Duck Dive: Oregon Football 2026 Preview

Special thanks to Tristan Holmes, Addicted to Quack’s Oregon football film reviewer, and Thomas Cicansky, my partner in this year’s Big Ten preview series, for joining me on this week’s podcast to discuss the Ducks’ roster:

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Oregon’s offensive coordinator for the last three seasons, Will Stein, departed to take the head coaching job at Kentucky, he’s replaced by OC Mehringer who’s been the TE coach since Coach Lanning took over the program in 2022. Mehringer’s only direct playcalling experience was a decade ago at Rutgers when he was of the youngest in college football history to do so, I didn’t find much value on investigating it. Since then my reading of Mehringer’s roles at Texas, FAU, and New Mexico has been as a strategist and gameplanner; there’s quite a bit of oblique praise from head coaches and OCs in the literature over this time for his role in gameweek preparations, but no evidence about his down-to-down playcalling preferences.

It’s also difficult to disentangle some of the idiosyncracies ATQ film reviewers have noted in Stein’s playcalling over the last three years — positive notes on counter-programming defensive substitution rules, negative ones on forgoing “money down” opportunities for deep shots and an analytically unsupportable habit for perimeter screens — from Mehriner’s potential influence, since their time at Oregon overlaps. It’s possible that some, none, or all of those qualities were unique to Stein and he takes them with him to Lexington. ATQ devoted considerable effort this offseason determining if any statistically valid analysis could be performed to quantify Mehringer’s effects on play sequencing or outcomes at Oregon or previous stops, and we concluded that nothing we could publish would meet our standards – there are just too many variables involved. We’re just going to have to wait and see how Mehringer calls the game.

Otherwise, my expectation is continuity for the Ducks offense, and if anything a return to historical trends after a one-off dip in certain metrics from charting caused by an offensive line quirk in 2025 which it looks like the squad has firmly put behind them in 2026 and beyond. The coaching staff under Lanning all returns, as does starter #5 QB Dante Moore, five of the top eight skill producers on offense in addition to a key 2024 receiver coming back from injury, and the top talent pipeline in the conference:

Moore is on pace in both his NCAA passer rating growth, 163.7 in 2025 which was about 1.5 standard deviations above FBS median, and his QB error rate from charting, for an elite senior season. Exactly as he showed as a true freshman at UCLA, he’s a pocket passer first and foremost with an astonishingly smooth delivery and quiet base, and single most dispositive factor in his per-play passing efficiency is pocket protection since his biggest asset suffers the most in out-of-structure play. Alternate theories and criticisms of Moore that I’ve encountered in popular media regarding reading different kinds of coverages do not survive comprehensive film analysis.

Moore is also a surprisingly effective rusher on designed keeps with a 76% per-carry success rate and 5.6 adjusted YPC — getting just enough to stay ahead of the chains, then getting down to protect himself — though that came down from even higher levels late in the season as the staff went to it too often.

There are three other quarterbacks in the room: 2025 backup and former walk-on #12 QB B. Thomas, Nebraska transfer and former 5-star #8 QB Dy. Raiola, and sophomore legacy mid 4-star #11 QB A. Smith. In discussing the backup situation on the podcast, we came to the conclusion that Thomas would probably continue to handle mop-up duty and any brief absences for Moore, but that any extended absence would be handled by Raiola. Reviewing Raiola’s film as starter for the last two seasons at Nebraska showed he’s more than capable of taking over as one of the most successful and effective Big Ten quarterbacks with a passer rating only a few points shy of Moore’s (on a team with substantially greater issues) and that while Raiola has a number of things to work on to become an elite passer, most of the fan criticism misses the mark.

Running Backs

The running back who got the plurality of carries, Noah Whittington, is off to the NFL – a workhorse producer for the Ducks in every season since coming over from WKU in 2022, except for the 2023 year when he tore his ACL against Colorado, but even in 2024 while he was taking a couple weeks to get his legs back under him his efficiency if not explosiveness metrics remained excellent. Whittington had a 55.4% per-carry success rate in 2025, a few points lower than average for his career, but at his typical 6.43 adjusted YPC.

The second between-the-tackles runner returns, true sophomore #0 RB Davison, who posted an incredible 66.0% efficiency rate on 83 meaningful carries, though at a bit lower 5.7 adjusted YPC. There was a big falloff in utilization for the rest of the backs for this rushing profile – Jayden Limar got less than half as many touches as Davison prior to garbage time and ran with only a 57.9% success rate and 5.24 YPC (though these numbers would make him undisputably the most effective back on nine of the 18 Big Ten teams in 2025), while Jay Harris was at 40.9% and 3.23 YPC. They transferred out to Washington and Kansas State, respectively.

Another then true-freshman, #6 RB Hill (last year wearing jersey #23), was used in a different way than the rest of the room, almost exclusively for perimeter running that wasn’t blocked between the tackles but set up with motion and skill player blocks. Hill’s rushing profile is extraorindary and unprecedented in the last 21 seasons of Oregon football I have charted, I can’t find any analogue in the tranche analysis in which his stuff rate (zero gain or negative yardage rushes) and his super-explosive rate (30+ yard rushes) are both at least three times higher than any primary Oregon back at 13.21% and 11.32%, respectively.

Hill’s focus on one kind of home-run attempt, how big they’d go when they hit, and the relative frequency Hill would pull them off, pulled his adjusted average to a staggering 8.04 YPC … and that’s with field position adjustments taking more than half a yard off the raw number. It was also the case that, if Hill wasn’t stuffed (or more accurately, strung out along the line of scrimmage) and could get at least a two-yard gain, he was likely to get at least six and therefore his overall success rate came out to an impressive 66.7% on 54 meaningful carries. The downside, however, was the stuff rate was so high, and he was so unprepared as an inside rusher and blocker, that having Hill in was something like playing Russian roulette – as the Peach bowl demonstrated.

Davison and Hill effectively crowded out two expected contributors, who recorded no carries during meaningful play: #21 RB Riggs and Tulane transfer Makhi Hughes. Past film work on both showed they were capable, just not as able to be his own blocker as Davison in the case of Riggs, and lacking the top end speed in the case of Hughes. Riggs returns and should be in the running for a spot in the 2026 order, Hughes transferred to Houston where I suspect he’ll resume an excellent career (that what happened in the running back room — the emergence of talented true freshmen unexpectedly denying a widely touted 3-star transfer a starting position, him sitting out and making a go of it next year — struck me as an obvious possibility for any room on a talented team, yet pointing this out elsewhere produced oceans of tears from certain emotionally turgid quarters of the fanbase).

Tight Ends

The primary tight end in 2025, Kenyon Sadiq, was drafted in the 1st round by the Jets. His backup and the second tight end in on 12-personnel formations was former Louisville transfer #9 TE J. Johnson. Both of them had interesting numbers from charting.

Sadiq edged out Johnson in actual blocking grades by three points (67% score vs 64%), though they both came in below what I consider to be elite blocking grades for TEs in the 70s. However, just as I observed when reviewing Johnson’s redshirt freshman tape at Lousville in 2024, the actual play outcomes were higher when Johnson blocked (using some data controls to normalize for playcall, field position, and other factors), which backed up what I subjectively felt when I watched tape – Johnson is monster blocker whose technique still needs refinement; he can get the hit wrong but still disrupt the defender enough for the play to be just barely successful, if not optimal.

In pass-catching, there’s a big split in the data between weeks 13 and 14 (that is, up to and including the USC game, vs the UW game plus the three postseason games). Both TEs have absolutely elite per-target numbers in weeks 1-13 with little to distinguish them: 67.5% success and 10.3 adjusted YPC on 39 meaningful targets for Sadiq, with 70% and 9.6 on 20 for Johnson. However, starting with UW, defenses begin keying in on Sadiq and his numbers plummet to just 25% success and 2.9 YPT on the final 20 targets (most of this is UW targets, for the three postseason games Moore doesn’t throw to Sadiq much due to the coverage). But this opens the door for throws to Johnson who sees substantially more releases into the pattern, no decrease in his success rate, and a climb in his YPT to 13.0.

It seems clear then, if it hadn’t been before in each of the prior seasons having multiple productive pass-catching TEs, that having a second quality TE is essential to Mehringer. While I think Thomas made a good point on the podcast that the RB and WR rooms are stuffed with talent and putting 10- and 20-pers formations on the field would be viable and tempting alternatives, I believe 12-pers will be the second most common set behind 11-pers and the staff is pulling out all the stops to identify a second TE beyond Johnson — perhaps multiple alternatives in specialist roles — to make that happen.

In my opinion, the most likely such second TE is high 4-star true freshman #18 TE Harrison, the tallest in the room at 6’7″ and definitely at playing weight at 250 lbs. He got the most Spring game reps (Johnson sat down after the 1st quarter and Harrison played virtually every rep in either 11- or 12-pers for the black team) and looked ready to go in Tristan’s review. I think sophomore #19 TE Olesh, who redshirted last year at Penn State so we have no college film on him, might be the next in line for this role – he has a similar body type and talent profile but he’s 15 lbs lighter and I suspect a bit undersized for play.

Having reviewed the developmental tape on Clemson transfer #17 TE Dixon, I suspect he was brought in to set the floor as a 12-pers blocking option if Harrison and Olesh aren’t ready yet. My reasons are laid out in that article; in short, for Dixon to be the pass-catching second TE would require both Clemson to have been repeatedly wrong for years about him, and for Dixon to show an aptitude which was simply never tested on film that Oregon got lucky in acquiring sight unseen – not impossible, but a longshot.

Wide Receivers

Oregon’s top target and most productive was Florida State and Alabama transfer Malik Benson. This was only a surprise to fans of those teams and the innumerate; film review and statistical analysis of Benson’s prior career documented those staffs had wildly misutilized his production-over-baseline talents. Benson has since been drafted in the 6th round by the Raiders.

The next two most targeted receivers (they wound up with exactly the same number during meaningful play), were #3 WR McClellan and #1 WR Dak. Moore, who each return. Both finished 2025 with nearly identical per-target numbers, about 60% efficiency and 10.5 adjusted YPT. McClellan has a few more sideline routes in his profile and Moore’s profile tends closer to inside routes, but they’re closer to being interchangeable than not – Moore plays bigger than 5’11” with a lot of vertical and can be lined up outside, and McClellan is viable as a Y-receiver at 6’0″.

#7 WR Stewart, whose presence and absence in Oregon’s last two games against Ohio State was instrumental to understanding the biggest win and only loss of the 2024 season (and another victory for film study over gossip) returns from missing the 2025 season with a patellar tear. He participated fully in Spring and Fall practices and I believe he’ll start. Like Moore and McClellan, he plays bigger than his listed size and could line up anywhere.

Oregon had a wide distribution and was one of the most varied in the country on critical downs in 2025, quite a reversal from 2024’s very tight rotation. I suspect that’ll continue in 2026, with a toolsier WR room. True freshman #13 WR Bair (recruited in the 2024 cycle and now returning from an LDS mission) at 6’2″ is the tallest in the room and will likely see substantial play for sideline and jump-ball routes – the staff had been trying for years to get this going with another tall receiver who unfortunately kept getting hurt, but I believe there’s a strong interest in having the option available.

Film review on UAB transfer #2 WR Hooks was very intriguing – he became the most productive player on his team with effectively only a half a season’s worth of games after the coach who recruited him got fired and the Nick Saban acolyte who took over remade the offense into an RPO-style which looks an awful lot like Oregon’s. Camp reports on each of the talented true freshmen — #15 WR Hampton, #83 WR Lewis, and #10 WR Lott — indicate early playing time is a strong likelihood.

On the podcast we counted eight “above the line” wide receivers, for a predominantly 11-pers offense, meaning more than half would need to be simultaneously unavailable or surprisingly non-viable to even affect a typical four-for-three rotation, and nearly all of them would have to be out to dip into depth guys or go to alternate configurations. If camp reports have been gassing up some guys (I suspect this may be so about two of them) then the math remains pretty similar, six above the line, and four ongoing pieces of bad news to trigger suboptimal conditions – low odds.

Offensive Line

As we discussed on the podcast, to some extent the offensive line pinch Oregon found itself in for the 2025 season was inevitable given the earlier staff changeover, and today they’re on the other side of it with only one out of the sixteen linemen in the room who didn’t originally sign with the Ducks. It also seems inevitable, though, that OL coach Terry did as I predicted in last year’s preview and played three transfers – every staff seems to believe that they’ll be the exception and make a non-homegrown offensive line gel quickly and defy the statistically universal transfer portal effect, only to find that math is undefeated.

Unsurprisingly to readers of Addicted to Quack, the scouting services’ top rated transfer and Oregon’s 2025 left tackle Isaiah World, signed a UDFA with the Chargers, while the 24th rated and the right tackle Alex Harkey, was drafted in the 6th round. Left guard Emmanuel Pregnon, who actually was excellent but encountered marginal value effects, was drafted in the 2nd round (the only other team to take three top-25 rated transfer linemen was Texas Tech, another school that learned a math lesson in January).

During meaningful play in several games last year, World and Harkey were unavailable. Their replacements, sophomore #59 LT Crader and #78 RT Wilson, got around sixty reps when games were on the line and contributed to competitve wins over Iowa and USC (analysis of the local effects on the offense showed their individual grades were lower but line overall performed better, which is on-model behavior). Both return, I think their most likely competition are sophomore #58 OL Addison and true freshman #79 OL Iheanacho.

Starter #72 C Laloulu returns for his senior season; in the Spring game I spotted junior low 4-star #53 OL Brooks and mid 3-star prep recruit #70 OL Keli snapping the ball as well. With longtime backup Charlie Pickard graduated and the center who’s always come in for injury relief, I think Oregon maintains a dedicated center pipeline and these are the designated next guys up, so if a guard gets beat out I think it’s less likely someone else comes off the bench to play backup center.

At guard, starter #74 RG Iuli returns, though for the second straight offseason he’s been dealing with health issues and it’s opened up a lot of practice time and shuffling. I suspect he’ll simply return to the starting role, but if his health problems persist or if he’s beat out there are some interesting options. Longtime 6th man #73 OL Rogers is available, though I think the staff likes keeping him free for exactly that reason. The big splash, if camp reports are credible, would be true freshman #77 OL Tofi winning the job.

On the other side, Pregnon never took a meaningful snap off, but in garbage time and in some jumbo packages, they’d brought in #56 LG Ferguson. The staff has already declared he’s playable — they played him — but my feeling from camp buzz is that he’s the least likely to hang on to a spot from 2025, I suspect this is where sophomore #55 OL Utu goes in.

All six linemen return from a successful backup group – Crader, Ferguson, Laloulu, Iuli, Wilson, plus Rogers. As we discussed on the podcast, picking out individually who might win jobs or not may be tricky, but the structural analysis is easy: that’s the default lineup, it’s very good, and anyone who beats out a default member for a job makes it that much better.

Defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi has departed to take the Cal head coaching job; he had been the DC and defensive playcaller since Lanning arrived in Eugene in 2022. Every one of Lanning’s defensive hires, including off-field assistants, have had extensive experience in the Tite or Mint front defensive structures — Lanning himself ran the Mint defense at Georgia which won the 2021 national title — and his original safeties coach was Matt Powledge, a protege of Tite front godfather Ron Roberts at Baylor.

When Roberts left Baylor for Auburn in 2023, Powledge returned to take the Baylor DC job, though I’ve always suspected it was a soft firing by Lanning for recruiting and evaluation reasons – the Ducks’ defensive back room has been hamstrung by statistically improbable waves of busts from the 2022 and 2023 cycles in that unit and forced to rely almost exclusively on veteran but talent-capped transfers up through the 2024 class which in many ways is only now coming into its own as primarily homegrowns.

Powledge was replaced as safeties coach by co-DC, now full DC Hampton from Tulane, who very successfully ran a Tite front defense for many years and had just defeated USC in an ignominious end for the Trojans’ Heisman season.

I thought Oregon’s defensive playcalling and gameplanning “leveled up” in 2025 compared to the previous two seasons, when I’d been more critical of a couple of games every year as falling into what I felt to be rather obvious strategic traps by the opposing offense. My gameplanning criticism in 2025 mostly fell on the offense, whereas three games in particular near the end of the year (USC, UW, TTU) I felt that Oregon’s defensive coaching staff very clearly identified and avoided a trap which other teams had fallen victim to. It’s difficult to tell which coach(es) to credit this to, since there’s been so much continuity since 2023 … it’s possible they’ve all sort of been growing up together. My suspicion, though, is that it’s Lupoi who took the biggest steps forward in getting wiser, while Hampton upgraded the DB recruiting.

The core insight of the Mint/Tite defensive philosophy is to free up maximum pass-stopping resources in every way possible – it prefers lean linebackers who play in coverage or rush the passer in simulated pressures rather than fireplug run-stoppers, it drops most defenders into coverage on standard downs and only returns them to kill the run once it’s been spilled to the outside (hence “spill & kill”), and uses as few but as big bodies as possible on the defensive line to clog those interior run lanes.

The tradeoff such defenses are willing to make if they must is allowing short-yardage rushing, figuring — correctly — that college offenses which forgo “money down” shot plays to pick up short-yardage rush conversions en route to crawling down the field on 20-play drives inevitably run out of gas and tend to kick field goals at worst. So, many versions of these defenses have situational defensive profiles which have strong 1st down as well as 3rd & long performances, and defend 2nd / 3rd & short passing very well but rushing very poorly … since they drop everything out to stop shot plays in short yardage and leave the d-line to fend for itself.

But the elite versions of these defenses, which Lanning had at Georgia and I studied, also have strong short-yardage rush defenses, because the giant bodies up front can stuff the run without any additional help. That’s been the project since Lanning arrived in Eugene. He might have achieved it in 2026.

Defensive Line

Structurally this is an odd-surface defense, with the most common configuration as a 1-tech and 2i in the middle (we’ve tended to call these the NT and DT, technically improperly but close enough, and I’ll discuss here; and put the third fist-down lineman which we’ve been calling the DE in the next group with the outside backers). Both of Oregon’s starters return, #52 NT Washington and #1 DT Alexander. The playing time in 2025 was analytically proper, their player grades were more than 20 points higher than the backups who transferred out. Also returning is #42 DT Breland, who was limited last year with injury – in the 2025 Spring game I spotted in him in a walking boot in an ill omen, but in the 2026 Spring game he was making up for lost time and virtually unstoppable.

The transfers into the interior of the line are #0 DT Robinson from North Carolina and who was also in the main rotation at Florida as a true freshman — I found a lot to like in his film, even before adjusting for the goofball coaching staffs at those two schools — and #99 NT Simmons from ULM, who had a tricky story to run down and I think shortened his playing time but when I got to see him was effective at the somewhat rare art of two-gapping as a head-up nose tackle.

I’ve put the last two guys in this unit although I’ve only seen them play in the 2026 Spring game and their weight listings on the most recent roster update — Oregon conceals weight information on the roster until only a few days before our publication deadline — are hard to process. #55 NT M. Johnson had been listed as a “DE” on the roster (and the only one, peculiarly) for nearly two calendar years but debuted in Spring playing in the 2i spot, he’s now listed as one of the heaviest guys on the team … but also at 6’5″, he’s conceivably able to play a very big edge-setting 5-tech.

More baffling is #90 DT T. Jones (he is the third player named Anthony Jones to sign at Oregon originally as a defensive edge and remain active in the Big Ten, and I’ve run out of special characters for them to keep my database from crashing so unlike everyone else he gets to go by his nickname “Tank”) who enrolled in Spring at 285 lbs, played very well at a position I would call a strongside OLB in the Spring game, and is now listed at 323 lbs. That’s an astonishing about of mass to cultivate in an offseason, and it makes me wonder if he’ll need some more time to harvest it as playing muscle.

Edges

The double-eagle configuration of the defense, with the third fist-down lineman and OLBs to either side was used on about 17% of all defensive reps, almost exclusively against 12-pers or heavier packages (though on about a third of opponents’ heavy packages, Oregon remained in their nickel configuration). The DE is a flex position who plays either an uncapped 5-tech setting the edge on his own — why he tends to be about 290 lbs in this defense, in 2023-24 this was played by Jordan Burch who went from an even-surface pass rusher at South Carolina and bulked up at Oregon — or inside an OLB as a 4i in a Tite configuration. The strongside OLB is like the equal but opposite, a stand-up end when the DE is off the field to set the edge against TEs, a pass rusher when the fist-down DE is present.

That’s why it’s interesting that longtime starter #10 OLB Uiagalelei has dropped close to 10 lbs for the 2026 season, I think he’s focusing on edge rushing with so much extra bulk coming in elsewhere. His partner on the weakside since 2023 also returns, #44 OLB Tuioti (son of the DL coach).

On passing downs, they’ve rotated in a specialized rushing OLB with a quick first step. Last year we got a tantalizing look at then-true freshman #31 OLB Wyatt, though he wasn’t bulked up enough to gamble on except dead-certain passing plays — and Big Ten teams love a surprise run in long yardage, or really any occasion — so it was only a few reps but they were very dramatic. Wyatt has bulked up to 245 lbs while his predecessor at the position Blake Purchase has transferred out for reasons which seem to be apparent, so I expect to see Wyatt quite a bit more.

Even though they haven’t played the exactly this position before, my extrapolation is that the staff is preparing highly rated developmental project #47 DE E. Rushing and Howard transfer #91 DE D. Brown for the big 5-tech role. Rushing has added the same range of weight gain to a frame I think can handle it on every roster update since he joined Oregon in early 2024, rather than play as the speedy edge rusher his prep tape showed, which was exactly the play with Burch. And my film study of Brown showed that while he started at the interior because he was the biggest guy the prestigious HBCU had, he was more effective the closer to the offensive tackles that he played.

None of the backups have played a snap. They’re one transfer who seems to be in the pass rusher mold who came in from Oregon State and the staff seems pretty high on but didn’t play at all as a freshman last year, #27 OLB Dantzler, two prep recruits I think are behind Tuioti and Uiagalelei in #41 OLB Horisk and #51 OLB Tavizon, and a third prep whose bulked up just over 300 lbs since the Spring game and is in line for the 5-tech role, #28 DE A. Jones (the other one).

I suspect that inexperience means they’d resolve a starter unavailability by curtailing configurations and moving guys around withing the primary group while only mildly increasing the reps for the undercard, rather than keeping the same free hand and plugging in freshman at the same rates as they would have more experienced edges. It’s difficult to quantify the effect that might have because the OLBs here have never missed time (knock on wood) so I can’t test the data but flexibility is worth something in this system or it wouldn’t have a dozen unique configurations.

Linebackers

Bryce Boettcher, converted baseball player, was drafted in the 4th round by the Colts. He very rarely left the field; of the other two linebackers, mid 3-star #54 LB Mixon got the majority of reps. Mixon was originally brought in to be a backstop against a number of linebackers expected to contribute but who haven’t worked out – Kamar Mothudi who never played and transferred out, #23 LB Platt who’s spent the last two years hurt, ASU and Iowa transfers Connor Soelle and Jestin Jacobs who contributed little but the staff still gave developmental time to instead of the freshmen.

For the third straight cycle the staff has not taken a transfer, continuing to push all of their chips on 5th year senior #26 LB Jackson, developmental junior #11 LB D. Williams, and redshirt freshman #13 LB G. Nix. Williams and Nix have yet to play a meaningful rep, Jackson has been the lowest graded defensive player every year ATQ has charted him at Oregon.

If Jackson finally clicks and reacts to plays in time, he would provide a valuable part of the defense with his speed and physicality, and he’s certainly experienced. It’d also be a relatively deep unit with up to four viable backers for two spots.

If not, then both of Williams and Nix need to pop and remain healthy all year (as does Mixon) to maintain a standard three-for-two rotation at backer which sits Jackson down. Though that said, the staff has been so devoted to Jackson that I think Tristan’s right, he’ll get a substantial portion of the reps regardless.

The upside is that the average talent rating of this unit, including the two prep recruits #19 LB Hodge and #25 LB Phillips, is the highest it’s ever been.

Secondary

There’s not a whole lot of guesswork for the topline players in the secondary, given the returners and transfers, the questions have more to do with the young talent Oregon has been stockpiling for the last couple of cycles. Due to injuries and redshirts, about two-thirds of the secondary represents extraordinarily high talent the Ducks have never seen assembled in the same place before, all without any meaningful playing time. It’s likely that some of the starters wind up sharing a good deal of their reps with breakout youngsters, but predicting who that will be is tough to say.

At cornerback, most of 2025’s main rotation returns – starter #4 CB Finney, #14 CB Offord who backed him up, and #7 CB Obidegwu who rotated with senior Northwestern transfer Theran Johnson on the other side. Nobody’s challenging Finney for a job, but Offord might move from Finney’s backup to this being more of a general three-man rotation, or he could just take Obidegwu if he’s really made strides. #18 CB Brew is something of a wildcard since he was hurt last year, his talent rating was as high as anybody in this room but I’ve never seen him. #17 CB Watson, the juco addition, looks like a good backstop for the unit.

Tristan’s film review of #14 CB Scott during his two years of garbage time play at Ohio State made a persuasive case that he’s better suited to move to the inside and play nickel, to use his length and physicality, whereas his lack of fluidity makes him a liability on the outside. That seemed to be validated by getting stuck at Ohio State’s purgatory and cooked in Oregon’s Spring game.

The nickels seem to have their starter in Baylor transfer #15 DB C. Williams, who had the position (or something like it) in 2023 and 2024, but missed 2025 with injury … he looked back to 100% in the Spring game. Williams’ backstory and tape, as we discussed on the podcast, not quite a repeat of last year’s nickel transfer Jadon Canady but it rhymes, and we agreed a similar physical breakthrough is in the cards. The backup options at nickel both appear to be talented true freshmen, #5 CB Benjamin and #16 CB Banag who were playing nickel in the Spring game, though the corner and safety rooms are so stuffed that either could loan out a player (Scott would be our pick on the podcast) to help if need be.

In 2025, transfer Dillon Thieneman played a very different role than he did at Purdue where he was the sky-high safety in Ryan Walters’ high-stress man defense and had sole responsibility for always taking the correct angle and stopping plays from going explosive – instead Oregon’s staff invented a defensive structure we’d never seen any Mint or Tite front team use before, playing Thieneman about 10-15 yards off the ball right in between the off-ball backers, forming a triangle in the middle of the field, with the nickel backed off as the second high safety. Thieneman would have the option of triggering down as a quasi-backer on run plays or backpedaling into cover-3 on passing plays.

Thieneman was drafted in the 1st round by the Bears, and that defensive structure seems to have gone with him as it didn’t re-appear in the Spring game, they returned to the standard c-2 they’ve used in the previous three years. Starter #21 DB Flowers and backup #12 DB Woodyard return, while Minnesota starter #3 DB Perich was brought in to doubtlessly start at the other spot, likely the fieldside. Perich’s tape as a safety was excellent, with relatively minor technical matters to work on and a large volume of explanation needed for Minnesota’s counterproductive structural choices which Oregon doesn’t seem eager to replicate. As with all of the secondary, how much playing time the young backups get is up to them, including #8 DB McNutt who was hurt last year and three very talented preps.

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