Coach’s Analysis: Learning Moments for Young Ducks vs. PSU

Coach Ken Woody Analysis

The only things that marred the Ducks’ decisive win over Portland State last Saturday were a blocked extra point, a roughing the kicker penalty, a face mask penalty, a roughing the passer penalty and for the second straight game, a substitution penalty which was blamed on the coaching staff. Otherwise, it was a country whupping and the Vikings were never …

Shattering the Narrative: Marcus Arroyo’s Passing Attack

Coach Eric Boles Analysis

Today I want to stomp out the notion that the design of Oregon’s passing game under OC Marcus Arroyo is an unsophisticated attack that only sends receivers on long-developing deep routes. It wasn’t true last week, when the narrative started popping up across message boards, and it certainly isn’t true after the game against Portland State. After diagraming all of …

The Zone Read: Is the PISTOL a Good Fit for Oregon?

Charles Fischer, Mr. FishDuck Analysis

Alright … I was wrong in last week’s article. And not just once, but in a couple of places. I was erroneously applying prior knowledge of the Oregon Spread Offense to the new Oregon Offense that features the Pistol formation the majority of the time. In this article, I will apologize, own up to my errors (each of them) and …

Coach’s Analysis: Ducks Smash Bowling Green, 58-24

Coach Ken Woody Analysis

Mario Cristobal notched his first win as the head coach for Oregon, a 58-24 thrashing of the out-manned Bowling Green Falcons. The game was also the end of a nine-game losing streak to teams from Ohio and perhaps the beginning of a streak that might stretch beyond one game. Quarterback Justin Herbert began to make his case for Heisman consideration, …

Cristobal Signals the Decline of the Backside Zone Read at Oregon

Charles Fischer, Mr. FishDuck Analysis

If you want a fluffy editorial, this ain’t it. I am not going to cover the same stuff as other media — that everyone can already see, such as dropped passes, elite throws by Justin Herbert, improvements on the defense, etc. I will focus on what I am passionate about on offense, and I was dismayed at what I saw …

The Oregon Offense: The H-Back Position

Coach Eric Boles Analysis

When running a spread offense that utilizes a power run game, the H-Back position is key. The position opens up a variety of possibilities in the run game that are not usually afforded the offense with an in-line tight end. The position was used some during the Chip Kelly/Mark Helfrich era, but was a staple of the offense that Willie …

The Jim Leavitt 3-4 Defense: Single High Safety Coverages when Blitzing

Cameron Soran Analysis

In the previous two posts, we covered Jim Leavitt’s coverage structure with 2-high safeties. Now we are going to cover his main coverage concepts with 1-high safety. Leavitt primarily runs 1-high safety looks in run-first down-and-distance situations and when he is going to blitz. Leavitt ran two forms of Cover 3 when sending four rushers, both of which operated by …

The Jim Leavitt 3-4 Defense: Trips Coverage with Two-High Safeties

Cameron Soran Analysis

In the previous post, we explained how Jim Leavitt‘s 2-high safety coverage concepts operate for when there are two receivers to a side. Now we will be covering his 2-high safety coverage concepts for when there are 3 receivers to a side, most commonly known as Trips coverages. The Trips Coverages With 2-high safeties, Jim Leavitt will run: (a) Stubbie, …

The Jim Leavitt 3-4 Defense: Triangle Coverages with Two-High Safeties

Cameron Soran Analysis

Now that we have covered the general structure and defensive fronts used by Oregon defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt, we will begin delving into his coverage schemes in the next several posts. In this analysis, we will be exclusively featuring his triangle coverages: 3 defender over 2 receiver coverage concepts. (The inside “receiver” here can be either a slot receiver or …

The New Oregon Offense: Heavy Packages

Coach Eric Boles Analysis

There are a couple of areas that the Oregon Ducks are certainly emphasizing under Coach Mario Cristobal. The first is a physical run game, a main component of offseason work. Yes, Oregon is still going to run all of the things that propelled them to the upper echelon of the college football world, but when push comes to shove, the staff wants to …

Understanding the Jim Leavitt Defense: Oregon’s Defensive Fronts

Cameron Soran Analysis

After we covered Jim Leavitt‘s overall structure in our first analysis, we will now get into where it all starts: up front and in the middle. While Jim Leavitt primarily runs what we will be calling a 3-4 Base defensive front, he has four others he can use situationally in order to put his players in the best position. These four …

Understanding the Jim Leavitt Defense: Oregon’s Basic 3-4 Structure

Cameron Soran Analysis

Being that I live in Oregon (though not a Duck fan myself), I’ve had a sort of voyeur interest in watching both the collapse and rise of Oregon’s defense in recent years. For a decade and a half, the Ducks defense was guided by the adaptive hand of Nick Aliotti. Following his departure, Oregon enjoyed one more good year on …