Helfrich Reflections of the Cal Game

Austin Willhoft FishWrap, FishWrap Archive

After the Cal game, a few memories stung in the back of my mind. Giving up 42 points was a big one, but also there were the issues of Marcus Mariota’s first interception and assorted defensive miscues. To clarify, on Sunday evening, I got the opportunity to interview Mark Helfrich at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex.

I asked what Helfrich saw as the biggest difference with Cal this year compared to last year. He responded by saying that “offensively they’re healthy. They’re healthier than probably anybody else we’ve played against.” That could attribute to why they gave us so much trouble. The idea of having the same players getting reps with one another builds team chemistry, thus causing both the offense and defense to play more effectively. This is clearly shown in Cal’s case, as last year was a disaster. They finished 1-11 (0-9 in the PAC 12) overall mainly due to the injuries that struck the team, specifically on the offensive line and secondary.

Next, I asked Helfrich about how he felt the Ducks defense performed in terms of bringing pressureMark Helfrich was satisfied with the Ducks secondary performance against Cal (or lack there of) to Cal’s sophomore QB Jared Goff. He expressed that “sometimes we did a great job of getting to him whether it was a sack, fumble, or pressuring him and making him move his feet.” This might be a bit of a stretch by Heflrich, but despite surrendering more than 560 total offensive yards for Cal, the Ducks did stop Goff when it came to pivotal moments.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that the Ducks secondary still allowed Goff to complete 61.5 percent of his passes to his receivers, a number that needs to be cut down immensely. Plus, they allowed Cal to have 193 yards on the ground, most of which came from mediocre runs by back-up QB Luke Rubenzer from the Wildcat formation.

Finally, I asked Helfrich about how much the absence of RB Thomas Tyner, K Matt Wogan, and DE Arik Armstead affected the team’s overall performance. He expanded on my question and voiced his opinion regarding how “the team’s performance was that we got a big win on the road. And that’s the most important part.” Touché, coach. When you put away all the numbers and stats, winning is the main focus that football or actually any sport is all about. Oregon won on the road, and in the end that W is all that matters.

 Top photo from Kevin Cline

 

New 2024 FishDuck Publishing Schedule….

During the off-season the FishDuck.com publishing schedule will consist of articles on Mondays and Tuesdays. Do keep checking as new articles could be published during the week when a writer has something to say.

In mid-August of 2024, we will go back to the seven-days-a-week of articles during the football season as we did in the football season of 2023.

The Our Beloved Ducks Forum (OBD) is where we we discuss the article above and many more topics, as it is so much easier in a message board format over there.  At the free OBD forum we will be posting Oregon Sports article links, the daily Press Releases from the Athletic Department and the news coming out every day.

Our 33 rules at the free OBD Forum can be summarized to this: 1) be polite and respectful, 2) do not tell anyone what to think, feel or write, and 3) no reference of any kind to politics. Easy-peasy!

OBD Forum members….we got your back.  No Trolls Allowed!