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...

 

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Brady Hoke; Defense; Oregon

UMFOOTBALL2003

September 6th, 2016 at 1:44 PM ^

I was at the UO-Davis game, and Oregon has a long way to go on offense and defense. Instilling a 4-3 defense vs. the fast paced offenses of the Pac-12 will be interesting.  Oregon plays Nebraska in two weeks and I can see Tommy Armstrong having the best game of his career, as well as many other Pac-12 quarterbacks.  Maybe we will read and hear "We played well in practice, just not in the games"  Glad we have Don Brown!!!!  Wish the very best for Hoke though.

 

Go Blue

Joined: 09/04/2016

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reshp1

September 6th, 2016 at 1:45 PM ^

I've been following Hoke at hs new position a little bit too. He gave some fairly ominous statements coming out of camp that the defense wasn't nearly where he wanted. We'll see, I could see him turning the defense around (or at least make it good enough to win with that offense), or he could implode again. 

Joined: 10/31/2011

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uncle leo

September 6th, 2016 at 1:47 PM ^

Oregon's defense always struggles it seems.

Last year:

42 to Eastern Washington

28 to Georgia State

55 to Arizona State

42 to Oregon State (???)

This was a tough task, no matter who was taking it on.

Joined: 07/29/2012

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Picktown GoBlue

September 6th, 2016 at 8:42 PM ^

brutal to watch.  So by one measure, it will be progress for Hoke if they can do better than 36.8 points per game or 480 yards per game.  But previous years were better, so the challenge will be to determine how much is regression to the mean this year, and how much is Hoke?

Oregon Scoring Defense Total Defense
Points/Game Rank Yds/Game Rank
2015 36.8 114 480 116
2014 22.5 29 414 83
2013 20.5 13 370 37
2012 21.6 25 374 44

 

Joined: 01/21/2011

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imafreak1

September 6th, 2016 at 1:48 PM ^

I think this is a tough one to evaluate from a defensive perspective and maybe it is just the new reality for Hoke.

Oregon was scoring so fast that they got totally dominated on TOP. They faced 80 plays. The game was 33-7 in the second half before things got a wonky for the D.

How much of that is real and how much is being tired and disinterested because you've won the game?

 

Joined: 07/02/2008

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TIMMMAAY

September 6th, 2016 at 3:28 PM ^

All of the grave dancing is more than a little bit ugly.

He's a good guy, loved the university, always showed class. But he failed. I'm sure you have never failed at anything that you desperately wanted to succeed in doing.

Why can't people just be happy that we now have a very high level staff?

Joined: 09/08/2008

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doggdetroit

September 6th, 2016 at 4:05 PM ^

Because Hoke presided over two of the most unwatchable teams in the history of Michigan football. Those are two years that I will never get back.

Joined: 09/05/2015

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treetown

September 6th, 2016 at 5:40 PM ^

Rich Rod: genius on offense, doesn't really care about defense so never devotes time or recruiting to defense. We did get to see Denard Robinson - one of the most electrifying college ball players of all time. Under the lights and so many other great times. 

Brady Hoke: good guy, understood how to get along with the alumni and central campus, very decent person (see the book, End Zone by John U. Bacon where it shows that he really went out of his way to help players who needed help). We got some really good players out of it, and the group of juniors and seniors we have now are getting the benefit of 2 years of Harbaugh. 

Wish them both well. We've probably seen what Rich Rod can offer - he will never have a great defense; after this many HC stops, if he really wanted a good D he would have had one by now.

Brady Hoke - man, I hope things work out and he ultimately gets where he wants in life.

Joined: 11/10/2010

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BigBlue02

September 6th, 2016 at 5:23 PM ^

And RichRod was literally the reason Hoke was here so long and I don't hear too many "Oh the children" comments about how it was his dream job. Ex-coaches are going to get shit on here if they are fired. It isn't that big of a surprise. Grave dancing is something this fanbase has no problem with

Joined: 06/29/2009

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doggdetroit

September 6th, 2016 at 7:12 PM ^

He is part of the reason, but he's not the sole reason. I give him credit for recruiting the current players (minus Gary) but credit should also go to Mattison and Durkin, the guys that actually coordinated the defenses. And while Harbaugh is an offense guy, he deserves credit for instilling a sense of toughness on the entire team. Put it this way, if Hoke was still here, the defense would not be anywhere near as dominant despite the roster being the same.

There were a lot of people involved in constructing the current defense, Hoke included. I also don't think Hoke spends time reading this blog so he's not going to be offended by what anonymous posters have to say about him.

Joined: 09/05/2015

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The Mad Hatter

September 6th, 2016 at 5:05 PM ^

The guy failed at his dream job in a very public fashion. Regardless of how much $ he made at Michigan that must have been a very tough pill to swallow. Add to that the 1997 NC that he played a huge role in winning, and I have to wish him well.

Joined: 02/17/2015

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pescadero

September 7th, 2016 at 7:55 AM ^

"Why can't people just be happy that we now have a very high level staff?"

Because Hoke STILL doesn't thin k he failed at Michigan, and if we'd have just given time more time things would have worked out great.

 

If he'd ADMIT his failure instead of deflecting and pretending like it was the fault of others, he'd get a bit less hassle.

Joined: 03/28/2013

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uncle leo

September 6th, 2016 at 2:10 PM ^

Not sure about that "curve." When you are a head coach, you should have a pretty firm grasp on both sides of the coordinating. It shouldn't be that complicated to go from the head man to laser focusing a side of the ball. 

I think it's more of the fact that Oregon just doesn't stress defense that's going to be Brady's biggest challenge. If he needs time to get adjusted to being a coordinator, then maybe he's just not a good coach, period.

Joined: 07/29/2012

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uncle leo

September 6th, 2016 at 2:21 PM ^

This isn't a Brady Hoke thing. This specific bullet point is about the "learning curve" from HC down to a specific coordinator. And I don't think there really is any curve if the coach is a good one. 

It'll be hard to determine, if the Oregon defense doesn't improve, if it's Brady Hoke being a lousy coach or the Oregon system. And as much as it pains me, I'd lean towards the latter. I don't think anyone will ever make Oregon great on D as long as they run that up tempo stuff.

Joined: 07/29/2012

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Carcajou

September 6th, 2016 at 11:03 PM ^

They are different, including the degree of responsibility for decisions. I think as a head coach, while he was very involved with the defense and how that fit the overall philosophy, he left specific scheming up to Mattison, and probably Rocky Long before him. Hoke was always speaking in terms of general fundamentails- pad level; tackling; gap integrity.

As a DC, he is much more in charge of scheme, and less in terms of overall team philosophy: scholarships for talent, how practice is arranged, how much they will gamble on offense and special teams in ways that affect field position, etc. Maybe think of him as the blue collar uncle who knows a bit about plumbing or what kind of fertilizer is best for your lawn. While it strikes many of us as a strange fit, I think Oregon wants him to be basically what he is, a good guy teaching sound fundamentals, one who kids will enjoy playing for (defense is probably somewhat neglected in terms of priorities there); and somebody who can get them a little better prepared for man-ball teams like Stanford.

Joined: 02/26/2009

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dieseljr32

September 6th, 2016 at 2:12 PM ^

I don't know why he would want to take an Oregon job where the team is tempo-tempo-tempo and faces spread style offenses which are two things he was not very good dealing with at Michigan.

 

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