As game week approaches, so does the emphasis of becoming a cohesive and prepared football team.
Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal met with members of the media on Tuesday and honed in on points of emphasis the Ducks are working on as they get ready to take on Fresno State in just over a week.
Cristobal pinpointed physicality and toughness as key areas he’d like to see improvement on at every position.
“I feel like we’re progressing – we still have a lot of stuff we have to work at” explained Cristobal on Tuesday.
“The emphasis again being on execution,…physicality always. We’ve gotta make sure every bit of us is physical – the perimeter,…the interior, the o’line, the d’line. The intangibles of understanding that being a full speed player is being a full speed player all the time.
“There’s progress there. Football shape isn’t exactly where it needs to be yet. We still have 12 – 13 days, whatever it may be to get there. We’ll get there. We’ve got to keep pushing the tempo.”
Another area of emphasis for Cristobal and his staff is getting his talented, but inexperienced players ready for live action.
And to do that, Cristobal is throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at his team so they’re prepared for every scenario that might come up during game action.
“They’ve shown some resiliency with all things we’ve thrown at them” said Cristobal.
“And we’re going to throw more at them. We have an agreement and an understanding that the only way to get them ready is to make this really difficult.
“There is no learning,…there is no overcoming adversity by taking the path of least resistance. We’ve got to present struggle. We’ve gotta present them with difficult situations so they can respond. Today, we threw a lot of those situations at them and their response on both sides,…the back and forth, was really really encouraged by what we saw.”
TUESDAY PRESS BRIEFING WITH MARIO CRISTOBAL