Breaking Down The Oregon Defense: Are The Ducks Too Tall?

The Oregon Ducks 4-3 Defense is not working and part of the reason may be due to height.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the Oregon Defense since the beginning of the 2015 season. No amount of soul searching, players meetings, or re-emphasis on the fundamentals has had any effect on the scoreboard. Even deciding to rush more than three defenders at a time hasn’t magically solved the Oregon’s woes.

The Oregon Defense currently sits at 11^th in the Pac-12 and 109^th nationally in scoring defense. Brady Hoke’s oversight of the defense hasn’t led to the resurgence many expected, and it’s easy to see when watching our defense that there’s simply a lack of talent on that side of the ball. Receivers run wide open, quarterbacks have all day to throw, and the line gets shoved around by less than great offensive lines. The coaching staff needs to focus on recruiting defenders capable of playing at a Pac-12 level.

The coaching staff needs to focus on recruiting defenders capable of playing at a Pac-12 level.

But what kind of athlete is that, exactly? Recruiting hasn’t been horrible recently, with a combined rank of 19^th in the country over the last five years. One glaring example of personnel decisions gone wrong is along the defensive line.

For years, Oregon has emphasized long, lanky defensive lineman capable of getting their hands up in the passing lanes. Put simply, this type of athlete is not cutting it. A look at the top defenses in the country shows that many excellent defensive teams bypass these tall defenders in the first place:

Defensive Ends and Defensive Tackles

Top Defenses shows the average size of the Ohio State, Miami, Florida, Kansas State, and Clemson front four. These five teams represent the top five defenses in the country which operate out of a base 4-man front. This is looking at the top four defensive ends and top four defensive tackles on the depth chart, to identify both the starting personnel as well as the depth accumulated.

With the exception of Kansas State, these defenses can largely pick and choose their recruits, and it’s telling that they aim for much shorter defenders than Oregon. The Ducks’ lineman match up well on weight, but the Ducks’ defensive ends are almost 2” taller and the defensive tackles are 1½” taller. Taller lineman have a harder time keeping their pad levels low, and are more prone to stand up off the snap.

We can see on the right how Oregon’s defenders fire high off the ball, while Alabama’s defenders stay low and get their hands under the blockers’ pads.

Alabama doesn’t have a starting defensive lineman over 6’5”, with every starter under 6’4”. Keeping your hips and pad level below the blocker is one of the golden rules of defensive line play, which the Alabama players are able to maintain due to their low center of gravity. Oregon’s practice of engaging the blockers high eliminates many basic pass rushing techniques, and lets blockers put defenders on roller skates in the running game.

Having shorter linemen isn’t a guarantee of success. Lots of bad defenses have short linemen. But Oregon’s love of tall linemen may be leading the team down the wrong path. The Ducks’ current defensive linemen commits for the class of 2017, Langi Tuifua and Rutger Reitmaier, are both 6’3”, which may represent a course correction on the coaches’ part. Oregon’s coaches should continue their focus on the following relatively shorter recruits to return the defense to respectability:

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Noah Ellis: Ellis is a three star DT out of Colorado that has become a must-have for the Ducks after being eliminated from consideration by Jay Tufele. 6’3”, 300 pounds, Ellis is a monster in the middle and has just the size we’re looking for. He’s a strong Utah lean at this point but Oregon coaches need to shift some of their focus to him.

Martin Andrus: Andrus is a three star DT from California that Hoke has been recruiting hard. At 6’1”, 280 he fits our profile. He’s leaning USC right now but you have to think he sees opportunity for playing time at Oregon right now.

Jacob Callier: A 6’2, 250 pound DE from southern California that’s willing to play out of state. Oregon has thus far been uninterested, but he could be a hidden gem that we shouldn’t let slip away to one of the Arizona schools.

My-King Johnson: What a name! Johnson is an Oregon lean at this point and fits our should-be new look well at 6’4”, 225. A three star out of Arizona, Oregon should be able to fend off the rest of the Pac-12 and some SEC schools to reel him in.

Recruiting shorter defensive linemen is not going to suddenly turn the Ducks into Alabama. But it’s time to admit that the Ducks’ go tall or go broke mindset has led to a defensive line that is getting dominated by mediocre competition.

We can’t fix the players we have, but the coaching staff needs to dial in on the type of player that will make the Ducks defense an equal part of the team again.