While we're on pending coaching moves (wait, what month is this?), the deal is going down slowly but surely at Oregon, where coach-in-waiting Chip Kelly spent the new year cleaning house on the Ducks' staff, with actual coach Mike Bellotti playing the role of grim messenger:

Bellotti, who had tears in his eyes after the 42-31 Holiday Bowl victory over Oklahoma State, said Thursday that he has granted permission to receivers coach Robin Pflugrad and defensive line coach Michael Gray to "explore their options."

"I've told them I would help them, because at some time down the road they recognize they will not have a job here at Oregon," Bellotti said in a conference call with reporters.

"Some time down the road" increasingly looks like "by Spring practice," though Bellotti isn't supposed to make a decision on whether to move to the athletic director chair until March. The Eugene Register-Guard speculates the staff moves are at least partly a result of the Ducks losing recruiting battles, and that replacements are apparently based on who Kelly "feels close to." Longtime defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti seems to be safe because, Bellotti says, he and Kelly are "solid." Despite Oregon message boards' presumption that Aliotti is a short timer ($), the tenor of these reports is, What Chip wants from the boss, Chip gets.

Kelly already calls the plays and seems to be in total control of the offense, and now is publicly making staff decisions on both sides of the ball. Other than pay grade, at what point does the distinction between "head coach in-waiting" and simply "head coach" become mere semantics? Bellotti seems for all the world here like a lame, uh, duck (sorry) with one foot in his new office and the other soon to follow.