The Ducks have fallen to 2-4 overall and 0-3 in Pac-12 play following a 70-21 rout on Saturday by Washington that snapped a 12-game win streak against the Huskies. Freshman quarterback Justin Herbert made his first career start to provide a “spark” in the place of fifth-year quarterback Dakota Prukop.
With both players and fans upset about Oregon’s disappointing season, head coach Mark Helfrich answered questions on Tuesday about the state of the program, Herbert and the upcoming bye week.
Other players have said there’s a group of players who don’t care anymore. Do you get a sense of that at all, and how do you handle that even if you don’t see it but players are talking about it?
Mark Helfrich: I think that’s just a byproduct of the situation last night — the frustration. Obviously those guys are competitive guys who are very frustrated. Any behavior by somebody else that doesn’t match theirs or isn’t totally with what we’re trying to do is going to be read through that lens. But certainly there are guys at this point in the season that aren’t necessarily doing everything that we want them to do… Those are things that we need to address in-house and take care of them in-house and talk about them in-house, and we will.
After watching the film, what did you think of Justin Herbert in his first career start?
MH: I thought he made some plays that were really good, he made some throws that were big-time plays that we had an opportunity to make…. Very impressed by his reaction to that first play under those circumstances. Again, I think he’s got a big future.
You and Matt Lubick said you put Herbert in for more of an offensive spark. Was there something Dakota Prukop wasn’t giving you that you wanted to get out of Herbert a little more so?
MH: There were some plays there to be made, opportunities to be made — it’s always a little bit of a gamble of how much you think you’re going to get a spark from your team and how much of a difference that’s gonna make. I thought he made some plays that weren’t there. There were big-time plays: the touchdown to Tony James was a great play; the touchdown to Taj Griffin was a busted protection; he had a drag route to Charles Nelson… I think he provided that spark last week, and now our execution has to pick up on special teams, on defense and throughout the offense, including him.
What are your priorities in practice this week?
MH: First and foremost, just get everybody on the same page. Improving our psychological health as well as our physical health is job one. Removing any doubt or lack of confidence in anything — and we’ve got plenty of that right now… building true confidence to play faster and play better.
How much does your practice week change during a bye week as opposed to a normal game week?
MH: We’ll go against ourselves the whole time, so it’ll be more of a spring ball type of scenario where it’s ones versus ones, twos versus twos, and threes versus threes. So we won’t split into scout teams yet until our game week prep.
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