Tag: Traeshon Holden

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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Oregon Spring Ball Position Battles: WR room should be main attraction

There’s a ton of talent at the WR position in Eugene. Watching players jockey for position on the depth chart this spring will be fun.

For many reasons, the 2022 season felt like a breath of fresh air for Oregon Duck fans, offensively speaking at the very least.

After a few years of gritting through the vanilla offensive scheme that came with Mario Cristobal and his tenure in Eugene, Duck fans were treated to a new system, headed up by Kenny Dillingham. This hurry-up, no-huddle (HUNH) system threw a litany of new elements at the Ducks, including a few things that we hadn’t seen for quite some time in Eugene, like QB snaps from under center, and the reintroduction of the deep ball.

It’s that latter half of the equation that really got fans buzzing inside Autzen Stadium.

With deep passing back in the mix, the Ducks saw a resurgence at the wide receiver position. No longer were wideouts confined to catching short screens or 5-yard curls over the middle, but they could open up and run, trying to get behind the defense and take the top off. This gave us the emergence of Troy Franklin, who quickly became the team’s top receiver, and one of the best receivers in the Pac-12.

While we don’t expect that to change in 2023, what will be interesting to see is who steps up alongside Franklin. Chase Cota was a solid piece last year, but he graduated this off-season. Dont’e Thornton had his moments, but a transfer to Tennessee after the season left his spot on the depth chart vacant. Kris Hutson is still on the team, and he likely has a leg up when it comes to divvying up target shares. However, there is a lot of new competition that he will have to hold off.

The Ducks were active in the transfer portal at the WR position this offseason, adding proven players like Traeshon Holden and Tez Johnson to the mix. They also have a handful of incredibly talented, but unproven players who came to Eugene over the past 2 seasons as recruits. Guys like Kyler Kasper, Justius Lowe, and Ashton Cozart will all vie for targets this spring, while 5-star WR Jurrion Dickey will work to state his case for playing time when he arrives in Eugene this summer.

As we start to dive into Oregon spring football and look at some of the biggest questions to answer, and position battles to watch, we wanted to begin with the wide receiver position. It’s shaping up to be among the most entertaining battles in Eugene, and watching players jockey for position on that depth chart going into the spring game is going to draw a lot of attention.

Here’s our case for each player to earn a portion of the target share, and where I think they end up after spring ball concludes.

Oregon WR Traeshon Holden reveals jersey number with Ducks

Traeshon Holden has announced his jersey number for the upcoming season in Eugene.

There has been a lot of news surrounding Oregon Ducks wide receiver Traeshon Holden over the past couple of weeks, but the most recent one is a light-hearted development that should get fans excited for what’s to come.

On Tuesday, Holden revealed on social media that he will be wearing the No. 5 jersey during his time in Eugene.

This a change of pace for Holden, who wore No. 11 with the Alabama Crimson Tide before entering the transfer portal and coming out to Oregon earlier this off-season. The No. 5 opened up on offense for the Ducks this off-season with the departure of RB Sean Dollars, who ended up transferring to the Nevada Wolfpack.

Dollars has worn No. 5 for the Ducks for the past several years, but before him, it was worn by Taj Griffin.

As we get closer to spring ball in a couple of weeks, we will start to find out more jersey numbers for new players as they get announced.

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WR Traeshon Holden reinstated at Oregon after arrest charges dropped

Wide receiver Traeshon Holden has been reinstated at Oregon after all charges were dropped against the Alabama transfer.

The last week or so has been a whirlwind for Oregon Ducks wide receiver Traeshon Holden, but in the end, it ended in a positive place.

After Holden was arrested on multiple charges last week, including Unlawful Possession of a Weapon, Menacing, and Coercion, he was quickly dismissed from the team, according to a statement from head coach Dan Lanning. However, the Eugene District Attorney later dropped all charges after reviewing EPD body camera footage and interviewing witnesses to the incident.

On Friday, it was announced that Holden would be reinstated to the team.

“Following the release of new information from the Lane County District Attorney’s office, student-athlete Traeshon Holden has been reinstated to the Oregon football team,” Dan Lanning said in a statement. “We will always take allegations of this nature very seriously. However, when new information is provided by authorities, such as in this instance, disciplinary action will be reevaluated and adjusted, when appropriate.”

Holden has yet to play a game for the Ducks after coming to Eugene via the transfer portal from the Alabama Crimson Tide. In three years with Alabama, Holden played in 21 games, racking up 46 catches for 570 yards and 7 touchdowns. The loss would have been significant for Oregon, since Holden was one of only three receivers on the roster with established production at the college level. The Alabama transfer was projected by many to take over the starting role at the Z receiver position, replacing Chase Cota, who graduated this offseason.

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