Special thanks to Tristan Holmes, Addicted to Quack’s Oregon football film reviewer, for joining me to discuss the Ducks’ roster on this week’s podcast:

Offense

Oregon operated one of the top efficiency offenses in college football in 2024, a continuing trend for the Ducks since the 2012 breakthrough in passing efficiency to complement what had historically been a rushing-oriented team and brought both elements of the offense in sync.

The growth in Oregon’s passing efficiency and operating at the championship-caliber thresholds on a yearly basis might now seem taken for granted, but as Tristan and I have discussed on the podcast this is a relatively new thing for the Ducks, which were a below average passing team even during their 2010 title run and had only above-average, not elite, passing efficiency through 2021. The most immediate impact that Coach Lanning had on Oregon’s program overall has been in this area, bringing in former OC Kenny Dillingham (now head coach at Big-XII champ Arizona State) then current OC Stein as well as veteran transfer quarterbacks Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel and a major infusion of receiver talent – all of whom have ratcheted up the Ducks’ downfield passing success rate by more than 10 percentage points over the 15-year baseline (weighted against contemporaneous FBS averages) prior to Lanning’s arrival in 2022, an astonishing climb of more than two full standard deviations.

Tristan has published several statistical breakdowns of Oregon’s offensive output in 2024; there’s quite a bit of evidence that the team is analytically driven and took advantage of shifting personnel and option plays that Big Ten defenses were not set up to stop or even comprehend. There were, however, two areas which emerged from analysis in which situational playcalling was suboptimal and we discussed on the podcast as needing some more self-scouting and improvement: taking advantage of the “money down” on 2^nd and short for deep passing shots, and the ruinous collapse of wide receiver screen passing efficiency.

Stein was well off his stated goal of two deep attempts per quarter in 2024, and substituted an overreliance on a horizontal passing game that, while it has its uses in setting up other parts of the offense, has flipped upside down in success rate compared to historical trends. For most teams, including Oregon, screens naturally get fewer yards per attempt and are less likely to produce explosives, but they’re about five percentage points more efficient than downfield passing. For the Ducks last year, screens were not just three points worse than the historical baseline (using my complete charting records of the team from 2005, the first year of Gary Crowton, to 2021, the last of Joe Moorhead, excluding the 2020 data when all the numbers went very off-trend for reasons that should be obvious), but seven points less efficient than downfield passing was last year, a swing of about -12 points in the wrong direction. With an efficiency differential that poor, Stein should have called screens pretty rarely, not 10.2% of the time, more often than FBS average:

Gabriel was drafted in the 3^rd round by the Browns, and Oregon has four scholarship quarterbacks as options to replace him. Those are borderline 4-star #10 QB Moga from the 2024 cycle, 5-star #5 QB Dan. Moore who signed with UCLA and played as a true freshman in 2023 then transferred to Oregon at the end of that year, mid 4-star #16 QB Novosad also from 2023, and mid 4-star #15 QB A. Smith (son of Oregon hero Akili Smith).

Other than a bit of garbage time play for both Moore and Novosad in the past two seasons, the only film we have is on Moore’s time as starter with the Bruins. I found a lot to recommend him on that tape – perhaps the most golden arm I’ve ever seen, an effortlessly loaded core, and a much lower QB error rate than would be expected given the context of true freshman play with terrible protection and an improperly written playbook for a pocket passer. As Tristan and I discussed, from that extensive prior work I expect Moore to be the starter and perform at a championship level assuming that he has adequate protection, and I think the more salient question is not whether Moore will be ready after redshirting and developing going into his third season, but rather whether Stein will use his talents appropriately.

As I predicted for UCLA prior to the 2023 season, Chip Kelly started out with Moore but didn’t know how to solve two problems without a mobile quarterback — making his option run game work since he couldn’t eliminate a defender using the threat of the QB keeping the ball, and how to solve pressure without a QB who’d penalize aggressive defenses with giant scrambles — and later in the season reverted back to QBs who could give him what he was familiar with. Stein’s history with Frank Harris at UTSA is the mirror image of this, and ever since he’s relied on RPOs and the quick game from a mobile QB to lead the country in offensive efficiency … but the deep game has suffered, as he turned Gabriel from a habitual deep thrower under Jeff Lebby at Oklahoma into a completely different passing profile QB in 2024. To me the question of whether Moore or Novosad starts is really a question about who’s adapting to whom – the more mobile Novosad would be the starter if Stein gets stumped by Moore’s talent the same way Kelly did.

Oregon’s lead running back with about 72% of meaningful carries, Jordan James, was drafted in the 5^th round by the 49ers. The split was likely going to be closer to 60/40 with the second back, #6 RB Whittington, but he was coming off an ACL tear early he suffered midway through 2023 and it was clear that Whittington took a bit to get his legs back under him during 2024 despite playing in every game. On the podcast we discussed Thomas’ article breaking down Whittington’s before-and-after point which looked to be the Illinois game – prior to that his per-carry efficiency numbers matched James’ but it wasn’t until after that point when his explosiveness figures jumped up to match as well. There was also a stark divide in the ability to break tackles, with Whittington for most of the year far more sensitive to line play than James was.

Whittington returns and by all indications remains his old self, so I expect him to be a top back in the conference, subject to the quality of the blocking in front of him. I expect the 1A to Whittington’s 1B to go to Tulane transfer #20 RB Hughes, who was the starter for the last two seasons in New Orleans and vastly overperformed his cohort. Since probably Hughes’ biggest strength is his contact balance and just how difficult it is to bring him down, Tristan and I both came to the same conclusion about the workload between him and Whittington: it’s dependent on how good the line is, with quality run-blocking militating for a closer to even split minimizing fatigue, and lower quality meaning Hughes takes over.

While both (when fully healthy) have consistently generated chunk yardage well above Big Ten norms, what neither have demonstrated the ability for is the super explosive 40+ yard runs that go the entire field for a touchdown, lacking that very last gear necessary to out-accelerate DBs trying to catch them from behind. To get those, Oregon might turn to some of the young backs in the room: mid 4-star prep recruit #23 RB D. Hill, 2023 low 4-star #27 RB Limar, or 2024 high 3-star #21 RB Riggs. Tristan’s developmental film review showed that Riggs was beating out any other backup for speed and burst last year, and unless Hill really breaks out ahead of schedule I’d expect Riggs to get the RB3 / change-of-pace spot. They’ve also got two big bruiser backs as options for short yardage situations if they want to sub Hughes out, Div-II transfer #22 RB Harris who came in last cycle, and mid 4-star prep recruit #0 RB Davison who’s listed at 236 lbs.

A room carrying seven talented backs is overstuffed, there shouldn’t be any difficulty at all with production potential or depth here. The only question is schematic – as we discussed on the podcast, Oregon will likely retain its RPO game but with a pocket passer will need to shift from triple-option RPOs to stationary reads to eliminate not an edge defender but a mid-level one. That requires redesigning the balance of gap schemes and where the point of attack is on the classic Oregon chip-and-up zone run, especially if the formation is moving to more 12-personnel sets – a lot to digest for everyone on the offense from the backs to the booth.

Oregon used three tight ends in 2024. Two were seniors who’d consistently been on the field for the last several seasons but are now off to the NFL, Terrance Ferguson who was drafted in the 2^nd round by the Rams and Patrick Herbert who signed a UDFA contract with the Jaguars. Ferguson’s role hadn’t really changed since his true freshman season in 2021 as the lead pass-catching TE, though as Tristan pointed out his statistical profile always indicated he was more of a clutch possession receiver than an explosive play producer.

Herbert’s role fluctuated since he returned from injury (he joined in 2019 but missed quite some time and didn’t really start playing until 2022); in 2023 Herbert was the second pass-catcher and put up some eye-popping per-target numbers while a transfer came in to be the blocker, but in 2022 and 2024 he was relegated to the third TE role as blocker while more talented athletes took on the explosive playmaker role. Last year that was #18 TE Sadiq, a 2023 mid 4-star recruit who looks to be coming into his own this Fall as the new lead tight end and more of a vertical field stretcher than Ferguson.

Also returning are two 2024 recruits we didn’t see during last season, low 4-star #83 TE Saleapaga and high 3-star #87 TE Pugliano. The latter was redshirting and looks like a depth piece, but the former was injured and I think his health status (including missing the Spring game) created some concerns which prompted portal activity, however the latest camp reports are indicating Saleapaga is back to 100% and playing quite well.

The two additions are mid 4-star prep recruit #81 TE Ploog and low 4-star #9 TE Ja. Johnson who signed with Louisville in 2023 and played eight games in 2024 as a redshirt freshman before missing the last month with a lower leg injury. Johnson’s tape was very interesting, big size and great hands, far more raw talent than the other more experienced tight ends on his team which resulted in better grades when controlling for relevant factors despite technical refinement glitches that need to be worked out, and I thought he was on track to seize the starting job by the end of the year if he hadn’t gotten hurt. Johnson did play in the Spring game and Tristan confirmed he was healthy; still, like Saleapaga there’s some variance with a young talented player coming off an injury.

So the tight end room is stuffed with talent and high expectations, but none has been the primary before, or even played a full season as an adjutant or blocker. Depth won’t be a problem at all — in the worst case scenario, the true freshman is the biggest of the five at 6’6” — and with at least three bites at the apple it’s very difficult to imagine Stein won’t have at minimum one, likely multiple explosive pass-catching options with quality blocking grades to back it up, though picking out exactly the order is a challenge due to how unestablished the unit is. The highest praise I’ve had for Stein over the last two seasons is as a counter-programmer who uses formation switching to turn defenses’ substitution rules against them, and I expect this to be in full force during 2025 with perhaps the highest concentration of 12-pers yet.

Stein has used curtailed wide receiver rotations every year I’ve studied his teams. In his first season at Oregon, there were only four in the rotation – Troy Franklin, Tez Johnson, Traeshon Holden, and #2 WR Bryant. Franklin was drafted at the end of that year and Texas A&M transfer #7 WR Stewart joined the rotation, and it looked like it was going to be four again in 2024. But Bryant got hurt very early, and Holden was limited for a few games for disciplinary reasons, and there was really only one receiver who got substantial meaningful play in response – 2022 high 3-star #14 WR Lowe, as the rest of the corps were either dealing with injuries as well or 2024 recruits who played minimally to preserve their redshirts.

Johnson was drafted in the 7^th round by the Buccaneers and Holden signed a UDFA with the Cowboys. Additionally, Stewart has a knee injury suffered this Summer which will keep him out for most of the year, freshman Ryan Pellum transferred out after a series of problems on and off the field, and the Ducks have suspended 2023 5-star #13 WR Dickey.

The wide receivers have the only coaching change on the entire team as Junior Adams has departed for the NFL and been replaced by WR coach Douglas from Syracuse. While Tristan isn’t expecting major changes to the style of play or substitution patterns from his film study of Douglas, this is looking like a significant changeover in the production compared to Stein’s first two seasons with Oregon.

Lowe is the most experienced option with Stein’s offense from last year, though his per-target numbers lagged the other three last year at just 53.8% efficiency and 7.0 adjusted YPT compared to at least 62% and 9.1 YPT for the rest. Bryant is quite experienced from previous years, when he was producing incredible 72% and 10.8 adjusted YPT figures in Nix’s final season, the best on the team on a rate basis, though on only 25 meaningful targets which I thought might have indicated some lock-on by the QB. He also was used quite differently in 2023 than USC used him in 2021, which was a near-uncoverable deep field burner on the skinny post out of the slot or down the sideline, and there are some legitimate concerns through speed testing that Bryant might have unfortunately lost a step from his injures.

Another experienced option is senior transfer #4 WR Benson, who most recently was one of the lead trio of receivers at Florida State, the year before that was a backup at Alabama, and prior to that was the primary Juco receiver in the nation at powerhouse Hutchinson. My review of Benson’s time at his last two schools was a riot – half of it is jaw-dropping film clips and the other half is painstaking statistical analysis documenting how badly Florida State (not surprising) and Alabama (somewhat surprising) were erring by targeting underperformers vs baseline instead of Benson. I buy the vague fan mumblings about “effort” regarding Benson about as much as I did the same complaints regarding Stewart when I watched his tape last year.

The fourth option from the older half of the corps is #3 WR Kasper, a 2022 mid 4-star and one of the tallest guys on the team at 6’6”. He hasn’t seen the field much as he’s missed most of the last two years with injury but as Tristan noted the staff has consistently played him, even to the point of force-feeding him sideline shots, during the early part of each year prior to his injuries and it seems like there’s a pattern that the staff believes in his potential.

The five younger available wideouts are the prep recruits 5-star #1 WR Dak. Moore and mid 4-star prep recruit #17 WR Perry, and the three redshirt freshmen mid 4-star #80 WR Gresham, high 4-star #11 WR McClellan, and mid 3-star #88 WR Ressler. From their sizes and watching them in the Spring game, I think Perry’s an outside receiver, Moore and Ressler are inside guys, and Gresham and McClellan could play anywhere but would be better on the outside. We haven’t seen a lot out of them on the field, though Tristan caught some of McClellan’s developmental film last Fall while Gresham and Moore had some very nice Spring plays, with and all three of them have been getting glowing Fall camp reports (though I always take Pravda on Millrace with a grain of salt). I suspect Ressler is the odd man out here as a lower rated inside guy since my bet is that heavier tight end usage will eat his targets.

Assuming it’s a tight rotation yet again, and possibly tighter if it’s going to more 12-pers sets, then this is an exercise in finding three high quality playable guys in a room of nine very talented receivers, of whom three have significant prior production. In my experience from writing this series about every team in Oregon’s conference since 2018, that math works out to favorable odds even though I think it’s anybody’s guess who the actual guys are (press me and I’d say Benson and Moore but I wouldn’t put any money on it). Tristan and I conducted a thought experiment on the podcast and booted half the available corps for one reason or another and were left with Benson, Lowe, Gresham, and McClellan as the rotation – that’s a more appealing four-man wideout crew than most in the Big Ten.

Oregon’s offensive line has been its calling card during its rise from a middling team to national power, largely due to the legendary Steve Greatwood who coached them for a decade leading up to their first Rose Bowl in 1994 and then returned from the NFL for another decade-long run with Crowton, Kelly, and Mark Helfrich. High level continuity survived the 2016 break with Mario Cristobal and Alex Mirabal taking over, but the coaching changeover in 2021 and Lanning losing his first OL coach in short order created a pinch in the recruiting pipeline for a couple cycles. Due to the staggered nature of o-line development that didn’t affect things on the field for Lanning’s first three seasons, and the classes for 2024 and beyond look promising so this seems temporary, but 2025 is when that dip is going to hit. They’re losing the most prominent starters from the last few seasons and have been pushed into taking multiple transfers to cover depth issues at tackle, and while guard depth looks more robust it’s younger and without layers of proven upperclassmen ready to go – an unprecedented situation for most of the last 20 years in Duck football history.

Furthermore, as Tristan and I have covered several times during the 2024 season and recounted on this week’s podcast, Oregon had a “black swan” event during the first couple of weeks in the Fall of 2024 in which multiple returning starters regressed in their performance and their grades were significantly off-model. Since returners in o-line play near universally enjoy a ratchet effect — they get better, they never get worse — this was pretty disturbing to see for OL coach Terry’s group, and as Tristan documented, this was only partially explained by the temporary issue with a walk-on playing center – returners Marcus Harper and Ajani Cornelius were way off-model and their issues weren’t resolved by the later re-shuffle.

Ultimately Harper was pulled from his starting spot, and Nishad Strother who’d transferred in from East Carolina in a previous cycle took over, #74 RG Iuli got back to playability when recovering from foot surgery though he needed to rotate with backup #73 RG Rogers, allowing #72 C Laloulu to switch back to center and put the walk-on #70 C Pickard back on the bench. One wonders why Strother at guard and Laloulu at center wasn’t the starting solution from the get-go, but Terry should at least be credited with not being stubborn and cycling out the underperformers.

The starting tackles, Josh Conerly on the left and Cornelius on the right, were drafted in the 1^st round by the Commanders and in the 6^th by the Cowboys respectively. Harper and Strother have graduated. Senior tackle George Silva, who played on the developmental line but Tristan said wasn’t coming along, transferred out, as has freshman tackle JacQawn McRoy who redshirted.

On the interior of the line, Laloulu, Pickard, Iuli, and Rogers return who all played last year. They also return #77 OL Bedford, who’d transferred in from Indiana the cycle before but missed last year with an injury in an eerily similar history to Strother’s, just one year removed. I watched Bedford’s tape at Indiana and thought he had a promising frame and set of attributes but that he’d need more than a single offseason to work on the technical issues that bedeviled his footwork and how high he’d play, so I cautioned the rush of Oregon fans that year who insisted that Bedford must be an immediate starter out of the portal to wait until 2025 when he’d actually be coming online, to the usual effect. 2023 mid 3-stars #66 OL Boulton and #79 OL Moala as well as 2024 low 4-star #53 OL Brooks return and look like depth and developmental pieces on the interior according to Tristan’s review of garbage time and Spring practices.

The interior transfer this cycle is #75 OL Pregnon, whom I’ve watched every year since he was a freshman at Wyoming and then transferred to USC for the previous two seasons. He was a very stable presence at LG for the Trojans — quite unusual in their recent history — and I like his film the best of any of Oregon’s offensive line transfers of late, with extraordinary physical strength and great technique going into blocks. I think he has a consistent issue in finishing blocks as he tends to freeze his feet, but unlike some other technical problems I suspect this is something that can be worked on in an offseason given the foundation he already has to improve his leg drive and improve his draft stock.

The irony here, as Tristan and I discussed, is that the interior is where Oregon needed the least amount of help and probably could have gotten away with not taking a transfer, and from a mathematical perspective when considering the corrosive effect of playing multiple linemen directly out of the portal and the likely necessity to play a transfer tackle, it would actually be better to not play Pregnon. Ceteris paribus, it’s better to have Pregnon than not — he constitutes a valuable member of the squad regardless, and having him in Eugene denies him to any competitor — but between Bedford and the former mid 4-star Iuli who are both finally fully healthy, plus the proven backup Rogers, they’d likely have the position covered.

For center, Lalolulu doubtless has the job and they shouldn’t need to play the foolish games at the position that they did to start last year, though it’d behoove them to figure out a better backup solution than Pickard. I’m not sure who it’d be, but with seven scholarship guards in the room, OL coach Terry has to have set one of them to cross-training over the Summer.

For tackle, there’s only one returner who’s not a freshman, 2023 low 4-star #78 OL Wilson. The other two returning tackles, low 4-star #59 OL Crader and mid 3-star #56 OL Ferguson, came in with the same 2024 class that McRoy did. Wilson was the right tackle on the developmental line last year and Tristan’s article on it linked above was pretty interesting, since the comparison between Wilson and Silva is essentially teach tape on what to do and what not to do in playing the position against FBS competition.

Oregon had to take a transfer with that level of depth, and if they take one they should take two to hedge their bets. The two they took are #71 OL Harkey who started out as a Juco, then went to Colorado, and was the starting RT at Texas State last year, and #76 OL World who was the starting RT for part of 2022 then LT for all of 2023 and 2024 at Nevada. I did the film study on both and in many ways found their tape to be equal and opposite.

Harkey struck me as more valuable as immediately playable. I think he has an athletic ceiling but he’s pretty much as fully physically developed as he’s going to get, run blocks very well in what was a surprisingly sophisticated and Oregon-like offense, and most of the few issues I had with his pass protection sets can be worked on in short order with better eye discipline and estimation … although I think some of the most elite speed rushers are probably going to inevitably give him some trouble.

World has been very highly rated by certain evaluators projecting his NFL upside, which I fully understand because of his ideal, enormous frame and fluid instinctual vertical drop. However, in terms of immediate playability I’m very leery of that World’s major strength and anchoring issues have been resolved in a single offseason, and the recent weight updates that have him at 6’8” and 318 lbs concern me that he’s still underweight for his height without a solid enough base to take contact without literally getting knocked over all the time, as he was at Nevada and during the Spring game. I think World has significant long-term upside and may well have great NFL draft stock, and I’ve said on a few different podcasts that I could see him continuing to work in the weight room and joining the line in January for a playoff push (which Michigan did in 2023 in their title run, swapping out a tackle for a better developed lineman in January after messing around with too many transfers in the regular season), but Tristan and I agreed during the podcast that unless there’s been an unprecedented level of physical transformation in short order that the Ducks would be better off starting the season with Harkey and Wilson.

I have my doubts they will. Everything I’ve seen leads me to think that Terry will go down the same path that USC did in 2023, and start World, Pregnon, Laloulu, Bedford/Iuli, and Harkey, then find out what the Trojans did. But as his time at Hawai’i and the 2024 season demonstrated, Terry knows how to deal with a situation heading south, and so my prediction is that we’ll see a re-shuffle of the line again and fairly quickly. I suspect a compromise line with Wilson taking over for World will win out, though perhaps World will cycle back in for Harkey in January if his physical development is ready.

Defense

The Mint defensive front that Lanning brought over from Georgia — and every defensive hire he’s made from DC Lupoi through every position coach including some who’ve cycled out have been steeped in Mint or Tite defenses — is a spill & kill philosophy which clogs the interior run gaps and has the second-level defenders primarily backing out to play the pass to respond to the way modern college offenses have evolved to convert 3^rd downs and generate explosives.

As the premium is on pass defense, some of the defensive choices Tristan found in his postseason review of the situational numbers make sense, but are nonetheless comical when importing this defense to the Big Ten – a 10 percentage point falloff in efficiency rush defense compared to their last year against Pac-12 offenses while effectively suffering little penalty in conversion rate or explosive rush rate, or having hilariously anemic short-yardage rush defense success rates — 35% on 3^rd down and 5% (!) on 2^nd down — but stopping passing in short-yardage at heroic 70% rates.

Overall, against Big Ten offenses the pass defense did its job and got off the field, with a 72% 3^rd down success rate and practically no short vs long yardage differential, indicating equal pass rush and coverage quality. Rush defense on 1^st down was very good, 57.6% success, indicating they could stop the run in agnostic situations, but the cumulative 24.6% rush defense success rate in 2^nd / 3^rd with six yards or fewer to go indicated that they made a strategic choice to maximize pass defense and the rump rush defenders weren’t getting a lot done.

The defensive line looks like it’s trying to get those short-yardage rush defense numbers up and do more with fewer but bigger bodies, because everyone in the interior of the line has bulked up dramatically. Tristan and I spent about ten minutes on the podcast goggling at the most recent weight update since we both can remember the days when Oregon hardly had a single player over 300 lbs, and the current d-line is nothing but.

At the 0-tech in this three-down front — although players would shift around often so descriptions herein are just where we’d usually see guys or expect to — last year’s starter Ja’Maree Caldwell who’d transferred in from Houston was drafted in the 3^rd round by the Chargers.

There are four returners on the roster at 330+ lbs; the playing order will likely go by seniority and experience though mediated by a couple of the more prominent 2i/3-tech guys I’ll discuss next shifting over to get in ahead of the youngest noses: 2023 low 4-star #52 NT A. Washington first, then fellow 2023 low 4-star #99 NT Green, then 2024 low 4-star #50 NT Gray, finally 2024 mid 4-star #77 NT Je. Johnson. Washington played extensive rotational time the last two seasons and looks more than ready to take over as starter; Tristan covered him in his developmental review as well as Green and Gray who played as backups last year, Gray is interesting because he’s a year younger and was at the other DT spot even as late as the Spring game but has bulked up by 30 lbs this offseason.

At the other interior spot, which typically lines up as a 2i or 3-tech, starter Derrick Harmon was drafted in the 1^st round by the Steelers. Longtime journeyman Keyon Ware-Hudson, who’s played for Oregon in at least three different front configurations, has graduated, and 2023 recruit My’Keil Gardner transferred out without having seen the field much. Harmon was an excellent penetrator coming over from Michigan State’s four-down front but as was true for that defense in 2023, his grades in run-stopping on his own were fairly low and one of the major reasons Oregon’s short-yardage rush defense success rates came back as laughers.

The two returners Tristan and I figure for this spot are both redshirt freshmen each at about 305 lbs, high 4-star #42 DT Breland and low 4-star #88 DT Sims. Breland got enough garbage time play that Tristan put several clips of him in his developmental article and his frame at 6’5” is ideal for the position, while Sims wasn’t in quite enough during 2024 to get eyes on, though that flipped around in the Spring game when Sims was with the ones for the black team while Breland was sidelined in a walking boot. The camp reports about Breland have been superlative which I’m inclined to cautiously credit because of what we saw earlier on tape as well as his frame and athleticism, though at the very least it’s good to know he’s healthy. I’d also consider the low 4-star prep recruit #55 DT M. Johnson a part of this group since he’s bulked up considerably to right around 300 lbs; he was at end in the Spring game but that trajectory tells me he’s headed for the interior.

The transfer into this room is #1 DT Alexander. Rivers of ink could be spilled writing about his history at Georgia and USC as well as speculating about how a 5-star with such obvious talent has been at three schools and playing what adds up to be less than a season and a half since 2022, and I tipped over my barrel back in April. Alexander’s film literally broke my evaluative algorithm because he got into the backfield on nearly every play, but then on almost as many the rest of USC’s defense under former DC Alex Grinch would proceed to blow it. What’s reviewable on film is some of the most effective interior line play — and flexible over to nose at just about equal quality, and with virtually no dropoff over very long runs without substitution — I’ve ever evaluated, with rare on-field issues that look straightforward to address or are non-factors upon careful examination. The only potential barrier to his effective play that survives logical scrutiny is one that is indeterminable by outside observers … or indeed anyone but Alexander himself, and we’ll simply have to wait and see what he does or whether it was ever real at all.

The front plays a big end in a 5-tech spot (although he sometimes shades in to 4i when they go to a Tite look), which for the last two seasons has been played for virtually every moment when he’s been healthy by former 5-star South Carolina transfer Jordan Burch … indeed during the couple of games when he’s been out late in 2023 and in the middle of 2024, Oregon was more likely double up on OLBs or stand-up ends and go to what’s probably better understood as a 2-4-5 defense. Burch’s constant presence in some senses collapsed all other edges — DEs, weakside OLBs, and strongside OLBs — into the realm of the theoretical as practically speaking it was Burch on one side and Another Guy on the other, or if they had five on the line in run situations then it was Burch plus Two More Guys.

Burch was drafted in the 3^rd round by the Cardinals. Three outside linebackers transferred out in what appears to be attrition: Emar’rion Winston from the 2022 cycle, Jaeden Moore from 2023, and Jaxson Jones from 2024.

The departures and new weight updates offer quite a bit of clarification that we talked through on the podcast about where the returners go; even though it’s somewhat contrary to where they’d lined up previously it makes much more sense now with their measurements and the class balance. At the big end spot, the order looks like 2023 high 4-star #10 DE M. Uiagalelei who’s been productively playing for the last two years, 2023 low 4-star #29 DE Porter who played as redshirt freshman in the backup OLB spot last year and even in the Spring game but is the biggest guy of anyone here and makes the most sense for edge-setting duty in run support, and 2024 high 4-star #47 DE E. Rushing who redshirted last year but whose build is developing almost exactly along Burch’s lines.

At OLB, we may see some discrimination again between the strongside and weakside. I think the bigger and more experienced of the two returners, high 3-star #44 OLB Tuioti (son of the DL coach) who’s been part of the meaningful rotation since he was a true freshman in 2023, goes in at strongside, while the faster speed rusher Tristan’s been monitoring on the developmental tape, low 4-star #9 OLB Purchase (previously wearing jersey #17) goes in at weakside. The pair of prep recruits, 4-stars #19 OLB Haastrup and #32 OLB Wyatt, might go in at a couple different spots along the way as their bodies develop but right now I think their playing time looks like additional speed rushers for racecar packages on 3^rd downs.

All together this looks like a very talented room with nothing but appropriate body types and a good balance of experience, managed appropriately to stagger out the classes after the huge 2023 influx, so it should be highly productive … as long as they stay healthy. With only seven players total between the ends and OLBs, three of whom have no previous college play, they’ve got very little margin for error in terms of someone not working out or getting hurt – they can afford one but not two without really starting to pay for it terms of fatigue and situational flexibility.

The inside linebacker spot has been very quiet in that there’s been no portal activity one way or the other and it seems the staff is quite pleased with the pipeline, though there’s been quite some drama under the surface. Last year one of the expected starters and a seemingly ideal player for the pass defense responsibilities in this structure, Jestin Jacobs, was effectively sidelined in favor of #26 ILB Boettcher, the baseball team’s center fielder who played in 2023 as a backup linebacker and had some fun hits but obvious play read issues. But Boettcher, to my amazement, taught himself the position including what’s a rather high stress set of 3^rd down efficiency pass defense reads (remember, this is the focal point of this defensive philosophy, not an ancillary thing) and was one of the highest graded defenders in the conference in 2024.

Jacobs and another backup who’d transferred in at the same time in 2023, Connor Soelle from Arizona State, both graduated. The other starter Jeffrey Bassa, where he’s been since he was roped into it due to a series of injuries and he was converted to the position from safety in 2021, was drafted in the 5^th round by the Chiefs. Both of the starters had “green dot” radio-enabled helmets, though my understanding is that Bassa’s was the primary one when he was on the field and Boettcher took over when Bassa rotated off, and as Tristan put it the job now for Boettcher is to become the sempai of the defense since the rest of the unit will be less experienced.

The drama continues for each of the candidates for starter and the rotation. The top option if he’s ready for it is 2022 mid 4-star #26 ILB D. Jackson, who’s been getting playing time since he was a true freshman and is possibly the fastest player on the team. But he’s been dealing with an injury during offseason practices, and the knock from every observer has been consistency in play recognition – we’ll have to see if he’s had a breakthrough for the Fall. If either or both factors have held Jackson back, the most likely backstop is 2023 mid 3-star #54 ILB Mixon, who’s been getting pretty consistent backup play and is obviously a powerfully build backer on tape, up to 6’2” and 240 lbs.

So if the ceiling is a healthy and functional Jackson, and the floor is the bruiser Mixon, the opportunities are for the freshmen in between … but the curiosity is that the staff has given us no information about them. They took three in the 2024 cycle, all with almost identical 4-star talent ratings at about .92 — #33 ILB Mothudi, #23 ILB Platt, and #20 ILB D. Williams — and in the 2025 cycle took another .92 who’s a couple inches shorter at six foot even but more thickly built in #13 ILB Nix (no relation to the former QB). All four freshmen are up to playing weight now (Williams came in a bit underweight but not an issue anymore), but Tristan and I both found it bizarre that during garbage time last year the staff played Jacobs and Soelle extensively instead of even a single snap for any of the freshmen. The first we saw of them was in the Spring game, when they all looked up to snuff and Platt in particular had some eye-popping plays, and camp reports have been very kind to Mothudi and Nix, but I think it’s anybody’s guess who or even if someone will plug in between Jackson and Mixon.

At any rate, the room is well balanced with experience and talent, with muscle as a backstop and more than enough bodies such that the law of averages favors a positive outcome. Even in the worst case scenario among reasonable possibilities, which is an injury to the experienced returning starter Boettcher and the promising but open-question Jackson off-schedule, the body count and talent thereof indicates a unit that comes in between replacement value and above average.

Tristan and I have been discussing the arc of Oregon’s secondary for several years, since in a sense the backfield in general and the safety unit in particular has been the opposite of the passing offense under Coach Lanning – the least amount of immediate impact including a lot of holdover players from the previous staff, and a false start at the staff level resulting in prep recruiting up until the 2024 cycle being behind the rest of the team’s talent transformation. We recounted on this week’s podcast the counterproductive decision to play the same three safeties (field/boundary/STAR) on every snap in 2023 despite the 2024 personnel utilization demonstrating that they had better alternatives to flex out to, as well as how we’d predicted a full calendar year in advance the effects of playing an entire five-man backfield in 2024 of veteran but short and athletically limited 3-star defensive back transfers.

Virtually all of the 2024 backfield has moved on for the 2025 season, and as seems fitting, they’ve almost all signed UDFAs – none drafted, few transfers or plain graduations: at safety the STAR Brandon Johnson signed with the Eagles and at boundary Tysheem Johnson with the Bears; all three guys in the outside corner rotation signed on, those were Dontae Manning with the Falcons, Jabbar Muhammad with the Jaguars, and Nikko Reed with the Chargers; and even Kam Alexander who only got some garbage time reps signed on with the Seahawks. Kobe Savage was the one starter, at field safety, who didn’t get a UDFA, while three backups who were really only seen in garbage time transferred out, safety Tyler Turner and corners Rodrick Pleasant and Khamari Terrell. I mentioned to Tristan on the podcast because he expressed some interest in the length of the guys involved here that I’d calculate it – the average height of the defensive backs Oregon played in 2024 was 5’ 10.8”.

At the outside corner position, there are technically four returners, though it would probably be better to think of it as a new unit. The only one who got any play was the former low 4-star Juco #3 CB Laulea, and although some of it was a few meaningful snaps and he shows up in Tristan’s developmental review as an intriguing prospect because of his extraordinary length at 6’4”, it was still in only four games and it counted as a redshirt year. The other three didn’t see the field at all last year. Two were 2024 recruits, mid 4-star #11 CB Fields who’d suffered an ACL tear in the 2024 offseason, and high 4-star #7 CB Obidegwu who had some sort of eligibility issue, though both were playing and looked comfortable in the 2025 Spring game so don’t seem to have missed a step for the time off. The last is 2022 mid 4-star #6 CB Florence, who’s been an excellent starting corner for Oregon when he’s been healthy but took a nasty injury against UW in 2023 and another awful knee injury that kept him out for all of 2024 – he was wearing a red non-contact jersey in the 2025 Spring game, not that it stopped him from hitting people (somewhat unfairly, although a little amusingly).

Perhaps as a response to the uncertainty, Oregon has gone pretty hard at acquiring new corners for 2025. They’ve gotten three very talented prep recruits in high 4-stars #18 CB Brew and #4 CB Finney as well as 5-star #14 CB Offord, and senior transfer #5 CB T. Johnson who was Northwestern’s starter for the past two seasons. I enjoyed watching Johnson’s film with the Wildcats; he was very effective in their disguised man/zone scheme and statistical analysis from charting showed he had taught opposing QBs in short order to target the other side of the field while throwing against him led to consistent break-ups, although I did think there was a bit of a talent ceiling when facing the top-end athletes.

I don’t think Johnson was brought in to be a babysitter for a bunch of talented kiddos but rather to seriously compete for a job and I’d give him even odds to win a starting position given his experience compared to the rest of the room (or in Florence’s case, the concern about his status). But to be honest the talent level here is so extraordinary that I wouldn’t be surprised at any combination of starters who are selected including the true freshmen – more relevant is that for a position that needs two starters and typically one playable backup and which does little rotation, having eight quality options in the room means they’re on the right side of the numbers again. Both in quantity and quality, this approach to the cornerback room looks more like 2022 and early 2023, rather than 2024’s lock-in to specific high floor / low ceiling corners.

The other upshot of the large (in both dimensions) cornerback room which Tristan and I discussed is that they’ll have quite a few left over after the selection for the outside rotation is made, and there’s no real need for them to sit on the bench when their size and skillset might be repurposed for the nickel unit. The two returners there are 2023 mid 4-star #0 DB Austin (who wore #27 last year), the one secondary backup player with meaningful experience who returns from 2024, and 2023 mid 3-star #15 DB Davis, who’s pretty much just played in garbage time and not really exclusively at STAR but I think could be at the position. Tristan’s film review on the backfield was fairly critical of them last year, Austin because his tackling was poor — a necessary skill for a STAR safety — and Davis because he was out of position, though it’s interesting that Davis remained while the higher rated Turner who appeared more transferred out, so perhaps the staff sees something in Davis.

The transfer in is #22 DB Canady, who started out playing outside corner at Tulane for now-Oregon DB coach Hampton, then suffered what was evidently a horrific knee injury and rehabbed it while at Ole Miss in 2023, then played essentially every secondary position there was last year with the Rebels and got all-SEC honors. Tristan wrote the film study on Canady; I paraphrased it on the podcast as “jack of all trades, master of none” – he’s valuable for positional versatility and would play at replacement value anywhere, pretty decent in pass coverage, but small size and obvious tackling issues limit his upside as a STAR. Tristan’s assessment when he first wrote Canady up was that he’d be perfect for dime packages, and I was a bit surprised to read camp reports that he was seriously pressing for the STAR spot even after news that Austin should be available for the season despite a pending court case.

Tristan and I both reached the same conclusion – one of the eight corners, who other than the transfer Johnson are all bigger than the three I’ve listed for the STAR room, are likely candidates to flip over and bail out the nickel room at some point during the season, either as a separate slot corner position structurally or straight up displacing guys who aren’t hacking it at a high level at STAR safety. The upside for the new secondary is that the available bodies in 2025 average 6’ 1.2” … a growth of +2.4 inches per man across the defensive backfield, which should mean less pigeon-holing.

The safety unit might have been a more logical place to look to borrow a STAR from, but with Turner’s departure and unfortunate news of the phenomenally talented 2025 5-star #8 DB McNutt — who had all indications pointing towards serious early playing time — suffering a broken leg during Fall camp, they’re down to only four guys and I think they’re going to need all of them to stay put.

The three returners are all from the 2024 cycle: mid 4-stars #2 DB Lopa and #12 DB Woodyard (who first signed with Alabama then flipped to Oregon after Spring of 2024), and high 4-star #21 DB Flowers. Each played at least a bit last year – Flowers the least, Lopa as the dime package specialist who preserved his redshirt even as he got in some extra play in the conference championship game covering Tyler Warren since he’s enormous at 6’5”, and Woodyard burned his redshirt playing in every game although almost all of it in garbage time so he showed up in Tristan’s developmental report extensively.

The transfer into the room is #31 DB Thieneman, who’s played virtually every snap as the sky high safety in Ryan Walter’s unusual defense at Purdue the last two years. I wrote a double-length article on his tape this offseason as I had so much film and it was quite divisive – he was required to rescue almost every play from going explosive since that was his role in the structure of that peculiar defense and the guys in front of him queued him up an awful lot, and his good stuff was very good but his bad stuff was going to require a lot of work this offseason. I think there’s been a lot of rosy prognostications about the size of the step forward Thieneman has taken (or the comparative quality of the development he’s likely to have gotten) that’s purely speculative. It’s entirely possible that he’s ready to play at a high level at this point, but realistic analysts would prepare for the full range of possibilities which include replacement-value play or incremental improvement at most, and the bluechips in the room being more playable prospects … especially when conference play comes to an end. The Ducks have seen the difference that talent in January makes.