The Oregon football team “responded well” during Sunday’s practice following the 37-35 loss to Arizona State on Saturday.
Oregon rallied against the Sun Devils after a bad first half to lead by one point with 6:41 to go, but Arizona State drove downfield and made a 41-yard field goal to seal the victory in Tempe, AZ. This is the Sun Devils’ first win over the Ducks since 2004 and Willie Taggart’s first loss as coach of the Ducks.
During practice Sunday, Taggart was watching to see how his players would perform following the game.
“I thought our guys responded really well,” Taggart said. “I thought we were sharp at practice yesterday and had energy out there. I was looking to see how our guys were going to respond, and they were locked in. Execution was big time, which we needed it to be… They’ve got the right mind frame and they understand what it’s going to take for us to move forward.”
The Ducks were described as a “first half team” throughout the beginning of the season, scoring 126 points in the first half alone through the first three games. On Saturday, that wasn’t the case.
“We had a lot of mistakes in that game, especially on third downs where we couldn’t convert,” Taggart said. “In games before, we were converting on third downs. We had penalties. We had dropped balls, early snaps — we had a lot of things that killed us… We can’t have that many penalties or dropped balls and expect to win those games.”
In the Ducks’ previous three games, they had nearly a 54 percent third down conversion rating. Against the Sun Devils, they were 1-for-11 on third downs and added 14 penalties for 99 yards.
Taggart also attributed the lack of energy on the sideline to the loss. It “wasn’t what it has been in the past,” he said. “I put that on me. I didn’t put as much emphasis on that in the week like I have been in prior weeks. Our football team is not to the stage when they do it all the time. We have to continue to stress the message and we need to have energy on the sideline the entire game.”
Despite the loss, Taggart thinks that it will motivate his players going forward.
“Everyone takes credit when we win and I think when we lose, we all should take credit for that loss,” Taggart said. “Our guys showed that the other night. Losing sucks and when the guys feel that way, you get excited because you know they’re going to go out and work and see to it that those things don’t happen again.”
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