At this point last season, Oregon defensive coordinator Brady Hoke was out of football, one year removed from a stint as head coach at University of Michigan.
Last Saturday Hoke returned to the sideline as Oregon’s defensive coordinator and watched as his revamped Duck defense delivered a mixed performance in a 53-28 win over UC Davis at Autzen Stadium.
At times on Saturday, Oregon’s defense looked like the dominant unit that Hoke imagined when he chose to end his football hiatus and take a shot at rebuilding the Ducks’ abysmal squad. After surrendering a touchdown on the Aggies’ first drive of the game, the Ducks held UC Davis to 108 yards and kept them off the scoreboard for the remainder of the half.
Freshman Troy Dye looked like a star in the making and made plays all over the field in the first half. The Norco, California, native recorded six tackles in the first quarter alone and ended with a team-best 11 tackles and 4.5 tackles for loss. However, he was one of the rare high-points for Oregon as the Ducks allowed the visitors to hang around much longer than they should have.
“We didn’t tackle very well,” Hoke said. “We gave up some big balls down the field and we competed for some of them, but we’ve got to come away with a few of those also.”
Oregon’s defense wasn’t nearly as bad as Hoke hinted that it might be. He said Oregon was ‘nowhere near having a defense’ during the last week of fall camp. Improvement in the pass rush was apparent from the get-go. Senior defensive end Henry Mondeaux sacked UC Davis quarterback Ben Scott for a 10-yard loss on the first play of the game. Throughout, Oregon defenders badgered Scott with a consistent pass-rush.
But for all that appeared different with the Ducks’ defense, much remained the same on Saturday. The Aggies, who finished in the bottom half of the FCS Big Sky Conference last season, netted 392 yards of total offense. Wideout Doss Keelan broke free several times on third down for substantial gains. It took Oregon all but 1:07 to score on its first drive of the third quarter, but the Ducks handed the Aggies another touchdown less than two minutes later and allowed them to eat up six minutes of clock on an 11-play drive that ended in another touchdown at the start of the fourth quarter.
“Sometimes we looked like we were in a 3-4, sometimes it looked like a 4-3,” Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich said. “I thought, operationally, we didn’t get gapped out all of the time and that led to some of the big runs with the fly-sweep action and the power. There’s a lot of moving parts to that that certainly other teams will do against us going forward […] Most of that is very simple to look at on the tape and understand what’s going on.”
Overall, Oregon’s defense operated a step above where it was at this point last season. Outside cornerbacks Arrion Springs and Ugo Amadi both made key breakups on huge would-be gains, and neither was beaten down the sideline like they often were last season. Instead, most of the Aggies’ large gains came up the middle, where coverage often broke down.
“We were there to make the right plays and we were there mentally and physically, but we just weren’t there with the playbook I guess,” Oregon defensive end Jalen Jelks said. “People were still kind of misaligned and stuff like that… I think they scored too many points. We made the right plays when they needed to be done, but I think that we can do more.”
This Saturday, the Ducks welcome a Virginia team that lost badly to Richmond in its season-opener. The Ducks won’t get away with the type of defensive performance they displayed on Saturday when they begin facing Power 5 opponents, but Hoke believes at this point that he will have plenty to work with once Oregon’s coaches begin studying film.
In his much anticipated return to the sideline, Hoke, who has been his defense’s loudest critic all summer, was cautiously optimistic.
“We won, and winning is what this is all about,” Hoke said. “It’s a matter of us going out there this week and having a great week and improving.”
Follow Jarrid Denney on Twitter @jarrid_denney