Due to poor air quality in Eugene, the Ducks hit the road for practice on Tuesday. But before they traveled to Florence, Oregon, for an afternoon practice, offensive assistant coaches and players spoke to the media for the first time since Oregon’s 77-21 season-opening win over Southern Utah on Saturday. Here’s what co-offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo had to say regarding Saturday’s win and looking ahead to Nebraska, among other things.
After taking some time and looking at the film, what’d you see out of the offense in the opener?
Arroyo: I thought we did a nice job executing. I said last week that that’s the biggest part of what we want to do, is look back and say we executed. I felt like our guys played fast. We limited our mental errors. We controlled some of the keys to victory and at the end of the day things work out that way.
Taggart said that all the mistakes he saw were very coachable, what kind of adjustments do you want to see in week two now?
A: When you get a win, you get a chance to be critical of your guys and understand that there are still things out there that can put us in situations to be even better. It’s sometimes hard to fathom but the reality of it is the score always takes care of itself. I really believe that. When you go out and do the right things, the score takes care of itself and I think that’s an attribute to our guys and the way they played on Saturday.
Arkansas State had a lot of success going against Nebraska’s new 3-4 defense, what kind of opportunities do you see when you look at Nebraska early on film?
A: Well, the fortunate part is that we’ve played against a three-run since spring and fall going against our own defense. After one game, I’m not going to say that there are all the answers right in front of us right now. It’s one game. We had a chance to see some film on them, they had a chance to see some film of us. We’re going to attack it the way we do, we’re not going to do anything different as far as our approach.
What did you think of Taylor Alie’s performance backing up Justin [Herbert]?
A: I think that’s awesome. I think that’s probably one of the hidden gems in a game like that is when you put the guys behind [the starters] in, how much fall off there is, and with our guys, there wasn’t. [Taylor] went six-for-six and executed. Was locked in the whole game. And that’s hard to do. It’s hard to be locked in and to stand in there for three quarters of a game and be perfect and he did an awesome job. I think that’s exactly what I want to see of him. I was proud for that and I think that fires the team up even more. I mean you shrink the gap between guys that played the most or are playing the most and the guys who are playing the least and when that comes together you start aligning the group. It gets pretty powerful.
Excited for your field trip to Florence today?
I am. But I’ll tell you what, I’m really thankful for the men and women fighting this fire. I think that’s really important. I’ve got friends and family who are in this profession across the country, and this is all fun [points around at Oregon’s facilities], but that’s the real deal. So my hats off to those guys out there trying to keep it right for us.
Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris