I've been pondering again, (Always a bad thing?) and like you--was not pleased with our rush-defense, as Coach Lanning was not. Yet we know that the two Northwestern touchdowns were scored on the second team defense by the starting Wildcat offense...so just how bad is it?

If we left our starters in, we probably would have got the shut-out, but isn't it more important to get playing time to the young-guns that will be starting in the next two years? How does freshman Na'eem Offord learn without getting burned in game-speed? Do you want him to learn that during a game that counts in 2026 or 2027?

That is one important question we all need to ask? I've decided that playing time is more important for linebackers who are out of position--to learn at game speed--and is what they need to experience. It was garbage time...who cares?

Second question; just how realistic is it for us to expect perfection from the team? Yes, the No. 1 defense gave up more ground yards than we wanted...but they kept a Big-10 team scoreless while they were in there. Isn't that the goal?\

I do think we have to readjust our thinking to the new conference; if any conference is known for tough offensive lines that bull for rush yards...it is the B1G, because they have to in order to compete. Even weak teams will move the ball on the ground against us. We lost three starters on the defensive line to the NFL from last year, but recall how well Purdue ran the ball on us?

We won 35-0, but the Boilermakers got over 200 yards rushing off us, (Linked) and anytime you rush for over 200 yards, that is pretty darn good, and you will usually win. While demanding the best feels good...how realistic is it?

Look at the college scoreboard, and you will see teams with good defenses, (Like Georgia and Notre Dame) get a boatload of points scored on them. I think it is pretty unavoidable these days, as everyone has the firepower on offense to score. Thus why I think Will Stein will strive to score as many as possible because when we face good teams like Penn State...they are going to score a bunch on us.

Just a reality, IMHO.

Agree?

Agreed. But the first team did get pushed around a bit. This may have been due to perception of their poop not stinking. Or, a sure W, after travel, and early wakeup.

We won't know for two weeks whether to be worried or not. That is unless you are Alfred E. Neuman.

NM.

I think it is a yellow alert for now. I think a big part is the learning curve for the guys playing together against a team with a slight pulse on the road at 9:00 am.

In a way this is like the Idaho game last year. A messy figuring things out game. Big picture if we can keep the score in the 25-35 range, we should be able to beat anybody or at least be in position to.

Northwestern had 42 yards of offense in the first half. 174 yards of their 313 yards (55%) of offense took place in the 4th quarter, which was when they scored their only points against our 2nd and 3rd team defenders.

Winning ugly still gets the W.

Although, I can’t say that I am overly confident that we have a top 10 defense. So, the question becomes, can we outscore our opponents?

Bill Connolly's model is MAD about, not at, the Ducks!

ESPN.com

Ranking CFB's 39 unbeaten teams: Who is most likely to st...

Bill Connelly separates the contenders from the pretenders among the remaining undefeated teams.

As an older Duck fan from the late 70s Il take a road victory of 34-14 any day.

Charles, I agree with all of your statements. I have given up on looking for perfection on every single play. I'll let the coaches worry about pushing the players for the mythical perfect game. While, I'd love to have a National Championship, I'm just happy that we get to watch such a great program each week and season that Dan Lanning is our coach. It won't last forever.

Run D is very concerning. I’m not sure why Northwestern didn’t run more.

1 minute ago, VegasDuck said:

Run D is very concerning. I’m not sure why Northwestern didn’t run more.

Because they couldn't score with it until their starters went against our "2s?"

I’d say zero alert personally.

Stats in garbage time during a blowout mean absolutely nothing imo.

Florida International (house of pancakes) rushed for 141 AT PSU last week. Does that mean we’ll rush for 300?

Everyone knows I hate the saying "we beat ourselves", but NW really did stop their own drives with costly mistakes if you go back and rewatch their drives. Dan Lanning mentioned this in the post game talk with the media.

The counter to that is your team is really good if the other team has to play flawless to hang around, but they REALLY jacked up their opportunities to make this game VERY uncomfortable for us through halftime.

The Smart/Lanning approach seems to work best with a monster elite 330+ pound future NFL NT. While far from an unknown last season, I still felt Jamaree Caldwell was a bit of an unsung hero last year. This year the defense has three young guys who fit the profile but are still finding their way. The staff didn't seem to love anything in the portal at NT above the young guys so maybe that is promising. Maybe some of it is simple growing pains.

The rise of the Kirby Smart defense was (obviously) greatly aided by having 6 future NFL defenders to put in the box. The Georgia staff finding how to best leverage that advantage might have been much of their "secret sauce" rather than anything scheme (and that isn't at all a put down, rather good coaching).

Penn State obviously has a pair of good backs. Allen so far is 34-273 at 8.0 ypc. Singleton is 41-179 at 4.4 ypc. (Penn State so far has been 51% run). Maybe "mildly concerned" if Penn State can methodically rush the ball and put together long drives, keeping the Duck offense on the sidelines. I'm sure Penn State will be happy to try to play a game limiting Oregon to 2 possessions per quarter and not shoot it out.

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by AnotherOD

1 hour ago, JB89 said:

Charles, I agree with all of your statements. I have given up on looking for perfection on every single play. I'll let the coaches worry about pushing the players for the mythical perfect game. While, I'd love to have a National Championship, I'm just happy that we get to watch such a great program each week and season that Dan Lanning is our coach. It won't last forever.

Great take. It's hard to win football games. The 100% accomplishment vs. NW, there were no penalties called on OBD.

"...if any conference is known for tough offensive lines that bull for rush yards...it is the B1G, because they have to in order to compete. Even weak teams will move the ball on the ground.."

Let me provide an example. In Iowa's first two games they had 46 first down attempts. Could have been after a kickoff, after receiving a punt, after a turnover, after stopping the opponent, after being successful on the prior 2nd or 3rd down, whatever. On those 46 first downs, they ran the ball 34 times. I don't know what Northwestern's ratio was on Saturday but it seemed to me they were trying to grind out sequential short-yardage runs to maintain possession by starting with a run.

I suspect the Ducks are going to see that from most opponents as the season progresses. It is the Big Ten DNA. And, if game video makes it look successful, opponents will revert to DNA. It becomes very tiring for a D-line. And, as the clock winds frustrating for fans of the defense to watch. It is one reason why there are relatively few high scoring conference games...peck, peck, peck, first down, peck, peck, peck, first down, peck, peck, peck...

We just went through this last year. No reason to suspect we won’t see the exact same caveman football almost every week. The majority of teams in our new league don’t like the forward pass. We were ahead of a conference foe 31-0 on the road after three quarters, and they were still running the ball…that tells me all I need to know.

I don’t think it’s concern, but I’m interested in investigating why NW was able to sustain drives. They had a few unforced errors and questionable play calls that stalled their drives that we can’t count on great teams to make later in the season.

Is it talent? Experience? Is it gap control? Are we not getting off blocks? What are the tackles being asked to do vs the linebackers? Was it a numbers game? We are interested in learning more about our defense along with the offense.

11 hours ago, HDuck said:

"...if any conference is known for tough offensive lines that bull for rush yards...it is the B1G, because they have to in order to compete. Even weak teams will move the ball on the ground.."

Let me provide an example. In Iowa's first two games they had 46 first down attempts. Could have been after a kickoff, after receiving a punt, after a turnover, after stopping the opponent, after being successful on the prior 2nd or 3rd down, whatever. On those 46 first downs, they ran the ball 34 times. I don't know what Northwestern's ratio was on Saturday but it seemed to me they were trying to grind out sequential short-yardage runs to maintain possession by starting with a run.

I suspect the Ducks are going to see that from most opponents as the season progresses. It is the Big Ten DNA. And, if game video makes it look successful, opponents will revert to DNA. It becomes very tiring for a D-line. And, as the clock winds frustrating for fans of the defense to watch. It is one reason why there are relatively few high scoring conference games...peck, peck, peck, first down, peck, peck, peck, first down, peck, peck, peck...

Totally agree HDuck and NW has always been known for a tough running game even when they are not very good. As I said elsewhere, take away a 79 yard run vs our reserves and NW averaged 2.8 yards a carry. I'll take that vs a team that features the run any time.

16 hours ago, AnotherOD said:

The Smart/Lanning approach seems to work best with a monster elite 330+ pound future NFL NT. While far from an unknown last season, I still felt Jamaree Caldwell was a bit of an unsung hero last year. This year the defense has three young guys who fit the profile but are still finding their way. The staff didn't seem to love anything in the portal at NT above the young guys so maybe that is promising. Maybe some of it is simple growing pains.

The rise of the Kirby Smart defense was (obviously) greatly aided by having 6 future NFL defenders to put in the box. The Georgia staff finding how to best leverage that advantage might have been much of their "secret sauce" rather than anything scheme (and that isn't at all a put down, rather good coaching).

Penn State obviously has a pair of good backs. Allen so far is 34-273 at 8.0 ypc. Singleton is 41-179 at 4.4 ypc. (Penn State so far has been 51% run). Maybe "mildly concerned" if Penn State can methodically rush the ball and put together long drives, keeping the Duck offense on the sidelines. I'm sure Penn State will be happy to try to play a game limiting Oregon to 2 possessions per quarter and not shoot it out.

Jordon Scott may have been the most important defender on the 2019 defense, the way he could seemingly stonewall 3 OL at once and swipe away the ball from the center before it got to the QB at key moments. Definitely an unsung hero.

We definitely don't have one of those guys on our team this year, 330+ with a low center of gravity and strong as an ox.

I think that there is a concern for run D, particularly with the YAC we saw against NW. A few thoughts:

Admittedly a big chunk of the yardage was in garbage time, and padded by the 79 yd run against the 2s and 3s. If the sacks and big butterfinger TFL by Stone are subtracted, there was still significant YPC for the NW RBs. This was even apparent in the first half while the starters were in. It is something to address, and I'm confident that DL and TL will take it to the 'doctor' this week.

On the flip side, running the ball was NW's game plan as the only way they could hope to keep the game close was to slow it down, run clock (their TOP was 5 min longer than OBD) and keep the ball out of Dante's hands.

Oregon let some of that go and made sure the NW passing game was ineffective. And ineffective it was, held to 135 yds on 50% completion rate, 3/11 on 3rd downs, 2 sacks, two picks, a big TFL and no penalties (though the 1st pick could have been a PI and would have been with the old PAC12 crews). The one stinker was on Offord, and that was a rookie error that can be corrected.

Point is that the run game D had some concerns that the NW game plan amplified. It did the Ducks a favor by exposing an area of relative weakness and focus for clean up before Happy Valley in two weeks. Hopefully we will see it cleaned up significantly against the Beavs Saturday.

Does Haloti have eligibility left?

I believe Haloti and his wife have 3 sons.  Ages 16 (TE and OLB), 13 and 11.

The 16 year old has offers from Utah, BYU, SDSU, Colorado St and Osewe.

FWIW CBS Sports Matt Zenitz named Tosh Lupoi as DC of the week so we must be doing something right.

Against our first unit NW had 170 yards and 0 points.

https://x.com/mzenitz/status/1967601465876467854?s=46&t=xjCowF6XwCIg-xuLARP-5A

Edited 18 minutes ago18 min by idontrollonshobbas
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