Coming out of the Oregon Ducks’ annual spring scrimmage, there seemed to be a consensus among fans and media members alike — it looked like veteran transfer Bo Nix had a leg up in the quarterback competition, and would likely take that lead throughout the summer months and into fall camp in Eugene.
The offseason is long, though, and there is ample time for other players to make a move.
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One of those players working to move his way up the depth chart is redshirt freshman Ty Thompson, the former top-ranked QB to ever commit to the Ducks before Oregon added 5-star QB Dante Moore to the 2023 recruiting class this summer. Thompson had what some would call a frustrating freshman season with the Ducks, though he would describe it as something that taught him patience. Sitting behind starting QB Anthony Brown, Thompson had to wait on the sidelines while the offense at times struggled, with many fans and media members calling for his opportunity to get into the game.
“Last season was a lot of patience for me,” Thompson said at Oregon’s media day on Wednesday. “I feel like it taught me a lot about myself and how I deal with adversity. And I feel like coming to this year I feel like I’m really hungry to see the field so I think it’s taught me a lot about how to handle adversity and how I come back from it, how I work for that. Because this season is gonna be a lot of fun.”
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Though he was still locked into a QB competition throughout the spring months — this time with QB Jay Butterfield and Auburn transfer Bo Nix — Thompson took the opportunity to get better in spring practice and grow as a player. His spring game performance (12-for-27, 168 yards, 1 TD, and 2 INT) wasn’t up to par with what he was hoping for, but the young gun-slinger let that motivate him going into the summer.
He enrolled as a counselor at the prestigious Manning Passing Academy, where he worked out alongside some of the best college and high school quarterbacks while learning from NFL legends. It was there that Thompson had a factory reset of sorts when it comes to the game of football.
“That was the most fun I’ve had around football in a long time,” Thompson said. “That was such a must-needed refresher for me. I mean, getting around the kids was really, really fun, and then competing with some of the best quarterbacks in the nation. It was a blessing to be there. And then I did, you know, I did pretty well. So it was just a really good refresher for me.”
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With that infused confidence, knowing that he can still get on the national stage and perform with the most talented players in the nation, Thompson comes back to Eugene ready to dive head-first into the battle to be the Ducks’ No. 1 guy.
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Is he confident that it will be his name on the top rung of the depth chart when fall camp comes to a close? If you know Ty, then you should have a good feeling about that answer.
“I’m always confident. If you’re not going to believe in yourself, who is going to believe in you?” Thompson said. “So I have the utmost confidence in myself, but at the same time, it’s an open competition like you said. The other guys — Jay, Bo — are just as good as me, so they earned the reps that they’re going to get, and I’m going to earn mine.”
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