The most remarkable observation from reviewing 25 years’ worth of Oregon DC DeRuyter’s defenses is how many turnovers they generate. That’s especially relevant for a Ducks team that last season had its worst turnover margin per game this century, including no takeaways at all in five of their seven games.
The analytics community has been engaged in a robust debate for years about whether defensive takeaways can be coached independently of ordinary sound defensive play, and as a result happen more often than expected for a defensive squad of any given quality. There’s a chicken-or-the-egg problem here - do they generate turnovers only because it’s a good defense, or is it only a good defense because it generates turnovers?