From Day 1 of Spring Camp, Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning said he wanted to analyze what went right and what went wrong from the previous season and improve on it.
The Ducks went 10-4 last season, including an exciting Holiday Bowl victory over North Carolina. There’s not a whole lot to improve upon, but naturally with all coaches, near perfection is the goal and to reach that, some adjustments need to be made.
One of those adjustments was changes with the coaching staff.
The biggest change came out of necessity when Kenny Dillingham left for Arizona State. So Lanning turned to UT-San Antonio’s Will Stein to be the Ducks’ new offensive coordinator.
According to tight ends coach Drew Mehringer, the hiring of Stein was a home run.
“You always knew Will was going to be a great coach. When he was with us at Texas and then he crushed it at Lake Travis, it was no surprise to me where he’s at and what he’s done at UTSA,” Mehringer said.
“So having close friends make coming to work a lot more fun. (Will]) fits right in. He’s doing a great job right now. I couldn’t be more thrilled when I got that phone call that ‘hey, this is who we’re going to go with’. I was like ‘that’s perfect, that’s perfect.'”
Another change is a change that happens every season … new recruits. Oregon has an impressive class coming into the program. They were ranked in the Top 10 in the country. Couple with some very good transfers, the 2023 Ducks should be a fun team to watch.
“I think we got a lot of football players that can play” said Lanning after Thursday’s spring practice.
“I think we’re having more depth, especially defensively right now, more depth than we did last year. Overall we’ve got the ability to have a lot of guys that can have success.”
But they need to come together as one unit and that’s what Spring camp is all about.
Four weeks doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but the Ducks have made the most of it.
One of the position groups oozing with talent is the receivers. Quarterback Bo Nix has an array of weapons to choose from and the transfer portal might spit out one more receiver for Nix to throw to.
Unfortunately, Spring camp hasn’t been all roses.
As soon as that transfer portal opened up, a trio of now-former Ducks left the program, led by linebacker Keith Brown. The Lebanon, Ore. native’s decision to leave came as a shock. Brown was competing for a starting job and would have played a major role on the defense.
Before Brown left, Lanning was singing the praises of the linebacker.
“Keith can play football. He can tackle, he can run, he can hit. I think for him, he knows he wants to develop some consistency there and continue to be a signal caller,” Lanning said.
“But you know Keith finished well obviously there at the end of the season and I have high expectations for moving forward.”
The injury bug also showed itself as it was revealed tight end Terrance Ferguson sustained some sort of injury where details were not disclosed. But it sounded serious enough that Ferguson would not be available for the Spring Game and it’s unknown if the injury will affect him moving into the regular season.
With just eight days until the Spring Game inside Autzen Stadium, Oregon fans will get to witness all of the changes and improvements for themselves.
The Oregon Spring Game is scheduled for Saturday, April 29th at 1:00 PM.