Utah and Nortre Dame gave us the script to beat Stanford and UCLA. Utah loaded the box on D and brought pressure almost every down and they got to Hundley and often. 10 times to be exact and took him completely out of his rhythm. UCLA does not have a ton of weapons for Hundley, 1 main receiver and Vanderdoes with the power play on short yardage. Hundley can throw two types of passes well, the go route and the wheel route so we'll have to keep a rover in the secondary for those. Outside of that we should bring the house and put him on the turf. This is NOT the game to run a lazy 3-4. If we do he'll pick us apart and take off for long yardage scampers. Utah did not allow him to take off. They contained him, made him throw and took his greatest strength his legs away! Further Marcus and Royce should be able to run on UCLA if we can block up front. I'd have to like our odds of Royce and Marcus being better in the skilled positions than that of Utah's backfield. UCLA does not read the QB option very well at all. One other point that I'd bring up from this game is Utah has one hell of a punter, the Australian kicking he does was fierce and massively effective. I knew Utah was going to win this game, my thinking was UCLA really hasn't been playing that well or tested. Utah will be a very tough game for us there. We should thank UTAH because UCLA has been exposed! Wake Up Pellum! Load the box and give your D something to smile about! As for Stanford..... Notre Dame got away with a couple of trapped balls that decided that game but non the less, Stanford still has their D but their O is awful. The Irish didn't let Hogan hurt them with his legs either and made him throw. Guess what? He can't! He didn't just miss his targets, he missed them by 10 yards high, low, sideways. This guy is very average with accuracy. Strong arm? Yes! Accurate, depends if we're playing hoops or football. Stanford also doesn't have proven receivers or TE's for that matter and their run game is very suspect. The Irish aren't as good as they played great containment and the skilled positions of Stanford just aren't there yet! Once again load the box and make the QB beat you in the air! Hogan is most dangerous when he can take off for 8 yards. Both Stanford and UCLA are great when their QB's have time to run or read. Pressure takes both of these teams out of their comfort zones. If you saw the games you know this to be true! What scares me about Oregon is we were given a reprieve to get back into this college playoff. Will they seize the moment and stop playing prevent defense? If they don't, UCLA and Stanford will own us! This is a gut check time and one we are more than capable of being victorious in. Load the box let our strong secondary do what they do and let's get the W's! Go Ducks!
We spend too much time recruiting speedy little running back/wideouts and not enough time recruiting badass defenders. Honestly, if the rumors are true and this is Harbaugh's last year with the Niners, I really hope the Ducks go after him.
How long do you think Pellum will have if Oregon goes 7-5 this year because he didn't think the D needed to adapt? If your Jr. D line and Jr. led LB's can't tackle by this point, then it's really time to go to something else and panic. UCLA, UW, STANFORD, UTAH and maybe OSU will all beat us if this flex 3-4 apathetic doesn't get adjusted! There are two many soft spots that this D isn't covering to not change in a hurry. If we can't stop the run and the last 4 games have proven we can't, it opens the pass and then our secondary for sure will be out of position covering the run to make up for the non aggressive two lines of defense. Staying the course will have tragic effects this year. Actually I hope Stomp is right this time, if the D doesn't change Pellum and crew are out and our defense will change as it should. Can't hang your resume on 95th or worse now can you? Uncle Phil wont allow this program to go 7-5 without change. As a side note Uncle Phil usually stays for the whole press conference after the games. After AZ people in the press said he left 5 minutes in and without word! BTW- I agree with you NB3 our need for speed every year and our lack of D line development has truly cost us. The new DE Gus Cumberlander was recruited by Erik Chinander not Aiken the D line coach or Pellum. It's telling to me that from Arrion Springs to this kid our primary DE coaches are not responsible for bringing in the main talent, perhaps it's time to pay top dollar for guys who actually can recruit and teach D. All I have to say for the naysayers is 95th or worse in the nation while having a top 15 team with the best QB in the nation speaks volumes to where the problem is. One staff is seriously underperforming and it isn't Helfrich! I hope Pellum will figure this out in a hurry and save his job. It doesn't take coach of the year to add a body to the box and be aggressive from jump at the line. If we had a weak secondary I'd be more nervous about the additional man up front but we don't, so let's beef up the damn line and get after some QB's and win the Pac!
Question to ponder, Helfrich and Pellum have hinted that they have left things in there back pockets for later on in the season. It's hard for me to believe that they were speaking about anything other than play calling on both sides of the ball. I wonder if the Ducks are going to go more to the Alliotti defensive play calling as the season moves on?
If our coaches are keeping the slow cook BBQ on for later in the season, it'll matter little if we drop 2 in the Pac before the magic book of plays and D are employed! Further it will cost Marcus his Heisman for he second year in a row! I say Pellum is clueless and Mark should take the headset away from Mr. Triple Option Scott Frost and call the plays that made Chip look great!
Agree. Just don't see any difference between helfrich and Frost on the play calling. Forget our problems on the oline for a moment; most of the passing plays were quick strike, 5 yard plays such as quad 5 yard slants and such. Now, most pass plays are called for 25-30 yard pass plays that take to long to develop. Not something you want if your oline is banged up.
Before, we would pick on one or two players on defense. Now we just call plays to off set the whole defense as a whole and I just don't think it works well. Find the one or two guys to pick on and then pick that scab until it bleeds and then open up the playbook. Chip was a master at that which is apparently gone now. :-(
I think another problem is Helfrich has a little to much Mike Riley in him and he needs to summons his inner Chip with his team. Chip was cocky and brash at times with players, prospects, fans and the media alike. Our current team seems to view Helfrich as sort of a graduate assistant type of older brother mentor as opposed to "my way or the highway" persona Chip demonstrated! That said I think Mark is a very smart man and he'll figure out quickly when he needs to go King Leonidas on attitude and effort issues!
Well to keep this in more of a fair, Helfrich has kicked off some play-makers so the "My way or the highway" attitude is really there. I just can't believe that Helfrich was groomed for this position and watch Chip for two years as OC and has moved away this much from Kelly's approach and philosophy. Frost doesn't know how to call a game IMO. Brooks, Bellotti and Chip were all better than this coaching staff and had less talent. Sure, we've had some injuries but on the flip side we still should have won against Arizona. On offense, everything is SLOWER in every phase. On defense, we don't dial up tempo and ask our DB's and CB's to cover for too long. This is certainly a time for Helfrich to step up and be a leader.
At the recruiting presser last year Helfrich relayed that the staff was in over 1,000 HSs for that cycle. Of course none of us know how many of those were at badass defenders HSs, but here's a little of what little I do know. The NW doesn't produce much in the way of D1 talent, though Oregon definitely seems to get their share of whats available and then some. Given that, most of their roster has to come from outside of their region. I'm absolutely positive that a 5-10 hour flight in coach with a couple of transfers is a whole lot more pleasant for someone 5'10 190 then someone 6'4 285. I'm not so high on him. For one, he seems like a dick. Two, while he's enjoyed a lot of success coaching, I think he gets more credit for that then he may deserve as he's come into a couple of windfall situations at Stanford and SF. His arrival at Stanford coincided with the school severely lowering it's entry requirements for athletes. They still have higher requirements then most schools including UO, but it's not anything like it was pre-Hairball. Siting this, I correctly predicted that they wouldn't fall off at all with his departure. At SF he's followed a couple of really bad coaching acts but the roster was pretty stacked for success. I think he's a good coach, I don't think he's a great coach. Regardless, being that Stanford is Uncle Phil's other school I'm sure that those who matter have a pretty good idea of whats what with him if he were to become available. STOMP
the only thing I've stated that agrees with the above quote is that it's unlikely the Defensive schemes change midseason... because it would be desperate/asinine to overhaul the D and install a whole new system midseason. Much better to tinker midseason & work on what is lacking (tackling technique, communication) then install a whole new engine. If a big change is the way the brain trust wants to go, thats for the offseason also unlike the ridiculousness above, I want the Ducks to do well & win football games. Any other Duck fans "hoping" we go 2-4 to close the season? STOMP
