Our friend Zachary Neel, the editor of Ducks Wire, wrote a very interesting column earlier this week. He noted that the transfer portal softens the blow (albeit only slightly) of losing out on high-end recruits at Oregon.
Here’s a small excerpt from Neel’s column:
“5-star EDGE Elijah Rushing — the No. 8 player in the 2024 class — announced that he would commit to the hometown Arizona Wildcats, rather than the Oregon Ducks. For months, Rushing was thought to be a virtual lock to join Lanning and come to Eugene, but over the past 48 hours, something flipped, and he ended up staying close to home.
“What happened? Who knows, ultimately? Does it matter? Not really.
“The end result is the same: Oregon is left sitting as a silver medalist, rather than a gold medalist.
“In the era of the transfer portal, however, that’s not exactly the worst thing in the world. Of course, I am not arguing in any way, shape, or form that the Ducks are better off by coming in second for some of the top recruits in the nation. 100 times out of 100, I would rather get the commitment from a player and roll the dice going into the future. However, in today’s era of college football, just because you missed out on a player once doesn’t mean that an opportunity to recruit him and sign him won’t present itself again.”
All of this invites a much larger conversation about the ways Lincoln Riley and Dan Lanning use — and need, and relate to — the intricacies of the transfer portal to build rosters in the modern world of college football.
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