UCLA Football Preview: Oregon Defense is Stingy and Aggressive

The Bruin offense will face their toughest task of the season this afternoon.

Oregon linebacker Noah Sewell leads a very stingy and aggressive Duck defense. (Photo Credit: Isaac Wasserman/goducks.com)

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In our preview of the Oregon offense, I lamented the fact that Oregon doesn’t publish an official depth chart while mentioning that I was able to find one that went three-deep and even four-deep at some positions. Well, that worked for the Duck offense, but it doesn’t work so well for the Oregon defense.

That’s because the Our Lads depth chart for Oregon indicates that the Ducks play a 4-2-5 defense. The problem with that is that the list of starters for each of Oregon’s games this season seems to indicate that the Ducks don’t play a 4-2-5 as their base defense. Instead, the starter list seems to indicate that Oregon will play a 3-4 defense as their base while opting to go to a 3-3-5 nickel defense at times and, in fact, the Ducks have started with that 3-3-5 defense in three of their six games. So, it’s a coin flip as to whether they start in a 3-4 alignment or a 3-3-5.

And, of course, they could opt to move an outside linebacker up as an Edge rusher and that would effectively give them either a 4-3 alignment or even that 4-2-5 if they’ve brought a fifth defensive back into the game.

So, I’m not exactly sure how the Ducks will be lining up tomorrow since I haven’t watched any of the Ducks games to study their defensive alignments which makes me say that conundrums like this explain why some coaches prefer to say they “are multiple,” meaning they run multiple alignments.

For the purposes of looking at the Ducks’ defense, I’m going with the alignment suggested by the starter list which means either a 3-4 or a 3-3-5 nickel. With that, let’s look at the personnel on the defensive side of the ball for the Ducks.

Defensive Line

Junior transfer Casey Rogers anchors the Oregon defensive line at nose tackle. This season, the Nebraska transfer has made 15 tackles and has 1.5 TFLs and a QB hurry.

Rogers is joined on the line by defensive end Brandon Dorlus. Dorlus leads the line in tackles with 18 including 5.5 TFLs and 2.5 sacks. He also has a pass breakup and a QB hurry.

At the other end, senior Jordon Riley will start. Riley is the only guy on the defensive line with fewer than 10 tackles. He has 9 so far this season including 1.5 TFLs and 0.5 sacks to go along with a QB hurry.

Linebackers

The preseason accolades really came in for Mike linebacker Noah Sewell. His name appeared on seven different preseason watch lists and he was a first team preseason All-America selection on five other lists. He is Oregon’s fourth leading tackler with 24 tackles including 2.5 TFLs and a sack. He also has one pass breakup and a QB hurry to go along with a fumble recovery.

Next to him on the inside, Oregon should start Jeffrey Bassa. The sophomore from Salt Lake City is second on the team in tackles with 27 including 2 TFLs and a sack. He also has one quarterback hurry.

At outside linebacker, Lanning will start DJ Johnson and Mase Funa. Johnson leads the team in sacks with 4 and is second on the team in TFLs with 5. All of that goes along with his 20 tackles for the season. Meanwhile, on the other side, Funa has only made 11 tackles including one TFL and one sack. He is also one of just four Ducks to have an interception.

Secondary

Bennett Williams is the only Duck safety to have started all six of the team’s games. Three of his starts have been as one of the two safeties while he has started as the team’s nickel back, called a Star in Oregon’s defensive scheme. He leads the team in tackles with 30 including one TFL and one sack. Williams also has three pass breakups and two forced fumbles. He is definitely one of the best defenders for the Ducks.

Junior Jamal Hill is the team’s third leading tackler with 25 tackles. He will start at one of the safety spots for the Ducks along Steve Stephens IV. Stephens has made 20 tackles this season.

It seems appropriate that the Ducks’ starting corners lead the team in pass breakups. That is their primary job, after all. Sophomore Christian Gonzalez accounts for almost a third of the team’s breakup with five. On the other side, Trikweze Bridges is second behind Gonzalez with two. While Bridges hasn’t broken up as many passes as Gonzalez, he does lead the Ducks with two interceptions. So, Bridges is a guy to look out for when the Bruins have the ball.

Analysis

The Oregon defense has been very good. They are stingy when it comes to giving up yardage and they get a lot of pressure onto opposing quarterbacks. That could mean that DTR sees more pressure than he has all season. It’s a good thing that the Bruins had the experience of marching down the field on the final drive of the game for the game-winning score because today’s game is probably going to be a shootout where the last team with the ball wins.

Oregon is favored to win today by 6.5 points, but this game will be closer than that and it might even go into overtime.


Go Bruins!!!

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