As has been common throughout this spring for the Ducks, the defensive side of the ball stole the show in Saturday’s Spring Game.
Though Nick Aliotti, Oregon’s defensive coordinator and the Green team’s coach Saturday, received a bath from the water bucket on the sidelines as time wound down in his team’s win, it could easily have been for how the defensive players for each side of the split squad played.
“I root for the defenses,” Aliotti said after the game, still a little wet from the celebration.
While the defenses gave up 447 total yards combined, the longest play of the game was a 30-yard reception by sophomore running back Andre Crenshaw, which head coach Mike Bellotti felt was a good sign.
“I thought today’s game was basically a defensive game – didn’t see a lot of big plays,” Bellotti said. “That’s more a compliment to our defense than any question about our offense.”
Aliotti felt it represented the steps the Ducks’ defenders have taken in learning their positions and coming together as a team.
“I think we’ve made some huge strides in intangible things,” Aliotti said. “Our attitude, our work ethic, and our camaraderie are excellent at this point, and I did not feel that way at the end of last season.”
Players that Aliotti and Bellotti both felt have stepped up this spring – including junior middle linebacker John Bacon and sophomore defensive end Will Tukuafu – each stood out for their defensive sides.
Tukuafu, a sophomore transfer from Scottsdale Community College, is a player the coaches have said many times can add to the team in the fall. For his own part, Tukuafu is still trying to adjust to Oregon’s defensive scheme.
“I felt good, felt a little more comfortable about what’s going on and things like that,” Tukuafu said. “(Spring practice has) really helped me just to get familiar with the system and how things work and get ready for fall camp.”
He also was amazed by the Autzen Stadium atmosphere, even with the moderately sized crowd for the Spring Game.
“I’ve never played in front of this many people,” Tukuafu said.
Bacon, a junior who had 3.5 tackles for the White team Saturday, is expected to step up and fill the important middle linebacker role for the Ducks next season, and he’s not intimidated by the challenge.
“I don’t ever look at it as pressure, I look at it as great opportunity,” Bacon said. “A linebacker in our defense needs to be a vocal leader. You kinda need to be a coach out there in a lot of ways, especially with the complexity of our defense and our system.
“We (linebackers) just think ‘man, we want to go out and have fun, we want to go out and make plays, we want to go out and beat the other team and the guy across from you.’”
Bacon doesn’t anticipate a gap in leadership for the Ducks on defense this year, and listed linebackers Kwame Agyeman and A.J. Tuitele, rover Patrick Chung, defensive end Victor Filipe, and defensive tackle Cole Linehan as players who are expected to step up and lead the team.
“There’s definitely enough guys on my defense that have enough talent and enough emotion to be all types of leaders,” Bacon said.
One of those leaders he mentioned is Chung, a junior who will head up a secondary that led the Pacific-10 Conference in pass defense, holding opponents to only 173.5 yards per game in the air.
“It was a lot of fun, everybody’s excited,” Chung said of the spring game. “We lost, but it’s all fun and games out here. I had fun.
“We’ve got a couple things to work on, but we’re going to be good.”
Aliotti felt the defense met all expectations in spring practices.
“My two goals on spring are that we get better, we establish as close to a two-deep (roster) as we can, and we learn some of the scheme. I think we did all those,” Aliotti said.
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