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Beav’s Bystander Effect Defense

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Something I noticed during the game, and that I mentioned in the prior thread:

Beavs have a mental problem where they think hanging around in a game for a few quarters is good enough. They’ve had this forever. It’s something institutional and systemic. I could see the defenders lacking desire and instead looking around for someone else to make a play. It’s very disturbing because it’s ingrained and therefore harder to fix than talent problems.

This led me to conclude the Beav’s D is running on the “Bystander Effect.”

What Is the Bystander Effect?

The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is for any one of them to provide help to a person in distress. People are more likely to take action in a crisis when there are few or no other witnesses present.Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley popularized the concept of the bystander effect following the infamous 1964 Kitty Genovese murder in New York City. As 28-year-old Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment, neighbors failed to step in to assist or call the police. Latané and Darley attributed the bystander effect to the perceived diffusion of responsibility (onlookers are less likely to intervene if there are other witnesses who seem likely to do so) and social influence (individuals monitor the behavior of those around them to determine how to act). […] Some efforts have been made, including on college campuses, to encourage people to be “active bystanders” and fight the urge to step aside when someone is in trouble.Smith seems a bit obsessed with recruiting “intelligent” players, but that trait seems linked, at least in the Beav’s case, to passivity. Some of that could be regional recruiting, too. California and Oregon tend to produce “laid back” players. The Beavs best teams of late have come from dipping into Texas (Rodgers, et al) and other regions known for less passive players.

To me, the only solutions to this defensive conundrum are (a) someone on the current D has the insight to realize all this and steps up to lead instead of follow or (b) the Beav’s coaching staff actively seeks out and recruits psychopaths on defense. Psychopaths don’t care what the person next to them is doing; they go out and do what they want, when they want, and everything is fair game. The latter is the more likely way out of this. A passive person who is a natural follower or bystander is going to be difficult to change.

The Beavers essentially run a Kitty Genovese defense. We need a Ted Bundy defense.

172 COMMENTS

  1. Imagine how bad the defense would be if we actually sold out the stadium?

    The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is for any one of them to provide help to a person in distress. People are more likely to take action in a crisis when there are few or no other witnesses present.

  2. Psychopaths as recruits. Interesting Angry. Are we talking Ted Bundy type psycho or just your garden variety beat the hell out of someone because you dont like their hat psycho?

  3. I’m looking forward to this Oregon/Auburn game. Not sure how good Auburn is this year, but Mario is so overrated…have to go with Auburn in this one. It will be the only non-Beav game I waste any time on this weekend.

    • I’ve been rolling my eyes at the hype from the Portland area media, you would think this is the NC game redux. Auburn was 8-5 last year and 3-5 in conference, hardly the caliber of that 2011 team. Maybe the Ducks aren’t either? Anyway, I only want Auburn to win to shut down the Duck playoff talk early and decisively. Clownzano is out of control.

      • Canzano picked the Beavs. Oregon media is always going to hype Oregon. I’m more interested to see if Mario is as bad as I think he is. This is more his team than last year’s was so…

        • And it’s confirmed on Cristobull……he’s as bad as you thought. Again, this guy was 20 games under .500 his first round as a head coach. He wasn’t even a group of five superstar on the rise at FIU, he was fired for under-achieving. For some reason, the guy can recruit and now he has the money and power behind him thanks to Nikegon

          FYI- Canzano said in an article this morning that he picked Okla St. by a TD, not sure if he’s backtracking now?

          • I think he said something like he had a feeling the Beavs would win. Not sure what his final pick was.

            Mario is terrible. He’s all hat, no cattle. There are so many dudes like him out there who look the part, talk tough, and then get exposed as the frauds they are when push comes to shove. Anyone off the Slick Willie tree is rotten. I’m always skeptical of smooth talkers or the “navy seal” type talker. They’re better off being motivational speakers since they’re BS artists rather than being put in any position where they actually have to perform.

            27-47 at FIU and 9-6 now at Oregon with all the advantages in the world. He’ll be out of football soon, at least as a HC. He can coach line somewhere at a lower level or Mountain West type school. He’s probably is quickly losing that locker room, too.

        • Canzano is now, of course, defending Mario. saying he made mistakes, but he needs time to learn and grow into his role as a head coach. My thought is WTF? This is now his eight-season as a head coach!

          Good Yahoo article about Mario’s issues.

          https://sports.yahoo.com/on-the-clock-how-oregons-mario-cristobal-blew-it-against-auburn-061017917.html

          I don’t do twitter, here’s one of Canzano’s quotes

          Oregon’s loss was troubling. Cristobal looked hollowed out on the field after the game. He’s still growing as a football coach and leader.

          • He wrote back, “Still growing. Don’t you think?”

            I wrote him my thoughts on that. We’ll see what he says. My guess is something like we’ll agree to disagree…

          • I elaborated a bit, and this is his new response to my explanation (as to why Mario is doomed to fail).

            “How old are you? I’ve been working in my profession for 24 years FT… I’m still growing. Bigger curve in years 1-2-3… 5-6-7…10-12-14. Still. Are you not growing? Bet you are.”

            I said, “Let’s just leave it there, and give me a shout out when Mario fails.”

          • Canzano is just making up random shit in defense of Cristobal. There are no set timeline curves to growth in a job and whether he likes it or not, major college head football coaches don’t have the luxury of “growth”.

            They are paid to come in and establish leadership from the get-go at this level. In my estimation, Cristobal has already cost his team two losses in a 15 game span despite having every advantage available to him.

          • More this morning after I said I was done.

            “Curious… why so important to you that he does? Assuming you’re an OSU fan. Jonathan Smith also growing. Needs better players on D still. But I’m optimistic there too”

          • Sounds like your points got under his skin a little bit. Smith/Cristobal is not apples to apples. Smith should indeed show growth, he is new at this (this was a risk Barnes took).

            It seems like everyone would like to conveniently forget that Cristobal is an experienced head coach. It’s like his tenure at FIU doesn’t exist. He was a native son, had a pool of Florida talent to work with and should have dominated the Sun Belt conference, but instead was a complete failure.

            I get it, local journalists want the Quacks to be in the national picture, it makes for relevant copy. They got a frequent taste of it for a few years and they desperately want it to happen again.

  4. Listening to that interview with Whitley I figured he’d possibly be the kind of psycho needed. Until he made that remark about “when it counts”.

    Never heard the term bystander effect, but that’s the reason any good first aid teacher instructs you to directly ask an individual to call 911 rather than saying, “someone call …”

  5. Not sure if anyone cares or wants to hear Mike Gundy’s post game interview, but in so many words, Gundy states that Coach Smith is in his second year, it’s not going to happen over night, but the schemes were done well for a quarter and a half. Also, during the game, he can only see the offensive side of how things are going. He doesn’t pay attention to defense on tape the day after.

    https://youtu.be/gQfm416gdRI

  6. The difference in intensity between Oregon and Oregon State really stands out. No clue if it will matter in the outcome, but they came out with leadership and intensity. Ducks 7-0 on the first drive.

    Ducks have more psychos than the Beavs.

  7. Auburn QB is playing like he thinks he’s still on an elite high school team that dominates lesser competition. Absolutely no pocket presence, panics at the first sign of a blitz. Has made several wild inaccurate throws. Ducks are trying to give this game away, but Auburn keeps giving it back.

    Edit- Nix played much better in the second half.

  8. Havent watched much of this game but just tuned into the ESPN3 view of it, where they have a camera hanging above the field behind the QB, with no commentary. It’s much better than the normal broadcast

  9. Why didn’t Auburn go for 2? That made no sense. Herbert can’t even gauge where the endzone is and throws it 10 yards out of bounds. Schadenfreude.

    • Yup, that’s a Heisman candidate play. Give your team no chance to win on the last play of the game!

      And yes, not going for two makes no sense. I thought Malzahn was the offensive mastermind?

  10. Auburn coaches make some nice 2nd half adjustments and Mario & crew never do anything to counter. Mario’s staff may be able to recruit top 10 talent but as long as they actually have to coach the quacks will always have at least 3 losses each season. I hope he stays forever.

    Also has there ever been a more hyped QB then Hubert? The next big game he wins will be his first. He was out played in the 2nd half by a true freshman playing in his first college game.

  11. What was with Herbstreit’s rambling monologue about Cristobal’s culture dictates they go for it on 4th down? I really wish these recruits would get a clue. The Oregon coaching staff does not deserve the level of talent they are attracting.

  12. One quack fan gets it:
    “Cristobal will be great at recruiting NFL draft picks
    While going 7-6 because his staff spent the entire second half sniffing glue and looking up cat videos on Youtube”

  13. Nothing better than seeing the dux PR machine fail.
    No heisman. No “natty’.
    They were over ranked at 11 but it will take weeks for that reality to emerge in the rankings because all anyone sees are uniforms and the push from nike.

    • It annoys me that even though the Quacks have not been relevant on the national level in several years now, you still see the name come up in college football commercials. It has become a brand. It’s like Nebraska, one good QB and now they are nationally ranked even though they barely beat South Alabama today and went 4-8 last year.

    • More likely nothing will change in the rankings as they beat up a couple of tomato cans at home. Then the nike hype machine plays off today’s game as a good loss and say the schmucks are back because early season losses dont matter.

  14. This Canzano tweet made me laugh, although i dont think that was the intention.
    https://twitter.com/johncanzanobft/status/1167592168028037121?s=19

    Mario Cristobal is reading “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. And another book written by two former Navy SEALs. And another book authored by a Belichick.

    More on the secrets buried in the Oregon Ducks’ book club here: https://t.co/V1dff75cKp

    Am I supposed to be impressed he can read? And why 3 or more books at once, rather than reading and finishing one before starting the next?

  15. I was at the Oregon game… They should of easily won… out played auburn for most of it… between missed opportunities and terrible coaching decisions they gave it away… their oline was pushing auburn back most of the game… then in the 4th quarter that changed… just goes to show, having a cool mustache while jumping up and down, doesn’t get your players in shape lol

  16. Back to the topic at hand: until we ditch the bystander defense and guys start making the conscious decision to act even if the guy next to them isn’t, we’re screwed. The latter approach is contagious, snowballs and you wind up with a good D. At least as good as the D can be (i.e. you reach max potential). This D’s max potential might be low, but we certainly didn’t learn what the upper limit was on Friday.

  17. So…. what is the solution? What must Oregon State do to become a successful program? Cut our losses and move down to the Big Sky Conference? Maybe Mike Riley wasn’t so bad after all? His worst season OSU went 3-9

    • This deserves a new thread at some point. Hearing more and more people leaning on “Bring back Riley” lately. So sad.

      Ed Ray leaving is a good first step, but we have 9 more months of him, unfortunately.

      • Bring back Banker would make more sense than bring back Riley. From an offensive standpoint we’re doing fine. It’s the defense that is the reason we are not competitive.

      • EXACTLY!
        Anyone who has been “OSU for life” has to have seen MR’s last several years of no 2 min O, collecting TO’s like valuable tokens, and TOTAL DISINTEREST in being competitive. The laid back lack of motivation of that guy was/is a trend that isn’t going to turn around at his stage of life.

        Worst season of 3-9? Unwatchable out of touch football.

        But that’s just my take.

          • I’ve been struck by the continued lack of speed on defense. I don’t follow recruiting that closely, do the players have strong forty times? Seems like the fastest players are on offense and they are some of the smallest!

            Other teams easily run away from the defense over and over, it’s carried over from GA’s last year. Seems like Ericksen used to recruit speed first on defense and then would would figure out where to play them.

  18. I think Pac12 teams should be taking away something from week1.

    Dont’t play teams that are similar or higher in stature than your own program in week 1. Take an easy W and move on.

    What are the benefits of playing the talented teams?
    Some have argued they like the matchups against the OK States and Ohio States because it makes the games interesting and worth watching. I almost bought that argument. But nobody was at the game this weekend. That crowd was smaller than an Oregon State vs Portland State game of the past. And we had to pay OkState to come here. We probably lost money this weekend while taking the L. And the L means less people will be interested next week than if we were starting the season undefeated.

    Stanford won, but there was no benefit to playing Northwestern. Nobody showed up. Oregon/Arizona/UCLA/OSU all played decent opponents or traveled and lost. The rest played crap teams and got the W.

    If the goal is a bowl game, then set your plan to help you achieve that goal.

      • I personally don’t understand why the AD’s quit taking advantage of the 13 games when playing Hawaii on the road. Find a cupcake to play at home, more playing time/experience for a younger team, get another possible win. I think BDC and Barnes have both passed on the opportunity. It came in handy during the 10 win season. Be interesting to understand the strategy.

    • Good argument although from what I was told when I went to the Stanford/osu game last year was that even when Stanford was really good they didn’t have many fans in the seats.

      The game Friday night was fun. I’ll go back for more home games this year unless it’s pouring down rain.

  19. I’m not saying Mike Riley didn’t have quirks and flaws, he wasn’t perfect and appeared stale at the end of his tenure. However, OSU is so far down it’s going to take a long time just to get to where Mike Riley left off. I like what Smith is doing and I think he will eventually be successful. It’s going to take a little longer than most of us thought. GA drove our program into the ground and we are in the concrete and rebar stage on this rebuild. I’m hoping to see noticeable improvement, especially on defense and overall team toughness.

    • Fair enough, won’t argue with that ^^^^^^^^^^

      So, wonder how long most of us think it will take to get to a bowl game? Always figured 50% wins was a pretty low bar; looks kinda tall now based on Fridays D.

      • Cal, UCLA, Arizona, Colorado, cal poly, and Hawaii all look beatable. Not sure if the beavers have enough intelligence from coaching and depth to beat those teams but this are all possible wins. Depending on Stanford’s qb situation they are beatable as well, although last year they ran over us. Beavs could easily lose most of those games too. Ok states offense is very very good. So, hopefully we see worse offenses to make our d look better and we outscore some teams. Did anyone really think we would best ok state? I was just hoping the d would look better but seriously there were so many options every play to try and stop. They actually blew up some plays in the backfield which never happened last year but third down still killing us. Next week is a huge test to tell how the d will play the rest of the season against a good offense but not a top conference offense.

  20. For those of you looking for DC Tisbar’s head–Remember you can coach and scheme all you want, but if you have sub-par talent and speed, you can only compete so far. The Beavs lack both..Long time, if ever to compete.

    • He (Tibesar, the DC) definitely has to take some credit for this! This is not just a, “sub-par talent” issue! Did you watch FCS UC Davis (Coached by Dan Hawkins) stay in the game against Cal, or any FCS team stay in a game )
      (or win) against an FBS team? It’s not because they(FCS team) have matching talent everywhere, it’s coaching! Defensively, the Beavs looked like a clinic on showing how to stay perfectly block (inside/outside zone running plays)! Your personnel can’t stay blocked that long, nor should they be that out of position, especially on the edges! Coach Gundy even talked about how far the Beavs defenders were off the ball and basically giving their offense the license to run the ball (QB check at the LOS).
      Do fundamentals correctly and with some intensity and that can match/beat, “talent” being out of position and lazy! The edges were a losing battle all night for the Beavs!

    • Angry, this dude can run… came in as a running QB out of HS and then developed his passing… he’s a gun slinger and a adept runner… we are in trouble because we can’t create turnovers… Hawaii has a good offense, good receivers, a bulldozing RB along with a speedy running back… plus if Macdonald gets hurt or has a bad game their backup QB is good and clutch… Bad matchup for OSU… they’ll put up just as many points as OK St if not more… my buddy is a huge Hawaii fan, so I’ve seen these guys play a lot… they do have a tendency to have bad games, but it’s usually because of turnovers, that’s really our only shot and I just don’t see it happening

      • Yeah but remember the best progress all season usually happens between game 1 and game 2. We probably saw the worst of the Beavs last week.

        Still, if he can run we might be doomed. Need to look into them more.

        • Hopefully Hawaii didnt get the memo about improving week 1 to week 2.
          They turned it over 6 times in week 1 and still scored 45 with nearly 600yds. And some of those turnovers looked like certain scoring drives killed by an INT, but we don’t force INTs.

        • Trust me Mcdonald can run, nothing elite but he’s a good runner especially on broken plays… I sure hope they can improve enough to at least slow Hawaii down… The one thing I have noticed is this Beavs team doesn’t give up even when they are getting blown out… you can’t coach effort, so that bodes well for us… There is also some bad blood in this game, with the whole recruiting and coach situation last year… we have some insight into their schemes because of the coaches we poached.., Hawaii is running the same offense so that intel could be huge… all in all makes for an interesting game

    • Let the Hawaii QB run. Only chance is he gets tired and/or the Beav D lights him up enough into bad decision making turnovers late in the game — that and a healthy dose of long sustaining drives by the Beav O to shorten the game.

  21. It must be harder to recruit elite defensive players. I assume most high school kids who are athletically gifted want to play offensive positions since there is more glamour involved. Good defensive players are psycho, like Angry said, and there just aren’t many psycho kids who play sports and are smart enough to go to college anymore. Dennis Erickson knew where to find those kids, maybe JS needs to consult with him.

    • Unlike Riley, I wish DE would be around the program as a consultant. I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I would have preferred DE getting the HC job with Smith as the coach in waiting.

      • Just a reminder to all, he had one winning season at asu and that was his first year. The next three with his recruits were never been than 6-6. I don’t see Erickson as a program builder. Sure he had a great year in 2000.

    • Great article. I did post it above as it relates to a discussion Angry is having with Canzano regarding Cristobal still “growing” as a coach and leader. Thamel cuts to the chase like Canzano should have, but Canzano’s conflict of interest is Duck success on the national level helps his clicks and subscriptions. It behooves Canzano to minimize the failures and sell future program success.

  22. Before everyone moves on from the weekend, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Auburn for saving us from an even more insufferable quack fanbase two different years now. War Eagle!

  23. The interesting part about Banker coming back, is we will be going to see him next week… He’s the linebacker coach for Hawaii

  24. Due to my status as a highly esteemed former NCAA head coach, I have never, nor will ever have to buy a ticket. But I’m told most stadiums have things call “ticket booths” attached to them. Maybe try and locate one. Good luck… “thought bubble”…poor slob.

  25. Oregon, Auburn, Notre Dame, Louisville, Clemson, Bama, etc., etc., etc. Most of the top teams have a mobile QB who passes well and can run when opportunity arises. Luton limits us significantly by his lack of mobility. We’re never going to take the next step until we get a top level dual threat QB. Gebbia shows flashes of filling this need, but wasting time on Luton inhibits any real progress this year.

  26. So, what day/time is the game this weekend (Hawai’i). Multiple websites saying Sunday 9pm; some saying Saturday 9pm… google tells me Saturday at midnight? Like seriously wtf?

  27. Beavs actually have one of 10 offensive lines featured as top o-lines from week 1 by pro football focus

    OREGON STATE (OKLAHOMA STATE)
    This group was fueled by a couple of outstanding performances from the left side of the line. Left guard Gus Lavaka and left tackle Blake Brandel both earned run-blocking grades over 90.0, while Brandel only allowed one hurry on 57 pass-blocking snaps. Both Lavaka and Brandel are both heading into their fourth year as starters as Oregon State has the makings of something special.

  28. I rewatched the first half of the Home opener for the Beavs and our offense stalled because of dropped passes, broken up passes, and batted balls by defensive ends because they were blocked into the throwing lanes.

    Our defense on the other hand either completely gave up the edges when Sanders scrambled or gave the RB’s clear lanes to run through. The defense flat out over pursued 90% of the time. Addison Gumbs is the real deal though. He is a ball hawk and has a nose for the ball. There was also a point where the defense totally disregarded the QB on an option play and we had no containment on the edges. If, and that’s a big if, the defense cleans this up, we should be decent on defense. We are not assignment sound on defense at all. They’re undisciplined and have no space awareness on the ends. I really feel we would be better to run a 4-4 or 4-3 defense to counter the running QB, but we don’t have the depth to be able to play 4 down linemen.

  29. I predict Jermar will rush for over 100 yards with a combined 200+ rushing game and 300+ yards passing with 3 INT by Luton. Final score will be 38-31 Hawaii. If we can get turnovers and win the turnover battle, then we have a chance. Otherwise, I don’t see our defense figuring out what they need to do in 1 week.

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