Going into the offseason for the Oregon Ducks, one of the biggest areas of concern was on the defensive line. While that unit played well in 2022, there were a lot of question marks about who would be returning for the 2023 season.
Defensive end DJ Johnson announced quickly after the end of the regular season that he would be declaring for the NFL Draft and opting out of the bowl game. It was also believed that Brandon Dorlus would do the same, and guys like Casey Rogers, Taki Taimani, and Popo Aumavae had yet to make their future intentions clear.
This past week has been an endless source of good news on that front for the Ducks. It started out on Sunday with Dorlus announcing that he would be coming back for one more year, and continued on Tuesday with Rogers announcing that he would do the same. Wednesday provided the fireworks, with South Carolina defensive lineman Jordan Burch, a former 5-star recruit and the No. 1 ranked player in the transfer portal, announcing that he would commit to the Ducks, giving Lanning one of the best DL in the nation.
We also got news from Aumavae, who has been granted an injury waiver and will be returning for one last season in Eugene as well.
With all of this news, I figured it would be a great time to look at the defensive line as a whole and try to project how things will shake up in 2023. Some of the aforementioned guys will likely announce their future intentions in the next week, and a few others may choose to transfer to other schools.
Let’s take a look at how things stand on the DL going into the offseason: