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Following the 2021 Oregon football season, the Ducks are being asked to replace 85 receptions, 1,262 yards, and 7 touchdowns from the wide receiver room.
With the loss of Devon Williams, Johnny Johnson, Jaylon Redd, and Mycah Pittman, Oregon is now left with a relatively young WR depth chart that consists of multiple underclassmen, and only one player — UCLA transfer Chase Cota — with more than two seasons of collegiate experience.
During spring practice thus far, we’ve been looking for which players are going to take a step up and potentially lead the room, both with their voice and with increased production on the field. While you can’t determine all of that just from watching practice, it seems like sophomore WR Dont’e Thorton is a promising candidate.
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After a relatively uneventful freshman campaign, Thorton broke out in the Alamo Bowl against Oklahoma, hauling in four catches for 90 yards and a touchdown. Prior to that, Thornton had played in just three games for the Ducks, where he had just 5 catches for 85 yards and a touchdown. It was a promising end to the season that gave fans a glimpse of what might be to come for the young pass-catcher.
“I feel like I’ve still got a lot of room to improve,” Thornton said on Thursday. “I’m still improving every day, but the bowl game let me know that I really can do this. Like, I really can play football at a high level, so that was really like my confidence booster there.”
As a former 4-star recruit who came to Oregon as the third-best WR to ever commit to the Ducks, the start of his career was understandably underwhelming for Thorton. There was a stacked WR room ahead of him, and while the Ducks weren’t finding much success in the passing game under Anthony Brown, a clear path to success on the field wasn’t always obvious.
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Thornton says that caused him to struggle with his confidence at times, but hard work was the driving force in him ultimately breaking out.
“I definitely questioned it last season because we of course had a lot of older guys, so I didn’t play as much,” Thornton said. “So like, ‘dang, what can I do to keep working and get on the field?’ So like, not get discouraged, just stay on top of everything. And the thing that I changed the most from this offseason to last offseason was that I got in the playbook a lot. Like every day I’m at the facility talking to the coaches, going over the plays the day before practice and everything so I’ve been putting more effort into off the field stuff that’s going to help me on the field.”
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So far, the returns from that hard work are positive. A couple of weeks ago, QB Ty Thompson waxed poetic about Thornton’s improvement this offseason and how his new leadership role has helped the young WR room take a step forward.
As we get closer to the Oregon spring game on April 23, Thornton and the rest of the WRs will have a chance to show the Ducks’ fanbase how much they’ve improved over the offseason. If what we saw in the Alamo Bowl was any indication, the ceiling for Thorton is high.
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