By the time the plane landed in Eugene on Saturday night, Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti had forgotten about the Colorado game.
It wasn’t so much a matter of choice; his defense had just finished off its most dominant performance of the year in a 45-2 victory over the Buffaloes. It was instead just another victory Aliotti had to put behind him. The Ducks returned to practice on Monday and the focus shifted entirely towards a Washington State team coming to town on Saturday.
“We’re on to Washington State,” Aliotti said after Monday’s practice. “That’s the curse of coaching, or the beauty of coaching, is that that one’s gone, you’re on to the next one. The next day, the next year, there’s always another chance.”
That next chance comes against a Washington State squad that has stumbled after a 3-1 start, dropping its last three games against UCLA, Stanford and Oregon State. It remains unclear whether senior Marshall Lobbestael or junior Jeff Tuel will get the start at quarterback, as Tuel attempts to return from a broken collar bone, but Chip Kelly, for one, doesn’t think it will matter much.@@http://www.wsucougars.com/sports/m-footbl/sched/wast-m-footbl-sched.html@@ @@http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/cougars/2016396913_coug04.html@@
“They run the same offense,” Kelly said. “And there’s so much tape on Lobbestael, so it’s not like, ‘Well, we haven’t really seen this guy.’ Marshall’s been around a long time and has done a really, really nice job in subbing in.”
Indeed, despite their struggles of late, the Cougars still rank 32nd nationally in points per game (34.0) and could cause problems for an Oregon defense that Aliotti still calls “a work in progress.”@@http://www.pac-12.org/portals/7/images/Football/2011-Stats/HTML/wsu.htm@@
For this unit in particular, most of those improvements come between the ears.
“We’re getting smarter in our overall scheme,” Aliotti said. “Because we had a lot of new and younger guys playing initially, I think we’re getting, overall, smarter in what we’re doing and so we know what we’re doing a lot better, which allows us to do it a lot faster.”
Aliotti lists communication and understanding as points to improve on going forward, two aspects that are particularly important in a unit that shuffles players rapidly throughout the course of games.
“(On) our line, we continue to play eight or nine guys,” Aliotti said. “Our linebackers, when Kiko (Alonso) and (Michael) Clay are back, it gives us a chance to play four or five and outside we played three last week … and I think there’s seven to eight defensive backs playing almost every game, so we’re trying to stay fresh.”
For Kelly, watching the defense evolve has been particularly satisfying after losing veterans like Casey Matthews, Spencer Paysinger and Brandon Bair to graduation at the end of last season.
“Defense wins championships, and we’ve won the last two championships in this league because of our defense,” Kelly said. “And they’ve really continued the same thing … I think the young guys that have gotten an opportunity to play have really stepped up and I’m really happy with how they’re playing right now.”
Only Cliff Harris’ safety on a punt return kept the unit from a shutout last Saturday, but the players, for their part, professed not to care about such trivial statistics. Like Aliotti, they’ve moved on to the next game.
“We’re just going to come out and try to win the game,” defensive end Terrell Turner said. “We’re not really worried about a shutout. If it’s 2-0 or 52-50, a win is a win and that’s what we’re after.”