OT: Brady Hoke's Oregon Defense

Submitted by 1VaBlue1 on

Through the summer there was some curiosity about how Brady would fare as DC at Oregon.  So, after week 1, I looked around and found this from the Statesman Journal.  I don't know that this is the definitive story of Oregon football, I suspect it's just some local reporters take...  Oregon won 53-28 over UC Davis.  Some takes about the defense:

Brady:

“It was a tail of two halves a little bit,” Hoke said. “First half, I thought we played on edge a little bit. Came out second half, didn’t feel that same edge, and gave up some plays that we can’t give up.” 

“We didn’t tackle very well,” Hoke said. “We gave up some big balls down the field, and we competed for some of them, but we’ve got to come away with some of those as well. We’ve got to do a better job coaching.

Seems like we've heard that before...

Head Coach Mark Helfrich:

“I thought operationally, we just didn’t get gapped out all the time and led to some of the big runs with the fly-sweep action and the power, there’s a lot of moving parts there that certainly other teams will do against us going forward, so we’ll get that ironed out,” Helfrich said. “Most of that is very, very simple on the chalkboard, simple on the tape to look at and understand what’s going on. It’s not just, ‘hey, this guy got physically outmatched,’ something like that.”

Giving up 28 to UC Davis can't feel good right out of the gate...

 

FauxMo

September 6th, 2016 at 1:42 PM ^

Oh my God, I literally thought the exact same thing: "Hoke misspelled "tale"? Wait, this was a verbal quote, I assume, so he couldn't have misspelled it!? Waaaiiiitttt, the reporter (correctly) assumed Hoke would have misspelled it, so he/she did so in the paper!!!" Hahahaha... 

ThoseWhoStayUofM

September 7th, 2016 at 12:48 AM ^

You're a fucking disgrace. You call yourself a Michigan man... What a fling joke. You lack the capacity to comprehend the very essence of the term, let alone come close to identifying with the term. You all are a public disgrace.

Mark.. My... Words...

Fucking mark them down.

This Oregon defense will improve from #116 nationally, in 2015, to the top 25 in 2016. Fucking mark those words. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. What a fucking disgrace.

ThoseWhoStayUofM

September 7th, 2016 at 12:48 AM ^

You're a fucking disgrace. You call yourself a Michigan man... What a fling joke. You lack the capacity to comprehend the very essence of the term, let alone come close to identifying with the term. You all are a public disgrace.

Mark.. My... Words...

Fucking mark them down.

This Oregon defense will improve from #116 nationally, in 2015, to the top 25 in 2016. Fucking mark those words. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. What a fucking disgrace.

ThoseWhoStayUofM

September 7th, 2016 at 12:48 AM ^

You're a fucking disgrace. You call yourself a Michigan man... What a fling joke. You lack the capacity to comprehend the very essence of the term, let alone come close to identifying with the term. You all are a public disgrace.

Mark.. My... Words...

Fucking mark them down.

This Oregon defense will improve from #116 nationally, in 2015, to the top 25 in 2016. Fucking mark those words. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. What a fucking disgrace.

dragonchild

September 6th, 2016 at 1:49 PM ^

It didn't sound antagonistic, though.  It was a very direct observation.  UCD found a hole in their defense and adjusted at halftime, but it's a simple schematic one that they can patch in a week.  Which I think they'll do.

The defense was going to play well enough that mid-game adjustments weren't needed, but IIRC Hoke doesn't do mid-game adjustments anyway.

BlueFish

September 6th, 2016 at 2:05 PM ^

This raises an interesting question.  Much attention was given to his macho refusal to wear a coat, and even long sleeves on otherwise cold days.  I'm cold just sitting at my desk today, and it interferes with my concentration.  I can't imagine what it would be like to focus on coaching an entire football team when you're wearing short sleeves in 30-degree weather.  The players...that's different.  They're running around and competing (about half of them, anyway), and staying active on the sidelines doing things other than clapping.

I dunno.  I can't help but feel like the whole macho "manball I don't need no stinkin' coat or long sleeves" thing was just for show and potentially distracted from what was really important...managing a Power 5 football team and coaching staff on game day.

But whatever.  Water under the bridge.  Good luck to him at UO.

Bigku22

September 6th, 2016 at 1:42 PM ^

Just such an odd fit for a spread style hyper fast pace team that usually runs an attacking defense with smaller speed players, exact opposite of what Hoke ran here. He's also obviously never been a real X and O's guy. Thought he would be a better fit as a D line coach with a heavy emphasis on recruiting. He basically recruited 5 NFL players to our current D line and Willie Henry.

28 to UC Davis isn't optimal but isn't really shocking with Oregons pace, amount of possessions and first game for players in a new system. Will see what better opponents do.

Yeoman

September 6th, 2016 at 3:25 PM ^

Helfrich doesn't want to run a defense with "smaller speed players" any more. It hasn't worked for him recently and instead of tinkering with it he decided to completely change approach. He was thinking about it when he invited Hoke out for a sort of consulting visit last year, and he decided to go all in on the change.

But it means the personnel doesn't fit the new scheme. A lot of what changed was their approach to recruiting (a bit too late for this past year's class, though), and it may take a while to work it out.

Bigku22

September 6th, 2016 at 4:12 PM ^

Since 2010 they've won 11+ games every year except last year, and played for 2 national titles. I get it, they're an offensive team but their defenses have not been bad when you factor in pace, possessions, etc. Also, how can I trust Hoke who's never ran a defense before to navigate a complex scheme change? Also, I don't know with another below standard season or 2 if Helfrich/Hoke will even be around.

Mr Miggle

September 6th, 2016 at 4:30 PM ^

standing pat with a relatively weak defense doesn't sound like a great option. It feels like Oregon hit a peak with Mariota and is sliding down. If this was OGoBlog, I doubt many of us would be opposed to shaking up the defense. Given that it's MGoBlog, we're skeptical that Hoke's the one to do it.

I read that Oregon missed four tackles Saturday, a big improvement over last season.

Yeoman

September 6th, 2016 at 4:54 PM ^

They were #84 in dFEI last year, 10th in the PAC (only Arizona and Oregon State were worse). In S&P+ they were #85, 9th in the PAC (same teams plus Colorado). The only other team in the country that had eight or more wins and had a defense that bad was Bowling Green; Oregon has reason to expect to be better than Bowling Green.

They weren't nearly that bad in prior years; maybe it was a one-off. But it's Helfrich's team now and I can see why he might not have wanted to take the chance. And with so few players coming back on that side of the ball anyway, it's a good time to make a change.