A lot has been changing for the Sun Devils over the past couple of weeks. Injuries have plagued the secondary, the offensive line and, most notably, the quarterback position.
All said, though, redshirt freshman offensive lineman Zach Robertson, who himself has been shuffled between guard and tackle due to injuries along the line, feels the group played its best game last week against Washington State.
“We played very hard,” he said. “That was probably one of our best games as an offensive line in the run game for sure.”
With what Robertson saw as an improvement in the running game, the Sun Devils will try to continue the improvement against an Oregon defense that allows 248 rushing yards per game (11th in Pac-12).
The Ducks tend to play a four-man front and their front, along with its various alignments, is the strength of the Ducks’ defense.
“I think their four down front is pretty good,” Robertson said. “I think their defensive line is probably the strength of their defense but as a team, we’ve faced better fronts for sure.”
As for their defensive backs, redshirt sophomore receiver Jalen Harvey said hat none of Oregon’s DBs stand out in particular but they will continue to study film nonetheless.
“We’re just in the lab studying film on them,” he said. “We gotta study every day and when it’s game time we just gotta execute.”
Below we’ll take a look at some of Oregon’s defensive fronts as well as a couple of plays that exemplify their defensive struggles this year.
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The strength of Oregon’s defense, as Robertson said, is at its defensive front, which has taken a new look this season with defensive coordinator Brady Hoke coming onboard this season.
With Hoke’s arrival, the Ducks transitioned from a base 3-4 team to a base 4-3 front. With the change in philosophy comes a different set of looks that are becoming less and less common at the college level. Instead of breaking down some plays, we’ll start by taking a look at some of the different defensive fronts Oregon will show to the Sun Devils Saturday.
The first is their base 4-3 look. The ends are lined up on the outside with the duty of keeping all running plays inside of them and funneling them towards the linebackers and defensive tackles.
The defensive tackles are charged with occupying their interior gaps against the run and allowing the linebackers to run free and make plays. It’s not a pretty job but, hey, someone has to do it for the defense to function properly and open up the defense to begin using some different fronts to confuse the offense.
Now, just because Oregon’s base formation is a 4-3 doesn’t mean the 3-4 has been thrown to the garbage. The Ducks still have a regular 3-4 look (below) with the outside linebackers at the line of scrimmage.
The 3-4 look allows for more deceptive pressure schemes as well as, with more linebackers. Bringing more athleticism onto the field.
In the circle, we see the nose tackle in his normal place directly over the center occupying both A gaps and both outside linebackers on the edge on the line of scrimmage.
This kind of versatility helps Oregon’s defense from becoming too predictable, which can happen with a conventional 4-3 front.
Finally, The Ducks also utilize what are known as Over and Under fronts, which shift the strong side defensive tackle shifts either towards or away from the strong side offensive guard.
The below clip is a form of Over front with the strong defensive tackle in a 3-technique towards the strong-side offensive guard. Now, at the snap, the strongside of the line is going to crash back inside, which is a bit unusual, but nonetheless, it illustrates the point f the Over front the Ducks will employ.
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For all of Oregon’s different looks on the defensive front, they struggle just as mightily on the back end and in this clip we’ll see an example of a bad coverage bust.
First, the ducks are likely playing a cover three with the free safety and cornerbacks playing deep thirds of the field. But, as we’ll see, the cornerback at the top of the clip (in the red oval) is going to get stuck with his eyes on the quarterback and forgets his responsibility on the deep third.
The quarterback is going to pump fake to the underneath crossing route and the top cornerback (off screen) is going to bite, leaving the backside go route wide open with the free safety unable to make up the ground.
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But it isn't only passed defense that gives Oregon trouble, they also struggle against the run.
In this clip, the offense is going to run a perfectly executed power play for a touchdown with the pulling backside guard making a key block on the lone linebacker in the hole.
All of the play-side defenders have been successfully blocked and there is no flow from the backside to help the play-side defenders.
With everyone blocked and no backside flow, the running back has a wide open lane to run through for the touchdown.
