Ducks Attack Message Board Forum

I have been the harshest critic of Pellum and the defense, but I think we played much better than the stats suggest tonight. I might change my opinion after I re-watch the game, but you have to give credit to Cal. They had some really nice plays tonight.

Fun game. Levi's Stadium is beautiful. Had a great time, there were so many Ducks fans at the game. Only weird thing about the stadium is its proximity to the airport, so airplanes are flying over the stadium all game long.

Anyway, back to the game, Oregon's offense looked pretty solid. Only problems were the two turnovers. In the first half, I remember being a little frustrated with our redzone offense, but overall really great offensive performance.

Our defense still has holes. 30 first downs, 560 yards, and 41 points. Lasco killed us, he's a very talented individual. Can our defense do enough to get us to the playoffs? Stanford, @ Utah, Colorado, @ Oregon State. Colorado is the only team ranked in the top 85 in terms of offense. So..... As long as we play clean football, I think we can get through all these games.

Our run defense had some good moments (stopping them on 3rd and short AND 4th and short was impressive and a BIG momentum changer) and some not-so-good moments tonight, but saying they played "bad" is silly.

Cedar Tree wrote:Our run defense had some good moments (stopping them on 3rd and short AND 4th and short was impressive and a BIG momentum changer) and some not-so-good moments tonight, but saying they played "bad" is silly.

You're right, that is because the run defense last night was worse than bad. Cal is not a good running team and to give them almost 200 yards says that the defense can't even stop 1 thing. Yes they had a few big stops but seriously, the expectations for the defense every single game is that they just have to be on the field and yall think its a wild success.

I love the use of the transitive property when talking about our D. "They scored X against Y, therefore we suck." Every team has a different game plan and different goals going into the game. Outside of the first two drives last night, I thought the D was acceptable. It wasn't Alabama playing D, but we will never be Alabama on D. We won by 18 points in a game that could have been a trap game with Stanford coming up. Next week will be quite the test for Pellum. We know we are going to get Stanford's A game.

yall think its a wild success.

Nobody in this entire thread has said anything remotely close to this.

However, there are people in this thread who are portraying our defense as terrible, and that's just silly. Take away the first-half miscues on offense (two turnovers) and special teams (15-yard punt), and Cal probably would have had just 14 to 21 points by halftime. In the second half, Cal had just 14 points, and that was when they were playing as aggressively as possible.

I know some people here will trot out total yardage stats to try to bolster their arguments, but that's a very out-of-touch way of evaluating this game. Evaluating stats is useless without acknowledging the context of those stats and understanding how different stats relate to each other.

Love or hate DP's schemes for this game, we held an extremely potent offense to just TWO second-half scores (at a time when our offense was failing to pull away, too). And the D may have done the same in the first half, if not for mistakes by offense and special teams.

The sky isn't falling, guys. Our defense is fine. We've already proven capable of stuffing a top-ranked team with a great offense. This isn't a banner year for our D, but that doesn't mean we're doomed.

Also, I know we're all totally in love with the offense, but let's hold everyone accountable if we're going to play the blame game.

Yea, we "only" gave up 41 points total, but hey, ignore that the 1st half, those stats and points don't actually matter, especially when the offense put our D in a bad spot.

The D is not fine unless you believe just fielding a defense makes that unit fine. By what measurement is this unit anything but below-average?

ignore that the 1st half, those stats and points don't actually matter, especially when the offense put our D in a bad spot.

What?

Don't ignore them, but definitely make an effort to understand why the D's second-half results were so much better than the first-half results.

First half: Two offensive turnovers and a muffed punt.

Second half: No mistakes on offense or special teams.

No football team plays defense in a vacuum; what happens in the other phases of the game ALWAYS impacts the defense. If that weren't true, then things like field position and turnovers wouldn't be so impactful in this sport.

There is no two ways around it, unfortunately. The defense gave up 41 points, 30 first downs, 560 yards of offense, 193 rushing, 367 passing. It awful. Its bad. There is no way to justify it. And the committee was watching. The biggest issue I have is, its not improving. The defense isn't getting better as the season goes on. They are just a sorry defense.

pezsez1 wrote:

ignore that the 1st half, those stats and points don't actually matter, especially when the offense put our D in a bad spot.

What?

Don't ignore them, but definitely make an effort to understand why the D's second-half results were so much better than the first-half results.

First half: Two offensive turnovers and a muffed punt.

Second half: No mistakes on offense or special teams.

No football team plays defense in a vacuum; what happens in the other phases of the game ALWAYS impacts the defense. If that weren't true, then things like field position and turnovers wouldn't be so impactful in this sport.

Doesn't our offense greatly help our defense out by scoring and creating massive leads that force the opponent to get away from what they are doing? Conversely, our defense can greatly help our offense by forcing 3 and outs more often than they do and giving the ball back to our offense but nobody on this board believes a D can do that more than like twice a game.

I'd honestly put more of that 2nd half improvement by the D on our offense ticking away as usual than anything the defense did differently. By the 4th quarter though we did start seeing a 5th DB come onto the field but where the heck was that in the first half after a weeks worth of game prep?

It's not awful, though.

Against Cal, we were average. As another poster pointed out, we literally held Cal to their season averages. We even fared better against them than Arizona, which stuffed us!

I must have said this in another thread, but look at the differences in our defensive performance in the first and second halves:

1st half: Defense gave up 28 points (TWO OFFENSIVE TURNOVERS AND A MUFFED PUNT)

2nd half: Defense gave up 14 points (no mistakes on offense or special teams)

Seriously, don't you see this??? ^^^^^^^^

And the defense hasn't improved? Were you asleep during the UCLA and UW games? Our D over the past three games has certainly been better than our D over the previous three games.

I'd honestly put more of that 2nd half improvement by the D on our offense ticking away as usual than anything the defense did differently.

Actually, I believe the opposite.

Our offense was incredibly flat for most of the third quarter and had a hard time sustaining drives (fortunately, the O got bailed out late in the quarter by Cal's dropped punt). If not for our defense, our second-half offensive miscues could have made this game a lot more scary.

I see a s*** ton of points given up, period. How is 41 acceptable? A good defense would be able to hold a great offense to below their season average, not allowing them to match it and increase their rushing yards.

How does holding Cal to what they normally get a sign of a good defense? Whenever we've played a good to great defense, they usually hold us below our averages and sometimes by a lot.

I can see arguing that the performance wasn't that bad, but to now be making the argument that allowing them to do what they've normally done is now a sign of good performance? WTH?

I'd be less upset about the D, if DP would at the very least sell out like NA to stop the run. It drove me nuts that he did that, but at least take away something from the other O.

I can see arguing that the performance wasn't that bad, but to now be making the argument that allowing them to do what they've normally done is now a sign of good performance? WTH?

I think we have a misunderstanding...

I'm not saying our defense is good. I'm just saying it's not bad. There's room for improvement, but people are really going over the top with their reactions here.

EDIT: I'm also saying it's unfair and unreasonable to dogpile on the defense without acknowledging how they were harmed by sloppy play on offense and special teams. If you look at what happened in the first and second halves (sloppy errors in the first half, none in the second), then it seems pretty obvious why Cal scored more in the first half.