7/10/2023 0 Comments Turnover footballYou’ve got to have a strong defense if you want to limit your propensity to turn over the ball to the other team. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, and Nix showed what makes him such a great competitor, and why he’s the right man to lead the Ducks to an expected successful season in 2023.November 19, - I agree. Had something happened injury-wise, Lanning and his coaching staff would have a lot of questions to answer. “When we got down, I definitely wanted to go back in,” Nix said. Lanning said the goal was to win the game, but Oregon’s head coach didn’t seem too interested in giving in-depth and thoughtful answers to the media members who waited around to talk to him on Saturday afternoon. “We were going to play football today and try to get better at football.”ĭo I believe it? Not really. He led his team on three consecutive scoring drives to make it so even a last-second touchdown from the yellow team wouldn’t make a difference. However, the green team soon fell behind on the scoreboard, and Nix came back to take care of business. After starting the second half for the green team, Nix took a couple of series off to let true freshman Austin Novosad get some experience. Generally, coaches and players agree there is too much risk baked into playing your most valuable asset more than a few drives in a scrimmage where, as Drew Carey said it best: “Everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.” Heck, it’s not often you see your starting quarterback playing past the first quarter of a spring game. It’s not often you see your starting quarterback score a game-sealing touchdown with 1:02 on the clock in the fourth quarter of a spring game. Martin finished with three tackles but showed an upside that doesn’t make it hard to envision him being a regular on the field this fall. He got some highlights today, but I’m sure there’s stuff that he wants to improve on.” So he does a little bit extra from that standpoint. “You know, I think what makes it special is he’s the guy who’s gonna be up here at 6 a.m., you know, get an ice bath, doing the extra. “Cole’s a good player you know, I think he’s exactly what we thought he was gonna be,” Lanning said. The play could have gone for a touchdown if not blown dead. Later in the day, Martin showed flashes of his special teams prowess, taking a punt return 29 yards up the field. ![]() The other almost resulted in an interception of Ty Thompson on a third-and-long, but it still got the defense off the field. One was a big hit and tackle in open space on the outside. He made a couple of plays early on in this game that were notable. You want to talk about true freshmen who announced their presence on Saturday? Look no further than defensive back Cole Martin. ![]() However, we saw growth at the very least, and that’s all I was asking for. ![]() “And then be able to get some shots there at the end, I think that was big.”ĭid we see enough to feel confident that Thompson will be an elite QB for Oregon in 2024? Definitely not. “That’s football a little bit, right? You know we had some bad balls early, some adversity early, didn’t complete some, some slow starts,” Lanning said. On the day, Thompson finished with 274 yards and 2 TD on 16-for-34 passing. From that drive onward, QB13 was one of the most impressive players on the field, completing 15 of his next 26 passes for more than 250 yards. However, Thompson settled and led a drive that nearly resulted in a touchdown as time expired. Going into the final drive of the half, Thompson was 1-for-8 passing with his only completion being an underhand pitch to a motioning receiver across his front. ![]() “If I didn’t have the elbow brace, I would have had the flexibility to catch it,” linebacker Mase Funa said, recounting the play. He threw six straight incompletions to start the day, including a pass on his first attempt that by all means should have been an interception going for a touchdown the other way. Ty Thompson, the redshirt sophomore who everyone pencils in as the 2024 QB1, had not done much in the first half to encourage a fan base desperate to see signs of improvement. I’m not going to lie, with about a minute left in the first half, I was ready to start looking at the 2024 quarterback transfer portal market, hoping that I could figure out where the Ducks were going to go for a QB1 the year after Bo Nix leaves.
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