FanHouse ChipKelly

LOS ANGELES -- USC was picked to win the Pac-10 football title for the seventh consecutive year by the media, and yet the coaches from all nine competitors -- including Arizona's Mike Stoops (right) and even USC coach Pete Carroll -- touched on the uncertainty of the Trojans this season.

USC received 28 of the 32 votes with California receiving three while third-place Oregon collected one vote. The Trojans will be breaking in a new quarterback and several new defenders since 11 players were taken in the NFL Draft. Perhaps this is the year another school emerges and takes the crown out of Los Angeles, but they approached Thursday precariously and with respect. There were no declarations that USC is going down or the reign is over -- not even from UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel.

Chip Kelly has yet to coach a game for the Oregon Ducks, and in this much-anticipated season, he is already three players down following recent transfers. Kelly took over for Mike Bellotti, who moved on to athletic director after 14 seasons, and the first thing he did was name QB Jeremiah Masoli the starter for next season. That prompted the transfer of Justin Roper, who started the first three games last season before a knee injury against Purdue.

Receiver Aaron Pflugrad then followed Roper out of the door, and Tuesday the school announced WR Chris Harper was leaving to be closer to his Wichita, Kan. home. Harper was a true freshman last season and will have three years of eligibility remaining.

A member of the Oregon legislature plans to introduce a bill that would require the state's public universities, including Oregon and Oregon State, to interview at least one minority before hiring a head football coach.

The law would be modeled on the NFL's "Rooney Rule," which has been in place for six years and has coincided with an increase in African-American head coaches in the NFL.

In a trend that seems to be sweeping through this potentially-heated offseason hiring period like a jam band through downtown Eugene, Mike Bellotti of Oregon announced on Tuesday his plans to step aside as Oregon head coach and pass the reigns to current offensive coordinator (and rumored head coach candidate for a couple open jobs) Chip Kelly.

According to UO President Dave Frohnmayer, the changes will take place when current Ducks athletic director Pat Kilkenny steps down. However, no one actually committed to when exactly that sequence of moves would happen. Bellotti will still coach the Ducks in 2009, and potentially, well past that point.

The announcement of future plans in Eugene comes just a couple weeks after Texas head coach Mack Brown announced that current defensive coordinator Will Muschamp would take over as head coach when he ended his storied career in burnt orange -- at an undetermined point somewhere in the future.

Both Kelly and Muschamp have been rumored as potential candidates for one or more of the open jobs this offseason, be it Tennessee, Clemson, Washington or a handful of other open coaching spots -- not to mention the inevitable NFL coordinator positions that would presumably open up with the annual pro-level coaching musical chairs routine. In theory, these moves help to keep those sought-after coordinators around at a lower pay grade. But it's a relatively safe bet that any of these deals can and will be thrown/bought out, if the right money opportunity comes along.