Nothing wrong with a well supervised and appropriate "military-style" exercise for a college football program. But what went down last week at the University of Oregon was neither of those things.

Three Ducks players were hospitalized. On Tuesday, new strength coach Irele Oderinde was suspended for a month without pay. Coach Willie Taggart apologized. And maybe this is a good time to take a deep dive on a military-style operation Chip Kelly launched in Eugene.

Two former UO players who suited up for Kelly contacted me on Tuesday, detailing masterful team-building and training exercise that the head coach launched early in his tenure.

"So it's off-season and Chip told us to show up in workout and athletic gear," one former Ducks player said. "Guys had no idea what to expect. So Chip brings in these former Navy SEALs and a lot of us are immediately freaking out, like, 'Oh man, these guys are going to kill us.'

"It had been a while since we had an off-field issue, but guys were looking around thinking, 'Did someone do something we don't know about?'"

The second player says the SEALs started by having the players do basic "military-style" drills. Push-ups. Abdominal flutter kicks. Bridge exercises to strengthen the core. The exercises had to be performed in perfect unison, or it started all over. Also, the exercises were combined with verbal cues the players were asked to memorize and recite."

"We must work as a team."

"We're only as strong as our weakest man."

That went on for some time, until the players perfected the drills and were directed to a practice field. Once there, the Ducks players found large, heavy logs waiting for them.

"They sorted us into groups," the first player remembers. "We were told to walk back and forth, carrying the logs. After a while, the task changed to carrying each other. We had to pick out a teammate in our group and carry him for 100 yards on our back.

"We just kept doing it. Back and forth. One player would carry one direction, then you'd switch and carry the other player back for 100 yards. We had no idea how long we'd be out there."

The second player remembers teammates trying to grandstand.

"Cliff Harris and a couple of other defensive backs were trying to carry guys a lot bigger than them for 100 yards," he recalls. "It was a lot easier for them when they were carried back. But what we figured out over time was that the SEALs weren't looking to see how fast one or two guys could do the drill, but if we could figure out -- as a team -- the fastest way for us all to to arrive at the finish at the same time.

"Those guys were trying to show off were making the rest of the team suffer. As soon as we figured that out, it went a lot smoother. That was only Day One of the conditioning, but it felt like a week because we had to do each drill and satisfy the SEALs."

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The Ducks players showed up the following day and were told to wear shorts because they were going to the pool. Specifically, they'd be bused to a pool house in nearby Springfield, where the SEALs would conduct training and conditioning exercises in water. Also, they were told to bring their team-issued sweatshirts.

"One of the first things we had to do," said player No. 2, "was repeat the basic conditioning drills from the prior day, except this time, do it while poolside on the concrete with our knees and back being scraped up.

"That's when we knew we were going to be in trouble."

The first Ducks player, a strong swimmer, remembers players being ordered into a shallow pool and seeing teammates who weren't strong swimmers huddled up against the sides of the pool, gripping the walls. Red-shirt freshman Todd Doxey, had drowned in the McKenzie River in a heart-wrenching accident alongside teammates in 2008. After that players were routinely encouraged by Kelly to become stronger swimmers. Still, some were terrified in the water.

"That was a haunting image," the first player said. "Sometimes I still wake up in my sleep and think about those guys huddled on the sides. I was so exhausted by the end. The funniest part is that the position coaches were sitting back. (Steve) Greatwood was sitting in a lounge chair, sipping Gatorade."

Later that day, both players said, the Ducks players were instructed to put on their sweatshirts and jump into a deeper diving pool and begin treading water.

"That's when I definitely got worried," player No. 2 said. "Not for myself, necessarily. But we had guys who were high-weight but low-body-fat guys. Our tight ends were sinking. They had to work so hard to tread water, they were barely hanging on."

Kelly made sure life guards were present. Also, the SEALs and his assistants were poolside, monitoring the players.

"They were watching," the first player said. "But still, there were moments where I thought, 'I don't know if we should be doing this.'"

That's about the time when the SEALs ordered the players to submerge and, while underwater, take off their sweatshirt. Then, resurface and tread water while holding the sweatshirt above their heads.

"That was a killer," player No. 2 said. "Then, they threw wrinkles at us that were ridiculous."

The SEALs ordered the Ducks players to switch sweatshirts with a teammate, submerge, and put it on. Naturally, this resulted in chaos. On one occasion, a freshman defensive back was unable to find a teammate to switch with. The drill was stopped and started over from the beginning. Another time, a 280-pound offensive lineman was stuck switching sweatshirts with a skill-position player.

"Oh no, it didn't fit," player No. 1 said. "That didn't work at all. We kept messing up. We kept losing our partners. It made us realize how our communication was essential."

Player No. 2 said: "A lot of us were unhappy with it. Looking back, I'm not. I didn't realize at the time, probably even until the next season, that we implemented a lot of what we learned there and carried it over. We took little things from that experience that lasted for years beyond that."

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The following season, the returning players warned the incoming freshman that Kelly was likely to pull an encore performance. He'd become increasingly interested in the military and, on cue during the following off-season, the SEALs arrived for an encore.

"Chip gathers everybody up," player No. 1 said. "Then, he hands everybody a paddle. You had to bring that paddle with you everywhere. If the SEALs caught you without that paddle, or if anyone took it from you, we'd have to go back and do the drills from that first year over again."

The players were soon directed out the doors of the locker room and across the Autzen Stadium parking lot to the empty fields that sat beyond. In the distance, they saw what looked like giant piles of rubber. As they drew close, it became clear that they were really looking at piled-up, giant, inflatable rafts.

"That first day," Player No. 2 said, "we did nothing but military drills in formation. We inflated the rafts. If we didn't inflate them fast enough, we started over. The entire first day was taking those damned boats and learning to pump them up in unison.

"Later, we had to carry the boats. We did relay races, while holding the paddle. And if we lost the paddle, or dropped it, we deflated the boats and restarted... it was a long while until everybody got it right."

The second day the players were ordered across the bridge between campus and the football stadium, where they put the boats in the water and raced each other.

Nobody was hospitalized.

Nobody got suspended without pay.

Nobody had to apologize.

I realize Taggart's new strength and conditioning coach may have just been woefully ignorant and untrained. Maybe team building wasn't his aim at all. But when two ex-Oregon players read about the new strength coach implementing a "military-style" drill that landed players in the hospital, it was more than a good sweat they thought about.

"The fastest teams were the teams that could paddle in unison," player No. 1 remembered. "The teams that didn't work together were out there in the middle of the water, spinning in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty eye opening to see it work.

"It was so important to work together. That stuff never left us. I still have it inside of me."

--- @JohnCanzanoBFT