The Oregon secondary started the season by giving up 438 passing yards and five passing touchdowns to Eastern Washington.

Seven games and six different starting lineups later, not much has changed.

On Thursday, with their seventh different starting lineup in the secondary, Oregon gave up 398 passing yards and five passing touchdowns to Mike Bercovici and Arizona State.

And yet, somehow, it gets worse from there. Because this weekend Cal quarterback Jared Goff -- who averages 39 pass attempts and five 20-plus-yard completions per game -- and his slew of athletic receivers are coming to Oregon to try and snap the Bears' six-game losing streak to the Ducks and their current three-game skid.

This season, Cal has established a stronger run game that has forced defenses to be a bit more honest, which Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said has been an X factor for the Bears. It also means that it's going to be tougher on the defensive backs because they can't necessarily just sit back and wait for Goff to throw bombs. But make no mistake, Cal will lean heavily on the passing game to put points on the board.

With bowl eligibility on the line for both teams, Cal and Oregon are going to need to be on top of their game plans, which for the Ducks, is pretty simple -- they just need to communicate.

Helfrich said that situational issues as well as stadium noise have made it difficult for calls to get across to every defensive player as one or two guys have been aloof on some of the big plays they've given up. The Ducks have given up 36 pass plays of 20-plus yards this season, including seven in the Arizona State game.

"In defense, you'd rather have 11 guys doing the same wrong thing than 10 of 11 doing the right thing," Helfrich said.

And those are the kinds of plays that Goff and his receivers can take advantage of. Goff is experienced enough as a quarterback that he can make the reads that other first- or second-year starters might not make.

Goff has the experience and the chemistry with his receivers that he has developed over the past few seasons. Oregon's defensive backs are currently working on a week-to-week chemistry that has proved less than effective.

Eight different players have started at different times for the Ducks in their defensive backfield. On Saturday, getting four of them on the same page will be the biggest key against Cal.