When Oregon defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi speaks, everyone in his direct vicinity stops to listen.
Lupoi’s quiet confidence consumes and reverberates through the room, not just with his players, but with everyone within shouting distance.
Watching Lupoi speak to the media Thursday morning in Scottsdale, Arizona it was easy to see Lupoi, and by extension, his Oregon defense, isn’t taking No. 23 Liberty lightly.
“We are right where we are supposed to be. Very thankful to be here” said Lupoi when asked about facing the Flames.
“We’ve had an awesome overall successful season and now it’s just an opportunity to cap it off, to have the opportunity to win 12 games and possibly finish in the top five. There’s a lot of things that we have our eyes set on
and just trying to approach every day for that possibility going into our preparation, our energy, our attention to detail every day. I think the guys have done a nice job of preparing and, of course, we’ll see how that preparation plays out January 1st.”
No matter what the outside world may think of Liberty, Lupoi is well aware of how explosive the Flames offense is and the challenge it poses to his Ducks defense.
Liberty has a formative rushing attack and has also shown they can move the ball through the air.
“I think every opponent is its own entity. We attack it” explained Lupoi.
“So this opponent is certainly an original entity for us, when it comes to defending a zoned option outfit. So they have a unique mix of having some large individuals, just like the (Pac-12) championship game we played where some guys can create movement up front.
“And they also have the element of an elite perimeter attack with the option scheme. So we won’t know until January 1st as far as our preparation, how successful it’s going to be. So we’re thankful to have some of the extra preparation to go through things and trial and error and see some things
that we might not like, see some things we do like. You know, bring in some of the things we have done in the past.”
Oregon safety Tysheem Johnson understands this isn’t a team to take lightly simply because they don’t have the name recognition as other teams might have.
“We have to be very focused, locked in” said Johnson.
“On defense, we have to have great eyes. The offense is a little unique. So through every phase, from defensive line to linebackers to the back end, all of our eyes have to be right and we have to be ready to go.”