The opening kickoff at the Oregon Ducks’ annual spring game on Saturday took place at 1:09 p.m.
By 1:10 p.m., there was an energy spreading throughout the crowd at Autzen Stadium that hasn’t been felt for the better part of a decade.
We knew that Dan Lanning, Kenny Dillingham, Tosh Lupoi, and the new-look Oregon coaching staff were going to want to make a good first impression, but it’s hard to imagine them getting off to a better start than they did. On the first play from scrimmage, QB Bo Nix dropped a dime to WR Seven McGee, who was streaking through the secondary. The play went for 70 yards, and a touchdown from McGee two plays later capped off a thrilling opening drive.
A new era of Duck football had officially begun.
With that new era came a new energy. That energy has been present before Saturday’s scrimmage, heating up to a boil for weeks, if not months, now. It’s an energy that has caused waves on the recruiting trail, all while making an effort to incorporate Oregon history into the present-day actions of the team and the program.
This wasn’t just your annual spring game — it was the start of a new brand of football in Eugene. A fun brand of football. A brand of football that isn’t afraid to take shots downfield on the opening snap, or run double-pass jet-sweeps multiple times in the same game. It features a group of head coaches that have youth on their side, but NFL experience and know-how. It’s centered around a team that may be unproven on the national scale but has the tools to compete and the belief that they can.
I’ve been to a number of Oregon spring games in my life, and I can’t quite remember walking away from any with the feeling that I did on Saturday afternoon.
That feeling was excitement, both for what I had just seen, and what we are going to see next. Here are a couple of notes on what the Ducks showed on Saturday: