Reminds me of when Mariota left, and rather than hand things over to Lockie, we brought in Adams, and did pretty well with him at the helm, but still didn't have a viable succession plan, and then brought in Dakota Prukop the next year, which was a disaster.
Prukop wasn't a great QB, probably not much above average. He did have a 66% completion rate and a QB rating over 150 as a Duck. He wasn't a disaster, but the team was. Of course, the Ducks had true freshman Justin Herbert behind him and mad the switch mid-season. That was the season that got Helfrich fired, and a big reason for that was his decision to hire Brady Hoke as the defensive coordinator. Now that was a disaster
compare this year's shitty Tosh Lupoi defense to Hoke's defense:
opponent points/game: Hoke 41.4....Lupoi 27.4
opponent yards/game: Hoke 518.4....Lupoi 397.9
opponent average yards/play: 6.41....Lupoi 6.07
BUT!
opponent passing yards/game: Hoke 271.9....Lupoi 289.7
opponent average yards/play: Hoke 7.3....Lupoi 7.6
and the biggie:
opponent 3rd down conversion rate: Hoke 48.47% (ranked 122nd)....Lupoi 48.51% (ranked 128th)
that 3rd down conversion rate has been what is absolutely killing Oregon and it sure did against the Huskies. Lupoi is trying to run a version of
bend-but-don't-break defense. A defense that stiffens in the red zone. They have done a good job of that as they rank 36th in opponent red zone conversion rate (
but only 51st in opponent red zone TD rate)
but an integral component of a defense is getting off of the field when you have the opponent behind the chains, and the Ducks have been terrible at that, and the root of the problem is their pass defense. The more plays you allow your opponent to run, the higher the odds of giving up a big play. The Ducks have given up 112 passes of more than 10 yards and that ranks 112th. And that's a lot of 3rd down conversions right there. They rank 78th in passing plays of 30+ yards; 9oth in 40+ yards; 120th in 50+ yards; and 122nd in 60+ yards.....geeeezuz H
Oregon had been able to dodge the defensive issues because their offense has been so dominating and mistake free. Other than the WSU game, Oreon had not been in a tight game in the 2nd half. But it was almost like they were saving up all their offensive mistakes for the husky game. And those mistakes coupled with the dismal pass defense did them in
by the way, I was told yesterday there's only about a 50-50 chance Bo will be able to play next Saturday. And if he does play he'll likely be pretty immobile. Yikes! If it's Ty Thompson vs Utah it will get ugly in a hurry
anyway, assuming Oregon can hold onto Dante Moore (
the NIL auction is still going on according to rumor) it's probably a wise move to bring in a transfer rather than put all the faith in a true freshman QB
