Mark Helfrich Postgame Interview: Stanford

Oregon Ducks football postgame interviews for Saturday, November 12 game against the Stanford Cardinal. If you missed anything from the players or coaches following the Ducks 52-27 loss, fear not, that’s why we are here.

ROYCE FREEMAN’S PERFORMANCE:

“Just playing harder. Playing simple. We have kind of challenged him the last few weeks. Tony (Brooks-James) was going to start but we had an availability issue with him at the beginning of the game. Royce did seem to run better. Taj Griffin, unfortunately, is out for the rest of the season. We lost him this last week in a non-contact deal. He’s out for the year. This is a good time for Royce to get some of that mojo back.”

KICKING FIELD GOAL ON 3RD DOWN BEFORE HALFTIME:

“There were a couple things that happened there. I guess we’ll call it miscommunication on where the ball was and what the time was. They reset the clock at the last second and just tried to avoid any errors.”

WITHOUT A BOWL THIS SEASON, WHAT IS MOTIVATION:

“We’ll find out who rises up. Find out what we’re made of. Obviously you’re playing to win every single game. Every single rep, every single, whatever you’re doing as a competitor. Then, you strip it all down to the essence of who is bringing it, and who is with us and who is not. Very simple.”

Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images

HANDLING BAD ENERGY AROUND STADIUM:

“We’ve got to make the right noise. I’ve said it to those guys many times, I’ll take every bullet for them if their battling their face off. Whether it’s behind the scenes, during practice, during the game or whatever it is. I’ll take all that stuff. That’s my job. Their job is to focus on how they can compete better, execute better, tackle better, fit better. And again, for the vast majority of those guys they’ll continue to do that. We’re all frustrated, we get it from the fans standpoint.”

STANFORD’S BELOW AVERAGE OFFENSE EXPLODES:

“I didn’t see that at all. Some of those things, it’s varied. We have to coach them better. The key is rushing for 280 some yards. You dictate. When you’re rushing for 280, you get to pick the ground rules for how to play action pass, all the other stuff. We have to learn to reset the attack and let one play be one play. Let one drive be one drive, and compete.”

PLAYING DEFENSIVE SCHEME WITHOUT RIGHT PLAYERS:

“Obviously we need to play better on defense. There is no secret about that. We need to play better on offense. We need to play better on special teams. Has nothing to do with gross overall scheme. There are a lot of teams that run the 3-4, teams that run a 4-3. A lot of them play great defense."

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