Oregon coach Willie Taggart has added safeties coach Keith Heyward and strength coach Irele Oderinde to his staff in Eugene.

In the process, it could be the end of an era for Duck football, at least in the weight room.

Heyward, whose decision to leave Louisville and return to the West Coast with Oregon was first reported Jan. 2, gives Taggart a coach and recruiter who knows the Pac-12 well, having played at Oregon State as a cornerback from 1997-00 and later coached at OSU, Washington and USC.

Like the other non-coordinator position coaches Taggart has hired so far, Heyward has a two-year contract at Oregon. He will earn $375,000 per year, a raise from the $300,000 he earned during his lone season at Louisville in 2016, where Heyward coached corners.

Keith Heyward

Behind the scenes, the Ducks have added another staffer who previously worked with Taggart at South Florida. Irele Oderinde, who was USF's director of athletic performance since 2014, is Oregon's new head football strength coach, according to the UO student and staff directory.

What that means for longtime strength and conditioning coach Jim Radcliffe remains unclear -- in an email Wednesday, a UO spokesman did not yet know what Radcliffe's responsibilities would entail moving forward. Since 1985, Radcliffe has coordinated strength programs for many other sports at Oregon other than football, and recently has been heavily involved with Oregon Track Club Elite, a band of Nike-sponsored runners based in Eugene, as well.

Radcliffe is under contract through June. But it's clear Taggart has tasked Oderinde with helping the Ducks "get bigger, bigger, bigger, stronger, stronger, stronger and faster and compete" in the weight room, as Taggart put it last week when discussing what he wants from Ducks players this winter.

Radcliffe would be the latest longtime Ducks staffer whose role has radically changed this offseason, following the firing of former coach Mark Helfrich and his staff Nov. 29. Taggart has opted against hiring back any of Helfrich's assistants, five of whom had coached at UO for the past 10 years. Radcliffe, who is credited with the development of plyometrics, has become well-known during his career for wearing sunglasses and T-shirts on the football sideline, regardless of weather.

Oderinde joins David Kelly, UO's new assistant athletic director for football recruiting operations, as a key off-field staffer who previously worked with Taggart at USF, where Kelly was director of player personnel.

Oderinde played on Western Kentucky's 2002 Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) national championship team in which Taggart was an assistant.

Though officially unconfirmed by Oregon, assistant coach David Reaves has also been added to UO's staff, according to his listing in UO's directory. It's unclear what role Reaves will hold but he recently coached tight ends at USF and called the Bulls' plays in their Birmingham Bowl victory on Dec. 29. At Oregon, Taggart will call offensive plays.

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif