Four days prior to Oregon’s first game of the season against Eastern Washington, head coach Mark Helfrich provided a scouting report of the Eagles and addressed some of the upcoming game’s most talked-about story lines:

On EWU’S special teams: 

From a special teams standpoint, these guys do a fantastic job. It’s a great way to gauge a team’s commitment to each other. Just the selflessness of their team is evident. Their overall team speed is impressive. They play their best guys on special teams. Coverage teams are comprised of their fastest, best athletes. The punt return team is basically a lot of their starters on defense. (Wide Receiver Cooper) Kupp is a returner. They have a couple of transfers, so we don’t have a great gauge on a lot of their information from that standpoint.

On EWU’s defense:

Defensively, (they are) sort of similar to our defense: 3-down base. They’re a little bit more four-down than three-down. They mix a ton of coverage looks and pressure looks in third-down situations, which we’ll try to limit as much as possible.

On EWU’S offense:

The quarterback (Jordan West) is very productive. He played quite a bit last year. We have a fair amount of film on him. He’s a strong-armed, pocket guy that can move around enough. He has a great feel for their system. He knows exactly where the ball is supposed to be. Kupp is a heck of a receiver and they’re balancing that with another receiver and another tailback that are really good and really confident in what they’re doing.

On the fact that EWU upset Oregon State in 2013 and almost beat Washington last season:

Hopefully there’s nobody that’s ever focused on that part of it. If they are, then at least that wakes them up. If you have to give a big, motivational speech your first game, you have problems.

On whether Vernon Adams can provide strategic insight about EWU:

I think too much is being made of that. Their structure is not going to change. What they’ve done on film is what they’re going to do. There’s going to be changes from year-to-year just like there are going to be changes with us from year to year.

On dealing with the potentially awkward situation between Vernon Adams and his former teammates:

If somebody’s going to get in (Vernon Adams’s) ear and yell something about his ex-girlfriend, that might happen. That might occur, or a little extra twist here and there. We just need to focus on us and what we’re going to do and play through that stuff.

Follow Jack Heffernan on Twitter @JackTHeffernan