The Oregon defense looks lost. Whatever the Washington State Cougars called on offense, it worked.
Washington State has an air raid offense, but the team ran the ball with ease against an Oregon front seven that struggled all night. The Cougars entered the game with 410 rushing yards on the season but gashed Oregon for 280 yards Saturday night.
“The thing that upsets me the most is giving up all the rushing yards,” said defensive coordinator Brady Hoke. “We tried to be as simple as we could with this plan because of what they do. … It worked on a number of possessions, but we weren’t consistent enough with it.”
Missed assignments and tackles plagued the Ducks in the running game. Washington State averaged a staggering seven yards per carry and scored six rushing touchdown.
The Cougars had five scores on the ground all season coming into Saturday’s matchup.
A nonexistent Oregon pass rush gave quarterback Luke Falk time to dissect the Oregon offense for 371 yards passing, which set up the run game. It was a positive feedback loop for the Washington State offense. Falk was rarely pressured by Oregon defenders on his way to completing 75 percent of his passes.
“You can drop eight and try and lock down everything,” Hoke said. “We did a little of everything.”
Rex Manu and Justin Hollins were the two Ducks to record a sack, but as a defense, Oregon only recorded five tackles for loss during the game, three of which came from defensive backs.
“When you give up 600 and something yards, and half of it is rushing and half of it is passing, I don’t know who was tough today,” Oregon secondary coach John Neal said. “I thought they were tough.”
The Oregon defense feels like a rotating wheel of problems. Certain games they rush the passer well, while others they do a better job of stopping the run.
“You walk in and you think you prepared well,” Neal said. “When we can’t stop the run, it’s really like, ‘woah’ when you don’t have answers. And then some of the answers we had, they shredded us.”
Even four weeks into the season, tackling was a big issue for the teams. Starting linebackers Troy Dye and A.J. Hotchkins were out for this game. It got worse Saturday when senior linebacker Johnny Ragin III went down with an apparently serious leg injury. When asked, coaches and players repeated similar answers: Injuries are not an excuse.
If there is any magic in this defense, it will have to come out next week against Washington.
The Huskies are a top-1o team that shredded defending Pac-12 champion Stanford 44-6 on Friday. For a program that is falling like Oregon, they don’t want to directly transfer the balance of power in the conference to their rivals.
“They’re the Huskies, and they’ve turned into the grizzly bear,” Neal said.
Follow Jack Butler on Twitter @Butler917
Duck defense defeated in every way against Washington State
Jack Butler
October 1, 2016
Adam Eberhardt
The Oregon defense looks lost. Whatever the Washington State Cougars called on offense, it worked. Washington State has an air raid offense, but the team ran the ball with ease against an Oregon front seven that struggled all night. The Cougars entered the game with 410 rushing yards on the season …
0
More to Discover