Yet again, the stats and results speak for themselves. UW was 4-1 in conference play and undefeated at home. They avg 430 ypg and 36 points. Polk is the #1 RB in the Pac at 987 total yards. Despite the time of poss disparity (over 10 min dif), the Oregon defense held UW under 300 total yards - nearly 150 less than their season avg. UW had 82 rushing yards and a crazy 2.3 ypr. Oregon forced 3 TO's, had 6 sacks and held UW to 0-2 on 4th down conv. Yet another example of that soft and underachieving Oregon defense.
I don't think anyone has ever said on this forum that they are underachieving. In fact, I think some of us have said that they are overachieving because of the loss of so many key players last year and the extreme inexperience of the secondary outside of Pleasant and Boyyett. I think they have shown to be weak in the secondary and they did have some lapses today. Fortunately the defensive front was murdering Price and he coughed up a couple of picks too.
Good points. If I had to chose between our defense over under achieving, I don't know what I'd say. But what frustrates me a bit is that for all the db's we have, we play very loose coverage a lot. Luck will carve this pass defense up unless serious changes aren't made.
hehe...dig a little deeper. i seem to recall a few unsubstantiated claims about our defense... Oregon's pass defense is only 40 yards per game behind the #1 pass defense in the Pac. Considering the TOP disparity, its easy to argue just how well our secondary performs. In fact, the #1 pass defense is Cal as far as yards allowed and Oregon's defense has allowed less TD's than Cal and has more INT's. There's only one team in the Pac who has allowed less pass TD's and that's Stanford, yet we have more than double the INT's than Stanford. We arguably have the best secondary in the Pac and fans claim we are weak? Ouch. Based on what? Compared to what? We just had a strong game at UW and most of those sacks can also be attributed to great coverage.
I don't think it's realistic to make serious changes in seven days. This team has its personnel and has its schemes. It needs to execute and it needs to put pressure on Luck with its front four--the way it did against Price on Saturday night. Luck is really good, but I'm more worried that Stanford will be able to just run us over on the ground. Last night gives me more hope that it's not going to happen. Ed O.
My thoughts exactly. Stanford has been stuffing the ball down the throats of everybody they've played. If they establish the run, then forget about trying to slow down that offense because Luck will absolutely shred you apart if you have to bring the safeties up in the box. But yesterday was a little surprising. 1) For most of the game yesterday, Oregon State was able to keep the Stanford running attack in check. And what was really surprising about that is they did it without "stuffing the box", and they still were able to get some pressure on Luck with their front 4. Stanford wasn't ripping off big chunks on the ground and because the Beavs had guys in coverage, Luck wasn't able to sit back there and play "pitch and catch" with his receivers. He threw 1 INT, and there were a couple of more that the Beavs got their hands on. If Oregon State had any offense at all, this could have been interesting. Instead, the defense was on the field all day, and they finally wore down. But before they did, they were doing some good things against the Stanford vaunted offense. 2) The Ducks played the most complete & the most physical game on the defensive side of the ball last night that we've seen all year. They stuffed Polk, & got pressure on Price all night. I honestly didn't think our defense could play that well against a good balanced offense. They played physical, they created t/o's, they didn't give up big plays, they didn't make stupid penalties . . . it was impressive. As Ed said, we have more reason for hope that our defense can play with Stanford's Offense. We're not going to stop them, but we just can't allow a repeat of 2009 when Toby G. ran for 200+ & Luck repeated scorched us with play actions. We can't give up 50 points and expect to win. It's going to be a great challenge.
53 of those yards were because Nick Montana threw a moonball when nobody in the stadium expected him to pass. Being there live, I was shocked at how fast the Oregon defense looked against the UW o-line. Dion Jordan was a fucking beast all game long, and the DTs just blew up the line of scrimmage on the run. Wade Keliikipi's sack where he just overpowered a double-team and threw Price to the ground for a sack was the best defensive play I've seen all season for the Ducks. If we can get just ONE more DT stud, the defense will be elite in a year or two, because Hart, Heimuli, and Keliikipi are all young and all very good already.
I honestly thought that Polk was going to run all over the Ducks. Same with LSU. Didn't happen against either of those teams, and the way the DL and LBs played the run yesterday, I am as confident about the Stanford game as I've been all season in terms of stopping the run. Stanford really kills teams on play-action fakes to TEs leaking out, but if the DL plays like they did last night next Saturday, that gives the LBs and safeties more of a chance to cover those TEs.
One thing that does give me hope is that as the game goes on our defense often gets tighter and tighter. That's the good news. The bad news is that Stanford could hang 21 or 28 points on us before we really tighten things down. By then it may be too late.
BLEH. Nice glass half full Duck fan. Usually nervous, expecting a loss. You must think Stanford is ions better than LSU - which we could have won, minus the FR mistakes and turnovers... BLEH
a big part of the reason the Ducks D gets better as the game goes along is all their rotating of players. It's generally accepted that it takes more energy to play defense then offense, but with Oregon's quick strike O the opposing offensive is on the field more then usual. By the end of the 3rd quarter they've put out a normal full games worth of energy but the guys they're alternately being hit in the mouth by have only played a 60-70% of the snaps at most. by the end of the game I think Stanford's kick return team is going to be pretty tired STOMP
Its funny how you get on the defensive anytime a Duck fan says anything that isn't rainbow's and butterflies.
I think it's very safe to say that the Ducks play with a very soft cushion when it comes to TE's and 3rd down dump passes that in turn result into first downs. Stanford is smart enough to want to use those huge TE's all game and eat the clock so Oregon's offense is on the field very little. Agree? The question is has Stanfords defense improved enough from last year to hold the Ducks to fewer points? The good news for duck fans is they are missing two TE's and a reciever do to a concussion.... THIS MAY BE HUGE as Bama missing 4 FG's! Luck for the Ducks no pun intended! We'll see!
The key will be Stanford's offensive line. They have the best O-line in the Pac 12 and they are going to try and play smash mouth with the Ducks.
I'm not so sure I agree with that. I offer plenty of opposing and often ill views of the Ducks. I can't stand Kelly at time - and I've said it. I think Thomas could improve. I'm cool with everyone, but I'm also someone who will offer an opposing view if/when I disagree. Some Duck fans have a glass half empty view - that we'll lose 3 games this season, the defense is soft, bleedie-bloo... It's sports talk. Glad I can offer comic relief for ya though. But do call a spade a spade - I've identified plenty of deficiencies. I also respect everyone right to offer their opinion and be wrong. Just don't get all sally when I correct them with stats, yo.
The ducks have a talented defense: Boyett, Gildon, Kaddeu, Jordon, Pleasant, Clay...(and maybe Cliff Harris will return for this game?) You can't look at total yards with the Ducks, you have to look at yards per play and redzone defense. They play more snaps than most teams because of the pace of their offense.
Ducks are aspiring to be the best. I don't think having a few concerns about the secondary play isn't really being doom and gloom. Our secondary plays like it did against WSU when we play in Palo Alto on Saturday and I'm not sure about our chances.
I've heard Cliff is done. This is just message board chatter and I hope it's wrong -- but, it was said that Cliff lied to Chip and was in violation of an agreement for driving. Again, not confirmed - just message board chatter from a few folks in Eugene.
