One of the underlying stories in Eugene over the past couple of seasons has resided at the quarterback position for the Oregon Ducks, and a player who wasn’t playing, rather than who was.
We’ve talked about the Ty Thompson situation a ton since he joined the Ducks as the highest-rated QB in program history. While many believed that he would take over potentially as a freshman, but likely as a sophomore, things haven’t gone that way for Thompson. He was unable to beat out Anthony Brown in 2021, and Oregon brought in Bo Nix via the transfer portal in 2022. You know the rest of the story.
In this era of college football, you often see highly-rated players like Thompson choose to transfer to a new school after a frustrating start to his career like that, searching for playing time rather than the program. Thompson decided to stick it out, though, and he is still in Eugene serving as a backup, biding his time until he can compete for the QB1 job in 2024 once again.
I’ve written before about how noble and impressive this decision is from QB13, and former Oregon legend Joey Harrington also talked in length about how much he respects the decision.
This past week on The Mental Sweat Show, a podcast hosted by former Oregon players Ryan Walk, Brad Yaffe, and Nate Heaukulani, Thompson broke down his ultimate reasoning for staying in Eugene.
“I feel like at this point, I’ve built a very good bond and laid some very strong roots here in Oregon,” Thompson said. “I’ve been in this program for 2.5 years now, and I’ve given everything to this program. To just up and leave because something didn’t go my way, or because there might be a different opportunity somewhere, I feel like that would be extremely selfish.”
While Thompson has a point, that hasn’t stopped a ton of players from transferring out of Oregon in the past couple of years. Even this past offseason, we’ve seen more than 30 players decide that they want to look for another opportunity out of Eugene. Some are still looking.
“Also across the board, there’s not a whole lot of… people hit the portal and don’t have a great destination or there’s not a great opportunity on the other side of the portal,” Thompson said. “I think I made a very calculated decision. Obviously, the thought of the portal crossed my mind, but at the end of the day, whether I play a whole lot this year or I don’t, I think I have a great opportunity the next coming years to do what I do here at Oregon.”
After the 2023 season comes to an end, Bo Nix will be off to the NFL, and the starting QB job for the Ducks will be up for grabs once again. Thompson will look to compete with true freshman Austin Novosad, and likely a transfer portal QB going into next spring, and potentially be able to win the top spot by the time fall rolls around.
Should that come to fruition, the patience that Thompson has shown will definitely have been worth it.
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