Oregon's defense just wants the respect it deserves

Don Pellum doesn’t want his defense to complain that it’s not getting enough credit for Oregon’s success as it heads into Monday’s College Football National Championship game; this is, after all, a team sport.

However, Pellum, the Ducks’ first-year defensive coordinator, isn’t actually thrilled with some of the labels that have been placed on his defense.

The one that irks him the most? That the Ducks are soft.

“Today’s offenses are really hard to stop, there’s a lot of stuff going on,” Pellum said. “Can you stop it all? I don’t know. If you look at the scores and you look at what offenses are doing today, it’s off the charts.

“Those labels don’t mean anything to me. Our job is to back (the offense) up, to take it away, get the ball back for our offense or keep them out of the end zone. That’s what we have to do.”

Oregon’s defense has been fighting the perception that it’s soft all season even though the numbers in the past five weeks show this defense is leaps and bounds better than it was at the beginning of the year.

In the past six games, Oregon has not allowed an opponent to score more than 20 points. The defense has allowed 368 yards per game and 11 total touchdowns, which amount to 1.8 touchdowns per game.

In the eight games prior to that, the Ducks were allowing 462.4 yards and 25.9 points per game. Of those eight opponents, only three were held to fewer than 20 points and two of those teams were South Dakota and Wyoming.

“We knew it wasn't going to be pretty right off the bat, but we knew that if we stayed consistent and kept working, that it would come through at the right time and I think it did,” safety Erick Dargan said. “That's a credit to our coaching staff.”

And it’s true that the Oregon offense also has helped out the defense. When Oregon continues to score, it puts more pressure on the opposing offense and forces it to change its gameplan. Florida State, for example, came out early trying to establish the run, but got away from it after it fell behind in the second half. That allowed the defense to key in on the pass and ultimately force five turnovers.

"You don’t want to get into that shootout with our offense because we’ve got one of the best," cornerback Troy Hill said. "We understand that when we get up, they’re gonna do everything so that they can stay in the game because they’re so worried about our offense. And that’s when teams start making mistakes."

The defense has an immense challenge on Monday going up against a running game that’s piquing at the right time and a quarterback in Cardale Jones that can throw the ball 80-85 yards.

“He has a cannon, he puts it up there and probably the best thing is those receivers are excellent finishers with the balls that they go get,” Pellum said. “So we’re going to have pick and choose. We’re going to have to stop the run because at the core of them, they’re a running team. They run the ball. And then we’re going to have to rotate some coverages. We’re going to have to play some man, play some zone, we’re going to have to roll things some different ways and make him work a bit in the passing game.”

Every coach will say that in the end, only one stat matters — wins and losses. With the exception of the first Arizona game, a game that many defensive players said was the turning point for the defense, the wins have been plenty even when the defense hasn't been up to par. And it's no surprise that in the past few weeks, the defense has been playing some of its best football and so has the offense. 

Hill acknowledged that while the offense has garnered most of the attention, the defense has an easy answer for doubters.

“We wouldn’t have gotten this far if our defense wasn’t good," Hill said.

For more Oregon news, visit DuckSportsAuthority.com.

- - - - - - -

Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday

And don’t forget to keep up with all of Graham’s thoughts, witty comments and college football discussions on Facebook