Some freshman football players have the benefit of enrolling early at school and joining their team for the spring season, going through a number of practices, and ultimately getting some live reps in the annual spring game.
Others aren’t so fortunate, needing instead to try and get up to speed when fall camp rolls around. There is an acclimation period that the entire team goes through, consisting of two days of spider pads, and three days of shells (helmets and shoulder pads). This offers somewhat of a slow integration into the physical nature of college football, which can often be a wake-up for young players who are used to the high school level of play.
“I think the physicality… I mean, if you’re going to bite as a pup you’re going to bite as a dog, and we can try to enforce that a little bit,” head coach Dan Lanning said on Tuesday when asked about young players responding to the increased physicality. “But the reality is that if you’re a physical player, you’re going to be a physical player.”
For many incoming freshmen, the start of fall camp is a lot like getting thrown into the deep end of the pool. You may have been an all-star athlete in high school, but now you’re running with the big dogs who are sometimes as many as 3 or 4 years older than you.
“I think what you notice as you get into day five and day six is you start to recognize who’s actually got their head buried in their playbook — who’s spending the extra time — because it’s hard to play fast if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Lanning said. “And that probably sticks out the young guys that are putting in the extra time that’s required to be successful. Those are the guys who are reaping the benefits right now.”
When pressed to identify a player or two who have done what he was alluding to, Lanning — a coach who rarely singles out individuals thus far in his tenure at Oregon — pointed to true freshman defensive back Khamari Terrell, a former 4-star recruit out of Texas.
“There’s a few guys… I just threw kudos to Khamari Terrell, he’s done a really good job of meeting and taking extra time to watch film, doing the little things,” Lanning said.
Another place where Lanning wasn’t shy about offering praise was on the offensive line. Due to a couple of minor injuries, mainly to RT Malaesala Aumavae-Laulu, there has been an opportunity for young players to step up and take advantage of some playing time on the O-line. Oregon fans will be happy to hear that Josh Conerly, the 5-star recruit who ranked as the No. 1 OT in the 2022 class, was near the top of the list.
“There’s been some guys that have stuck out and had really good days. You know, Josh Conerly had a good day, had a really good rep and competition (period) today,” Lanning said. “The competition drill — we do kind of a one-on-one drill — he did a really good job. We’ve seen some good things from Dave (Iuli), seen some good things from Kawika (Rogers). A lot of those young guys have done well up front.”
As is normally the case with training camp, an opportunity has risen for young players and underclassmen to showcase their talents and try to establish a place for themselves on the depth chart. How high up on the depth chart they actually land is a case-by-case basis, but what matters is that the players are getting a chance to show what they’re capable of.
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