It’s easy for national media members to look at Dan Lanning’s Oregon Ducks team and focus on the positional battle at quarterback and the two superstar linebackers – Justin Flowe and Noah Sewell – on defense, without digging too far into the rest of the team.
That does a disservice to some of the extremely talented stars just waiting for a chance to breakout in Eugene this upcoming season.
Among those future stars is defensive lineman Brandon Dorlus, who is entering his fourth season after racking up 25 total tackles, seven tackles for loss, and 2.5 sacks last year.
Defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi spoke about Dorlus’ growth at Oregon’s media day last week, highlighting his big future goals.
“Yeah, he’s worked for it,” Lupoi said. “I think he’s got definitely tunnel vision focus on what he wants to do this season. So the challenge is doing it one day at a time. So I know his sights are set on some really big goals and I think that’s our job along with him to really understand the importance of attacking it on a daily basis.”
Dorlus will be counted on to help replenish some of the pass-rushing pressure vacated by Kayvon Thibodeaux’s departure this past season, but he also offers the versatility to potentially play multiple spots along Oregon’s defensive front next year.
“He offers us some versatility,” Lupoi continued. “So he’s someone that we can tax. If he can handle it mentally you know in multiple spots on our defense because of that versatility, he’s a bigger guy that can move well so once again, once we get our pads on we’ll start to find out a lot more about him and everybody else in our defense.”
For Oregon to reach the lofty goals set under new coach Dan Lanning in year one, they’ll need players to step up and perform at the highest level of their career: something Dorlus is clearly prepared to do in 2022.
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