Big 10 CG: #1 Oregon vs #3 Penn State (Dec. 7, Sat 5 PM CBS)

[JIDuck97]

I do think that PSU deserves credit for staying with its run-first gameplan even after falling behind 28-10. I even wonder if that caught the Duck D a little off-guard, as maybe they were assuming PSU would become more pass oriented.

Seems reasonable as no one this year has been able to run on the Ducks D in the second half of games. Kinda goes toward expecting that people would just give up on that.

[StevensTechU]

In games against top talent teams, Oregon gave up:

37 to Penn State
34 to Boise State
31 to Ohio State

Not great. As I said, Oregon has the best offense in the playoffs, but defense (I would argue) isn't as good as last year.

[Phalanx]

Last year:

30 to Texas Tech
36 to Washington
34 to Washington

The defense isn't worse than last year, they are just playing harder offenses this year.

[ducks5ever]

In games against top talent teams, Oregon gave up:

37 to Penn State
34 to Boise State
31 to Ohio State

Not great. As I said, Oregon has the best offense in the playoffs, but defense (I would argue) isn't as good as last year.

20% of the play calls on offense make me want to pull out my hair.

Offense rolling great? Perfect time to lose 5 yards on a wildcat play.

Jordan James needs to get healthy. This offense isn't the same without him, and people are tight lipped about whats up with him.

The OL needs to fix their ineligible man downfield issue too. It's been a recurrent issue and will continue to erase scoring plays if they don't get on top of it.

[DmoneyDuck]

Seeing a lot of takes about our defense, but I'd ask that everyone remember it's a 3-part recipe (Offense/Defense/Special Teams) to win a game. And throughout Oregon's modern history, even their best teams have had games where the offense carried the load (@ASU in 2000, @USC in 2012 for example) and games where the defense won it for the Ducks (2000 vs. Arizona, @Cal in 2010, @Wisconsin in 2024). No one is saying this Oregon defense is 2021 Georgia. It's a good-to-great defense but it's not perfect. Over the course of 13 games in the Big FREAKING 10, you're going to see a lot of difficult competition.

The defense may have given up 37 points and had their "worst" outing of the season BUT they also nearly had one pick-6 and a game-sealing interception. The D also bended but didn't break in the red zone multiple times forcing Penn State to FGs instead of touchdowns. Looking at our path to a potential Natty, we'll be playing some of the best offenses in football, so as long as our D can hold in the red zone and force a turnover or two, that should be enough for this offense.

[73duck]

According to Wilner latest column, teams crossing multiple time zones in B1G conference games were 8-18 (30.7 percent) against the spread this year, so perhaps that explains some of the sluggishness on defense. Need to move the conference title game to Vegas. Oregon's next game is at the Rose Bowl, but the other games will be in Dallas and Atlanta.

[Duck07]

Not too surprising that the best rushing teams we've played have had the most scoring success since the Mint Defense is primarily about stopping the pass first because of play EPA. Still not what we want to see, but I think now that we'll have extra prep time between games, that should help.

I kind of feel like I'd rather play Ohio State again frankly than I would Penn State.

[StevensTechU]

Anybody know where to find the snap counts from the game? I saw that Kingston Lopa got some run at linebacker (including the hold on Warren that kept a drive going) and I'm wondering how much the younger guys got some run in the game. I didn't see if Terrance Green or any of the other freshmen DL got some playing time. Burch and Matayo were nonfactors in the game yesterday, but it remains Tuioti that makes me scratch my head because I think Purchase and Winston should be getting some of his snaps based on what we've seen in prior games.

[Duck07]

Anybody know where to find the snap counts from the game? I saw that Kingston Lopa got some run at linebacker (including the hold on Warren that kept a drive going) and I'm wondering how much the younger guys got some run in the game. I didn't see if Terrance Green or any of the other freshmen DL got some playing time. Burch and Matayo were nonfactors in the game yesterday, but it remains Tuioti that makes me scratch my head because I think Purchase and Winston should be getting some of his snaps based on what we've seen in prior games.

https://goducks.com/documents/2024/12/8 ... gon_45.PDF

This is what the school releases and it only includes participation, not snap counts.

So for example I already knew Lopa got snaps on Warren early, but he didn't log any stats so he only shows up as participating.

10-Uiagalelei, Matayo, 11-Alexander, Kam, 12-Woodyard, Peyton, 13-Dickey, Jurrion, 15-Davis, Solomon, 17-Purchase, Blake, 18-Sadiq, Kenyon, 19-Turner,
Tyler, 2-Bryant Jr., Gary, 22-Soelle, Connor, 24-Lopa, Kingston, 26-Jackson, Devon, 27-Limar, Jayden, 27-Austin, Daylen, 29-Porter, Ashton, 32-Winston,
Emar'rion, 36-Sappington, Atticus, 4-Jacobs, Jestin, 43-Basso, Luke, 44-Grace, Zach, 45-Dunne, Luke, 5-Moore, Dante, 52-Washington, A'Mauri, 55-Harper II,
Marcus, 56-Moore, Jaeden, 6-Whittington, Noah, 7-Stewart, Evan, 70-Pickard, Charlie, 73-Rogers, Kawika, 78-Wilson, Gernorris, 8-Manning, Dontae, 92-James,
Ross, 95-Ware-Hudson, Keyon

[StevensTechU]

Thanks for that reminder. One of the duck sites (ATQ, maybe?) used to post snap counts by player. PFF does it but that's too rich for my blood.

[UOducksTK1]

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[Greenblood]

Another thing on D that I'm sure they'll work on before the next game is QB containment in the pocket. Seemed like there were a number of times when the Ducks could have ended a PSU drive -- or at least created a really long third down -- by getting a sack or forcing a bad throw, but then the QB would escape and get a first down. SO aggravating. Naturally, had I been rushing the QB, I would NEVER have let that happen .

[nogerO]

They had very poor gap control all game. That’s the byproduct of selling out to try and sack the quarterback. Poor job of in game adjustments coaches.

[TheDrake]

Anybody know where to find the snap counts from the game? I saw that Kingston Lopa got some run at linebacker (including the hold on Warren that kept a drive going) and I'm wondering how much the younger guys got some run in the game. I didn't see if Terrance Green or any of the other freshmen DL got some playing time. Burch and Matayo were nonfactors in the game yesterday, but it remains Tuioti that makes me scratch my head because I think Purchase and Winston should be getting some of his snaps based on what we've seen in prior games.

https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2024/1 ... state.html