Though we are in the thick of basketball season, and the offseason in football keeps rolling along, a light has shown itself at the end of the tunnel. For the Oregon Ducks, that light is Spring Football. On March 10th, Dan Lanning and his new coaching staff will hit the gridiron for the first of 15 practices with the team, giving us an oasis of things to talk about.
One of the things we are looking forward to the most is seeing some individual players take the field. How do they look after the offseason? Are they healthy? What improvements have they made? How will they be used in the new scheme?
The list of guys we can’t wait to watch is endless, but we highlighted a few key players to keep an eye on.
Quarterback Ty Thompson
He’s the first-ever five-star quarterback to commit to Oregon. But after on year with the team, Ty Thompson is still somewhat unknown. His lack of playing time in 2021 as a true freshman is a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes.
Most five-star quarterbacks that have his size (6-foot-4, 215 pounds) and arm strength see the field in their freshman season, and some even take on the starting role.
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But Thompson, despite the calls from the Duck faithful in the stands, was on the sideline with a clipboard for the majority of the 2021 season. A big part of the mystery is that even when the Ducks had some games in control — or when a win was so far out of reach — starting quarterback Anthony Brown was still on the field.
Thompson did appear in three games where he was 7-of-15 for 87 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. The stats don’t exactly leap off the page, but Thompson wasn’t given the chance to show out and play with the first-string offense.
When former coach Mario Cristobal left for Miami before the Alamo Bowl, many suggested that might lead to Thompson not only playing in the bowl game but starting the glorified exhibition against Oklahoma.
Sorry. Thompson didn’t see the field in San Antonio, adding to the mystery.
Now Dan Lanning is the head coach and he brought in offensive guru Kenny Dillingham to run the Duck offense. Surely this will be Thompson’s time to shine and take the reigns of that coveted starting quarterback position, right?
Those hopes were tempered when Auburn transfer Bo Nix announced he was coming to Eugene for his senior season. Surely Thompson will have every chance to beat out Nix in the spring, but senior transfer quarterbacks usually don’t go somewhere to waste their last season of college football holding a clipboard. If Nix thought there was even a chance of that, he wouldn’t be a Duck.
Nix also has the advantage over Thompson as he played in Dillingham’s system in his freshman year.
To Thompson’s credit, in the world of the transfer portal, he could have left Eugene as soon as Nix signed on the dotted line. But he didn’t. Staying and willing to compete for the job had to show the new coaching staff that Thompson has more to him than just the physical attributes.
He’s a fighter and that’s just the kind of player Lanning wants on his team.
While we didn’t get many chances to see Thompson’s ability to sling it in 2021, that will change in the next couple of weeks with the arrival of spring ball. Finally, his talents will be put on display in a QB battle against Nix and fellow freshman Jay Butterfield. It’s far too early to determine who will come out on top, but after developing a ton of questions about the highest QB commit in Oregon history, we may finally start to get some answers.
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