There is a lot noise around the University of Oregon football team.

• The Ducks’ uniforms are flashy and ever-changing.
• Their offense screams hurry-up and causes havoc on the field.
• Their fans create a deafening atmosphere for opponents to come to Eugene.

One thing that isn’t loud is the Ducks’ coaches. They have ditched yelling at players as a way to motivate them.

Mark Helfrich and his staff aren’t revolutionary in this approach. Plenty of football coaches prefer positive reinforcement to the sport’s stereotype of a red-faced, screaming coach yelling instruction.

But with the Ducks in college football’s championship game Monday, the way the Ducks teach their team the skills and fundamentals necessary to be successful is drawing national attention.

“It’s not about who can scream the loudest,” Helfrich told the Wall Street Journal. “We have excellent specialists in their field, great leaders of young men that need to teach guys what to do, to show them and tell them and find a way to bring that home. There’s hopefully way more talking than yelling.”

Rather than rant and rave when an Oregon player drops a pass or misses a block, coaches offer encouragement and even an arm around the shoulder. It even extends beyond the field. From Helfrich at the top to the lowliest grad assistant to redshirt freshman, everyone is accorded the respect that people want, deserve and desire.

“When you put your arm around a guy and say, ‘This is how it could be done better,’ they understand you care about them and you just want what’s best for the team,” Oregon QB Marcus Mariota told WSJ. “Those guys already understand that they did wrong.”

This approach may seem novel on the college level, but it should be the rule among youth coaches. Recognizing and rewarding effort goes much farther in developing a young player’s confidence and skills than yelling will.

Confidence breeds success, USA Football Senior Manager of Education and Training Andy Ryland said. And as coaches reward small success, players will latch onto those and improve on the field.

“Everyone is going to fail on the field at some point,” Ryland said. “How will you as a coach react when that happens? Yell and scream so maybe freeze up because of that fear of failure? Or remind them that he has the skills to do it right the next time and you have confidence in his ability.

“Players see what coaches value by what they emphasize. Players want to please their coaches. Show them you have confidence in them, and they will work hard to earn that assurance.”

Photo courtesy GoDucks.com/Eric Evans