UCLA’s key weakness should help Oregon Ducks’ offense and Dillon Gabriel continue to find success
The Oregon Ducks come out of their first bye week with a matchup against a Big Ten team that they're quite familiar with from their long run together in the Pac 12 Conference – UCLA. Traveling down to California and leaving the state of Oregon for the first time this season, the Ducks have the benefit […]
The Oregon Ducks come out of their first bye week with a matchup against a Big Ten team that they're quite familiar with from their long run together in the Pac 12 Conference – UCLA.
Traveling down to California and leaving the state of Oregon for the first time this season, the Ducks have the benefit of staying on the west coast for their travels. As they meet up with the Bruins, there's plenty of reasons to think the Oregon offense is set for a major explosion.
The Bruins matched up with LSU this weekend, and the UCLA defense did not look the part. As a team, UCLA missed 14 tackles in that one game alone, while their safety play was exploited in coverage.
LSU went after starting free safety Ramon Henderson often in this game. According to Pro Football Focus, Henderson was targeted 10 times, allowing eight receptions for 92 yards, including 46 yards after the catch. Henderson was also credited with three missed tackles.
A safety allowing that kind of receiving stats bodes well for quarterback Dillon Gabriel on his shots down the field. In Week 2, we saw Gabriel drop back and get transfer portal addition Evan Stewart involved on deep shots down the field, Connecting with Stewart on two deep shots for a total of 101 yards. Those opportunities will be there in this game.
When the Oregon offense doesn't want to push it down the field, the rate at which UCLA missed tackles open the door for the way that Oregon loves to attack defenses with screens and quick passes. We're going to see Gabriel get the ball out of his hands plenty to Tez Johnson.
Those missed tackles are also going to play into their desire to get Jordan James rolling on the ground. I wrote about it previously – James is currently a statistical outlier that has him overdue for breakaway runs, continuously just missing the big play with shoestring tackles.
This could be the coming out party for James where he snaps off a serious long run. No matter how you slice it, UCLA's defense looks like a unit that the Ducks should be able to exploit.
Follow along all year for more Oregon Ducks coverage on A to Z Sports. You can find me on X @JonHelmkamp, as well as follow our main page @AtoZSportsNFL for all the latest news.
