Mar 12, 2026
NCAAEugene
The quarterback's development trajectory is the story the offense tells itself. The defense is the organizational identity. Spring will show whether the depth is real.
Oregon opened spring practice this week under Dan Lanning, entering his fifth season with a program that has now won 48 games in four years and is the standard-bearer for what success looks like in the modern Big Ten's western flank. The Ducks lost their most productive offensive player — the receiver who led the team in yards and touchdowns in 2025 — to the NFL Draft, along with two defensive starters who were among the conference's better players at their positions. What they return is a quarterback who entered 2025 as one of the more widely discussed sophomore prospects in the country and ended it as one of the more widely discussed junior prospects in the country: a player whose development trajectory has been consistently upward in a system that Lanning and offensive coordinator Will Stein have built specifically around his skill set.
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