The Oregon fanbase was eager for change at the conclusion of the 2015 football season — especially after the Ducks squandered a 31-0 halftime lead at the Alamo Bowl and fell to TCU in triple-overtime. Oregon’s defense struggled all season long, ranking 116th in total defense out of 127 FBS teams. Defensive coordinator Don Pellum was demoted to linebackers coach shortly thereafter.
New, Oregon defensive coordinator Brady Hoke brings a fresh perspective to the defense. In his first press conference under the new title on Thursday, Hoke said Oregon’s defense will be “aggressive and chaotic.”
“It seems like we’ve got a great group of kids. I don’t know if they’re football players yet — that’s to be determined — but everything from the administrative all down has been great.”
Hoke plans to run a 4-3 defense, which features four down linemen and three linebackers, as opposed to the 3-4 defense Oregon has run for years. Starting in a 4-3, he said, helps how the coaching staff will teach various packages.
Under the new system, some players will transition to what Hoke called a “rush-end,” which means the defensive end who lines up with the tight end will be expected to play the C-gap and stop the run, more so than rush the passer.
“We want to be able to make it easy on the guys,” Hoke said. “We’ve talked about being explosive defensively — part of that is putting guys into positions to make plays.”
He asked the coaching staff not to tell him about the current players on the roster, because he doesn’t want to go in with any preconceived notions. He hasn’t evaluated players yet, but he has met with everyone on defense except two players.
Hoke watched the tape from Oregon’s last three games — against TCU, Oregon State and USC — and acknowledged Oregon is losing some talented players up front, such as defensive end DeForest Buckner. He said he saw some guys “not play perfect and sometimes not play with the effort you know they can play with.”
But film wasn’t something he put too much weight on as the Michigan head coach, and he won’t use it to make determinations about which Oregon’s defensive players fit his new system.
“From a defensive standpoint of moving from one scheme to another, it’s really not fair, in some ways, to judge guys up front when they’re playing a two-gap and then going to a one-gap scheme.”
Hoke put together a 31-20 record in four seasons as the Michigan head coach, but his team’s performance declined from start to finish, which led to his termination in 2014. He went 11-2 in 2011, 8-5 in 2012, 7-6 in 2013 and 5-7 in 2014.
Hoke was out of coaching last year, instead working for SiriusXM Radio’s college football channel, which “kept [him] very engaged” in the sport. With SiriusXM, he made trips to several different schools, including Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia and Ole Mis, to watch them practice and adapt his own defensive strategies accordingly.
Hoke said he will coach a position this fall, although he doesn’t know which one yet. Still, he plans to walk around a lot at practice and work with different position groups.
A defensive-minded coach, Hoke is excited to be able to work exclusively with the defense for a change.
“I believe there is a way you play defense [with] a physicalness, and you have to have that every day — it doesn’t just happen on Saturdays,” Hoke said. “But if we’re playing with our hair is on fire, we’re going to be okay.”