern Irish underdogs. Robinson demonstrated his defensive formation in a practical session, as well as a variety of practical finishing exercises that he utilized with the team. What impressed me about the exercises was that they were match-related, meaning that they were transferable to realistic match situations, rather than static finishing exercises.  Professor Mark Williams, from the Centre for Sport Medicine and Human Performance at Brunel University, delivered the afternoon lecture. It was entitled, Talent Identification: Are there early scientific markers of success in football? Williams outlined the various ways that scientific measurement can play a role in talent identification: anthropometry, physiology, psychology and sociology. While all had their benefits, they also had significant drawbacks. Many anthropometric measurements are amenable to training and diet, and are affected by the rate of physical growth and maturation. Physiological measurements are highly influenced by training, and performance is dependent on previous exposure to training. It is also not clear how fitness indicators track through from childhood to adulthood. Psychological factors are also amenable to instruction and training, and mental skills improve with exxperience. Cheap Adidas Coyotes Jerseys. Sociological measurements are unclear, as there is no consensus on what to measure, or on how accurate those measurements are. Additionally, personality characteristics change over time, so what might seem like a measurable trait at the age of 8 might not be relevant by the age of 18. The summary was that the practical utility of a scientific approach to talent identification is unclear. That being said, I found Professor Williams presentation to be extremely interesting. I asked this of the Professor, "Is the competition structure for youth soccer, which places a high premium on winning and a low premium on skill development, a natural impediment to talent identification and development, given that players are selected based on their ability - generally due to advanced physical development - to win at young ages?" The simple answer was yes - selecting players who have the physical traits necessary to win at younger ages does impede the talent identification and development of young players. This only served to confirm the need for competition reform in youth soccer in Canada, shifting the emphasis away from win-at-all-costs to the more holistic approach promoted by LTPD. Watt Nicoll delivered the final session of the day, entitled World Class - Why would you settle for less? I have to admit, Watt is someone that I have known and worked with for the last seven years. He is a close friend - and one of the smartest people I have come across in the game. It is difficult to categorize Watt; he is part motivational speaker, part entertainer, and part life-coach. He really is a jack of all trades, and if you ever have the chance to hear him speak, I highly recommend it. Watts presentation centred on the skills needed for a manager to do three things: get the job, do the job and keep the job. He spoke of the importance of having a personal development plan - of knowing what your goal is and how you are going to achieve it - and gave a very powerful example. Over 15 years ago, he gave a similar talk to a group of aspiring coaches. At the end of his talk, he told the group that if any of them wanted assistance in planning how to achieve their goals, he would be glad to help. Only one man came forward on that day. He outlined his goal to Watt, and together, they set about charting a course for how that goal could be achieved. It took 14 years for that man to get the job he always dreamed about, but he achieved his dream. The job was to be the manager of Manchester United. The man was David Moyes. ' ' '