Tag: Traeshon Holden

Traeshon Holden relishing opportunity to step up as Oregon Ducks’ WR1

Oregon needs a new WR1 after Troy Franklin’s departure. Traeshon Holden is throwing his hat in the ring.

A year ago, the Oregon Ducks saw one of the best years in school history when it came to production from the wide receiver position. Numerous records fell throughout the year, and it now leaves the two most responsible parties — Bo Nix and Troy Franklin — with positive outlooks in the 2024 NFL Draft.

With those departures comes a production void, where Dan Lanning and the Ducks now have to find which players are going to step up and provide the success that has become the standard in Eugene.

Traeshon Holden would like to throw his name in the ring as a top candidate.

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“With Troy being gone, it’s just the next person. I feel like I’m the next person,” Holden said on Saturday after practice. “So I just got to show everybody what I can do.”

During his first season at Oregon after transferring from Alabama, Holden was a solid option in the passing game, hauling in 37 catches for 452 yards and six touchdowns. Holden really came on late in the season, combining for six catches, 132 yards and two touchdowns in the Pac-12 title game and the Fiesta Bowl.

Going into his second year with the Ducks, Holden feels much more comfortable and confident in the system, and it’s allowed him to take a step forward in his development on the field.

“It’s just route details,” wide receiver coach Junior Adams said of Holden. “He’s worked on that a lot this offseason, even over spring break. He’s worked on it. He’s playing good ball. He’s catching a lot of balls with his hands now and not body-catching it. He’s coming out with a good attitude every day.”

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After watching Franklin have a career year in Oregon’s offense, and now be projected as a first or second-round pick in the NFL draft, there is an added sense of motivation for pass-catchers on Oregon’s roster. Holden said on Saturday that he obviously aspires to be in a similar spot that Franklin is in a year from now, but in the meantime, he’s just focusing on controlling what he can and improving each day.

“My personal goal is just to continue to be the best I can be and obviously show the whole world what I know I can do,” Holden said. “Each week, each day, just coming out going to work like this. My goal is just to show the world who I am.”

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Kyler Kasper making ‘big strides,’ per Oregon WR coach Junior Adams

Kyler Kasper is ready for a breakout season after developing in the Ducks’ system for two years.

In Dan Lanning’s time at Oregon, the Oregon Ducks have quickly become a hot spot for wide receiver talent. Troy Franklin has been the most notable of those wideouts, but other WRs — like Tez Johnson, Traeshon Holden, and Evan Stewart — have brought a lot of skill to the position group.

Another talented WR on the Ducks roster is Kyler Kasper. Headed into his third season as a Duck, Kasper hasn’t seen the field much in his first two years, but his stock could be on the rise. After the Ducks’ fifth spring practice on Saturday, Holden and WRs coach Junior Adams had praise for the junior WR’s growth.

“I’m glad you asked about that because Kyler’s made big strides this offseason,” Adams said. “Where you see that he’s grown is in two areas for me. One has been just the playbook, right? And understanding what we’re doing and where we’re going.”

“And two, you can see the weight room is paying off. You can see his strength; he’s run a little bit better, he’s run a little bit stronger, a little bit more grounded on the catch, stronger at the point of contact in the run game. And he’s taken the next step as far as what he’s doing in the classroom or what he’s doing when we’re not on the field and outside of this building.”

Kasper redshirted after his first year at Oregon, and in 2023, he played in 12 games, registering 117 offensive snaps but only recording two receptions — although he nearly had a spectacular TD against Portland State. As a recruit, Kasper was a 4-star player and the 29th-best WR in his class according to 247 Sports.

What jumps out first with Kasper is his size at 6 feet, 6 inches, which allows to him bring down almost any jump ball. He also brings decent speed for his size. If the mental aspects of his game have taken strides as Adams suggested, Kasper could be a scary player.

Like Adams, Holden highlighted the mental side of Kasper’s game as one of his biggest improvements.

“Kyler’s growing mentally for sure,” Holden said. “That was probably just the biggest thing for him last year. But like now, you just see in the meeting rooms. like before, Kyler would shut down if somebody would say something to him, but now it’s like he’s more eager to listen. So you can definitely see him growing.”

Oregon’s 2024 receiver room already feels infinitely deep, and there won’t be enough room on the field to showcase the abundance of talent at the position. But, if Kasper keeps taking steps forward, his name might start getting thrown into the mix, and we could see him take on an elevated role in the offense.

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Troy Franklin’s success acts as motivating factor for Ducks’ WR room

Oregon’s current generation of young receivers have a good legacy to look up to in Troy Franklin.

Troy Franklin was arguably the best wide receiver to ever play for the Oregon Ducks. For the current receivers on the roster, those who watched Franklin work up close and personal, the next step is trying to follow in his footsteps and continue his legacy.

The Ducks don’t have a long history of receivers getting selected early in the NFL draft, but that is something that Franklin will likey change this year, with some mocks projecting that he will be selected in the first or second rounds later this month. Being able to see that ultimate success bear out for someone who put in the work in Eugene is what wide receiver coach Junior Adams says is one of the biggest motivating factors for his current WR group.

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“A lot of those guys have been in the room with him and they saw him, they see now that the process works,” Adams said on Saturday. “They’ve seen someone in the same seat that they sit in that lived it on a day-to-day basis here in this organization and now have the opportunity that he has. Obviously, that’s going to be a really good example for those guys in the room.”

Besides Traeshon Holden, Tez Johnson, and Gary Bryant, the Oregon receiving corps is a fairly young group, but the talent is oozing out everywhere. The young Ducks saw what talent coupled with work ethic can do to opponents and set up a nice professional career, something Franklin is preparing for currently.

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Just a year into his college career, Oregon teammates say WR Jurrion Dickey’s ‘got it’

“He’s got it, for sure,” Holden said. “Jurrion’s gonna keep getting better.”

If we’re going to look at things from an objective standpoint, it’s fair to say that fans of the Oregon Ducks have been a bit impatient.

When former 5-star receiver Jurrion Dickey landed in Eugene ahead of the 2023 season, fans expected him to have an instant impact, and find a role in the offense right away. Dickey was the highest-rated WR to sign with the Ducks since Cameron Colvin and was rated as the 18th-best player in his recruiting class. It’s understandable why crazed Oregon fanatics were hoping to see him pop.

On Saturday, though, wide receiver coach Junior Adams provided some much-needed realism.

“He still hasn’t been here a year yet. Sometimes we forget about that.”

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It’s often easy to look past the fact that Dickey has been on campus and with the Ducks for a matter of eight months. It’s easier to ignore that fact when you talk to some of Jurrion’s teammates who are able to watch what he does each and every day at practice.

More than the physical growth and his production on the field, what has allowed the redshirt freshman to take a leap this offseason has been his mental growth. No longer is he focused solely on learning the ins and outs of the playbook, and taking an extra beat to get lined up. Now he’s in a position where he’s helping teach the young guys on the roster.

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“Even though he’s a young guy, he’s teaching the freshmen that just came in, which is really big on his part,” Tez Johnson said. “When we first got here, we tried to get Jurrion to know the playbook fast. We tried to force it on him. And it was kind of hectic for him at first, but he knew we was trying to help him. So now that he’s teaching the little guys, us older guys see that and really, really admire what he’s doing.”

Adams says that it’s his maturity that’s been the biggest factor in Dickey’s growth off of the field, and his commitment to his craft.

“He’s gotten this far because he’s putting in the work,” Adams said. “He’s understanding the day-to-day, what time he comes into the building every day. When practice is over he’s getting straight to the film. He’s taking good notes in meetings.”

All of that has resulted in a supremely talented player who is starting to come into his own. While a knee injury held him out for the majority of his freshman season, Dickey now enters his second year in Eugene with hopes of finding a role in what Traeshon Holden calls the best receiver room in the nation. It’s not hard to see a world where he’s eventually leading that room.

“He’s got it, for sure,” Holden said. “Jurrion’s gonna keep getting better.”

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Spring Position Preview: Evan Stewart, Tez Johnson lead WR room stacked with talent

Oregon might possess the most talented and deepest WR room in the country in 2024.

After a couple of long off-season months, the grass is starting to grow and trees are getting ready to bloom. Spring is coming in Eugene, and with it comes the long-awaited return of football for the Oregon Ducks. A lot will look different in this new year for Dan Lanning and his team, with several of last year’s top players moving onto the NFL, including guys like Bo Nix, Troy Franklin, Bucky Irving, Jackson Powers-Johnson, and Brandon Dorlus. All of that is not to mention the fact that the Ducks are joining the Big Ten, and have a new-look conference to get used to on top of a spot in the expanded College Football Playoff to strive for. 

It’s safe to say that there are a lot of things to talk about going into this spring season, and a lot of storylines to discuss. To get things started, we want to give a position-by-position breakdown of Oregon’s current roster, getting readers up to date on which players left, which players are returning, and what the overall outlook is going into the spring. So far, we’ve looked at the quarterbacks and the running backs. Now we’ll examine the Ducks’ receivers’ room.

The Ducks have had some great receivers in the past, but this particular group might be the most talented and deepest receiver corps Oregon has ever had. It’s not often that you see arguably the best WR in school history come and go in one season, and expect the talent level to rise the next year, but that could be the case in Eugene with this group that is ready to wreak havoc on Big Ten defenses.

Led by Tez Johnson, Evan Stewart, and Traeshon Holden, Oregon’s receivers have all the qualities a coach would want. There are big, speedy, and tall ones for Gabriel to choose from. The only problem might be there is just one football to spread the wealth with. Fortunately, it’s a problem most teams would love to have.

Here’s a full breakdown on everything you need to know regarding the receiver position, from who left, who joined, and some of the biggest storylines to follow.

Oregon WR Traeshon Holden announces plans for 2024 season

Duck receiver Traeshon Holden makes his 2024 plans known and it’s good news for the Ducks.

With all of the transfer portal departures across the landscape of college football, it’s always nice when a player stays put and is hopeful for next season.

Oregon has already learned wide receiver Tez Johnson was going to return for his senior season and now he has company.

Traeshon Holden, another wide receiver and a former transfer portal player himself via Alabama, announced via X that he would be spending another year in Eugene.

Holden had a nice year as the backup to Troy Franklin and if all goes according to plan, he should have a very productive year in 2024. In his first season as a Duck, Holden had 37 catches for 452 yards and six touchdowns.

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Position Outlook: Gary Bryant Jr. addition offers big boost to competition in Ducks WR room

The addition of Gary Bryant Jr. to Oregon’s WR room just ups the level of competition even more in Eugene.

The fight for targets in 2023 is going to be fun to watch.

At the end of April during the Oregon Ducks’ annual spring game, it was incredibly clear that the wide receiver depth was pretty stacked in Eugene. With Troy Franklin and Traeshon Holden making plays for the green team while Tez Johnson and Kris Hutson showed out for the yellow team, Duck fans were treated to quite a display of WR talent. On top of the projected starters, you also had underclassmen Justius Lowe and Kyler Kasper making some plays as well.

That wide receiver room got a bit more stacked on Saturday night with former USC WR Gary Bryant Jr. announcing his transfer to Oregon. He will join the Ducks with three years of eligibility remaining, and come in hoping to secure a spot in the starting lineup along with a sizeable target share.

With so many mouths to feed at the position, though, things are bound to get incredibly competitive come this fall once practice starts up again. In preparation for that, let’s take a look at everyone on the roster at the WR spot and break down their outlook going forward.

Junior Adams discusses Oregon’s WR room, Jurrion Dickey, and Bo Nix’s growth

From Troy Franklin attacking the offseason to Tez Johnson and Traeshon Holden coming in at 6:30 every morning, Junior Adams has his WRs working hard.

As we get further into spring practice, media members have fortunately gotten the opportunity to talk to more coaches and players after practice, rather than just head coach Dan Lanning.

Last week we got to meet with both OC Will Stein and DC Tosh Lupoi, and Tuesday’s media availability brought forth the opportunity to talk to wide receiver coach Junior Adams.

This is the first time we’ve gotten the opportunity to talk to Adams since fall camp last August, so there was a lot of ground to cover, including the breakout of Troy Franklin, the additions of Traeshon Holden and Tez Johnson, and the incoming hype that Jurrion Dickey will bring.

Here are some of the most notable quotes from Adams’ interview:

Tez Johnson, Traeshon Holden bringing healthy competition to Ducks’ WR room

With Tez Johnson and Traeshon Holden now fighting for targets in the WR room, Bo Nix knows that the end result will be everyone getting better.

One of the several areas on the Oregon Ducks’ 2023 roster that can stand to add a couple of pieces going forward is the wide receiver position. After losing a handful of players over the last two years, Dan Lanning and Co. have done a nice, job of adding some talented players, but they still have room to grow, especially when it comes to depth.

This offseason, both Traeshon Holden and Tez Johnson were added to the roster. Each presents a different skill set — Holden is more of a big-bodied, physical receiver, while Johnson’s slight frame allows him unique speed and agility in open space — but both can provide major upsides for the Oregon offense.

The one potential downside of bringing in the new guys is current players feeling slighted by the additions.

It’s not a uniquely human experience. At some point in all of our lives, we have likely been worried about being replaced and cast to the side, be it by a friend or in a job situation. With the Ducks’ WR room, that’s always something that you at least have to be aware of. On Saturday afternoon, quarterback Bo Nix talked about the reality of more mouths to feed leading to increased competition among pass-catchers.

“The first thing I did was called Troy Franklin, Kris, and those guys to make sure ‘Hey, like we’re trying to provide competition in the room, we’re trying to provide explosive playmakers,'” Nix said on Saturday after practice. “And the thing is, if you talked to a guy like Troy or Kris, they love that and they don’t shy away from it.”

While the increased competition could mean less of a target share for these players down the road, it’s also likely to bring out the best in them going forward. With more talent to compete with, they will have to rise up to prove good enough to deserve the opportunity. “Iron sharpens iron,” has head coach Dan Lanning often says, and the Ducks are carrying that mentality into spring ball with gusto.

“I think it’s made Kris better. It’s made Troy better. It’s made everybody in that room better,” Nix said. “When they’re getting better, we’re all getting better, I’m getting better, the offense is getting better.”

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Dan Lanning isn’t concerned about relative lack of depth at WR position

Oregon has a lot of quality inside the receivers room, but not a lot of quantity, Lanning isn’t too concerned with reinforcements coming.

The Oregon Ducks football team has more quarterbacks in the system than experienced wide receivers at this moment of spring practice. After losing players like Chase Cota and Dont’e Thornton, Oregon only returns Troy Franklin and Kris Hutson as proven difference makers.

They also brought in Traeshon Holden and Tez Johnson through the transfer portal, and have a couple of young and talented players like Kyler Kasper and Ashton Cozart, but when it comes to established players, the Ducks are a bit thin at WR.

Those kinds of numbers would be worrisome for most coaches. Apparently, Ducks coach Dan Lanning isn’t among those concerned.

“I don’t think that’s as big of a piece for us. There were times we were operating with less last year,” he said. “So it’s more about quality than it is necessarily quantity. We have good ones there and we have more coming in as well this summer, so it’ll be different once we get to the (regular) season.”

If it’s quality in receivers you’re looking for, Eugene is definitely the place to be. With Franklin, Hutson, and incoming transfers Johnson and Holden, most teams would be happy to have that those three at the top of the depth chart.

Franklin burst onto the scene last year as a sophomore with career highs in receptions (61), yards (891), and touchdowns (9). He was also a second-team All-Conference performer and was a go-to guy for quarterback Bo Nix. That shouldn’t change in 2023.

Hutson also had a nice sophomore season with 44 catches for 472 yards. Although he didn’t find the end zone in 2022, he came up with for than a few catches that resulted in important first downs that kept scoring drives alive.

Although Johnson is new to the program, he has a lot of experience coming from Troy. The junior already has 36 games under his belt and has caught 141 passes for 8 touchdowns.

Holden had quite the adventurous off-season with a dustup with the law, was dismissed from the team, had the charges dropped and he’s a Duck once again. Hopefully, with that behind him, Holden should be a nice piece to the offensive puzzle for the Ducks. In his 26-game career at Alabama, Holden has 46 catches, 570 yards, and seven touchdowns with six of those scores coming last season.

Those reinforcements Lanning was referring to would be those incoming freshmen that will arrive over the summer, such as 6-foot-3 Jurrion Dickey who many consider one of the top recruits in the country. Dickey finished his prep career with 140 receptions, 2,537 receiving yards and 42 total touchdowns and has the talent to make an immediate impact in 2023.

Other than receivers, Oregon has plenty of tight ends and running backs capable of catching passes out of the backfield.

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