Tag: Tysheem Johnson

Report: Oregon is a leading candidate for Texas A&M transfer safety Jacoby Mathews

A safety transfer for Oregon? It’s looking like the Ducks might be in the market.

At 12:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 16th, the spring transfer portal window opened, which means madness across the college football world is about to ensue. For the Oregon Ducks, there are already some storylines to follow. First, Andrew Paul — a Georgia Bulldogs running back — hit the portal, and the Ducks are on the early shortlist of candidates to bring him in.

But, perhaps even more intriguing is Jacoby Mathews, a former Texas A&M safety who told Steve Wiltfong of On3Sports that he is considering Oregon and Florida State as his next schools.

Mathews is a junior safety from Ponchatoula, Louisana. During his high school recruitment, Mathews was initially committed to LSU before he flipped to Texas A&M. In two seasons with the Aggies, Mathews tallied 66 total tackles, 5 pass breakups, and an interception. 42 of those tackles and the interception came in 2023, Mathews’ sophomore season.

Mathews is a hybrid safety, who seems to feel equally comfortable against the run and the pass. Mathews is at his best in coverage and when pursuing ball carriers, using his speed and quickness to track the ball and track his opponents to prevent big gains.

At safety in 2024, Oregon is returning senior Tysheem Johnson, a hard-hitter who’s decent in coverage, and bringing in senior Kobe Savage, a ball hawk with some speed from Kansas State. The rest of the Ducks safety room is quite young, so the addition of Mathews would add valuable experience to the Oregon secondary next season and beyond.

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5-star safety Trey McNutt names Oregon as a top school

The Ducks are in a good spot when it comes to the recruitment of 5-star S Trey McNutt.

With recruiting season starting to pick up, Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks are making some big swings. On Monday, Hayes Fawcett of On3 Sports announced that the best safety in the class of 2025, Trey McNutt, is down to eight schools, one of which is Oregon.

On3 Sports ranks McNutt as a 5-star recruit and 247 Sports rates him as a 4-star, but both agree that he is the top safety recruit in his class. At 6’0″ and 180 lbs., McNutt has a mix of strength and explosive speed that could make him a great free-roaming safety wherever he ends up.

The other thing that stands out on McNutt’s tape is his ability to read the defense and get downhill at the ball carrier. Whether it’s a run or a pass, McNutt always seems ready to lay a big hit.

McNutt hails from Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb outside of Cleveland. The Ohio State Buckeyes are another team in McNutt’s top eight, and as his home school, they’ll probably be the team to beat to land the star safety prospect. Some of his other top schools include the Georgia Bulldogs, the Michigan Wolverines, and the USC Trojans.

Safety will be an important position for Oregon to recruit in the class of 2025 since both of the Ducks’ top guys (Tysheem Johnson and Kobe Savage) will graduate after the 2024 season, leaving holes at the back of the secondary. Oregon has talented safeties already on the roster that can hopefully fill those spots, but adding a guy like McNutt would solidify Oregon’s depth immediately.

Bo Nix, Tysheem Johnson named as the Pac-12 Players of the Week

The Pac-12 honored Bo Nix and Tysheem Johnson with Players of the Week award after the 35-6 win at Utah.

For just the second time all season, one school was able to win the Pac-12 Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week at the same time as Oregon’s Bo Nix and Tysheem Johnson were so honored.

It happened in the opening week when Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter both won the award.

Nix and Johnson led the Ducks to the 35-6 road win over Utah. Nix was 24-of-31 passing for 248 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for another score. Johnson intercepted two passes as he led a defense that held Utah out of the end zone for the first time since 2018.

Nix is the first player to win this award multiple times this season and he also won three times last season. His fifth Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week award matches him with Marcus Mariota for the most by any Oregon player.

Punter Ross James was nominated for the special teams award by averaging 50 yards in his five punts and center Jackson Powers-Johnson was also nominated for offensive lineman of the week.

Stock Report: No. 8 Ducks see nothing but risers in demolition over No. 13 Utah

Stock Report: No. 8 Ducks see nothing but risers in demolition over No. 13 Utah

Over the past day, I’ve tried several times to accurately depict what the No. 8 Oregon Ducks did to the No. 13 Utah Utes in their home stadium on Saturday afternoon, but nothing will ever be as accurate or eye-opening as the way that Utah coach Kyle Whittingham described it after the game.

“That’s as thoroughly and as soundly as we’ve been beaten in a long time, particularly at home,” Whittingham said. “Give Oregon credit, they are a complete football team just like I’ve been saying all week long.”

Utah is not a team that loses at home, especially like that. Going into Saturday, the Utes had won 18 straight games in Rice Eccles Stadium, and lost just one of their last 30 games playing in Salt Lake City. Then Dan Lanning and the Ducks rolled to town and stomped them, putting up 35 points on a defense that is regarded as one of the best in the country, while holding the Utes out of the endzone entirely.

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35-6 was the final score, though Whittingham thinks even that is underselling the Oregon dominance.

“The score wasn’t indicative – the game was a mismatch. It was worse than what the score indicated.”

When you get a game as lopsided as this, it becomes hard to nitpick. In this stock report exercise that we do each and every week, I comb through the stats and try to highlight who improved the most, and who has some room to grow going forward.

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We’re going to see nothing but highlights today. In the first complete game of Oregon’s season, I’m not going to bother trying to find the minute places where things can get better — that’s for the coaches to do. Instead, here are your biggest stock risers after a dominating performance from the Ducks.

Ducks Wire Player of the Game: Tysheem Johnson snags 2 interceptions in blowout win

Ducks Wire Player of the Game: Tysheem Johnson snags 2 interceptions in blowout win

For the first time in nearly three years, the Utah Utes have fallen in Rice-Eccles Stadium, and they fell to the Oregon Ducks. Going in, I expected this game to be tight, but the Oregon Ducks were in total control from the jump.

One of the biggest keys for Oregon was winning the turnover battle. Bucky Irving lost a fumble early in the game, but thanks to two impressive interceptions from free safety Tysheem Johnson, the Ducks shut down the Utes’ offense and won the turnover battle.

While the Oregon offense was impressive today, the story was the Ducks’ defense keeping the Utes out of the end zone. Johnson’s interceptions were a large part of that effort, and they came at big times in the game. His first came in the second quarter, which swung the momentum in favor of the Ducks and led to a Troy Franklin touchdown drive.

Johnson’s second INT came directly after a trick play kick return that took Utah’s offense close to midfield. On the first play of the drive, Bryson Barnes was pressured heavily and after throwing off of his back foot, Johnson laid out and took the pass from the receiver’s hands, snuffing any chance Utah had to come back in this game.

In addition to his two takeaways, Johnson had two tackles. His efforts, along with the rest of the Ducks’ defense, propelled Oregon to a 35-6 win and to 7-1 on the season, which makes him the Week 9 Ducks Wire Player of the Game.

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10 biggest position battles to watch ahead of Week 1 for Oregon Ducks

Week 1 is fast approaching. These are some position battles that we’re keeping a close eye on over the next week in Eugene.

Fall camp officially ended for the Oregon Ducks on Wednesday afternoon, wrapped up with a media availability for both head coach Dan Lanning and quarterback Bo Nix.

While the past several weeks have been filled with schematic install and getting the players into football shape, the next few days will mainly consist of figuring out the final spots on the depth chart, and working towards the Week 1 clash with Portland State.

For the most part, the Ducks should feel pretty good about where they stand when it comes to the depth chart. Some of their top positions — quarterback, running back, tight end, defensive line — have established starters returning for another year, so there isn’t a lot of skepticism about who is starting where. At other spots on the roster, though, we can’t say the say.

Earlier this week, we gave our final depth chart projection going into the last week of fall camp. Over the next several days, though, these position groups need to be figured out.

Here are some of the biggest position battles to watch play out over the next week for the Ducks:

Meet the new Ducks: What UO transfers want Oregon fans to know about them

“Hard-working, dedicated, unselfish.” We asked Oregon’s incoming transfers what they want Duck fans to know about them. The answers didn’t disappoint.

The 2023 college football season unofficially kicked off on Monday afternoon for the Oregon Ducks with the annual media day taking place inside the club level at Autzen Stadium.

There, media members had a chance to sit down and talk to more than 40 of the players on the team and get their perspectives going into the new season. It offered an opportunity to talk to a handful of new players on the team for the first time.

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That’s what I was focused on. With more than 50 players on the roster wearing the green and yellow for the first time, I wanted to find out what Oregon fans who knew nothing about these players should know about them.

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What better source than the players themselves? I asked the incoming transfers — all but two of them I could get to due to interview scheduling — what they wanted Duck fans to know about them and who they are going into the season.

These are the answers I got.

Spring Ball Takeaways: Ducks get back to work in wet Eugene weather

Six new players joined the Ducks on Tuesday, and we got to see some pads popping as Oregon resumed spring ball.

The Oregon Ducks returned to spring football practice after a two-week break on Tuesday morning in a wet and cold Eugene rain at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex. While the weather was drear, the energy was high for a team that got a taste of football once again back in March and has had a couple of weeks to get ready to attack success once again.

With a few new faces on the roster after the break — notably including Ole Miss safety transfer Tysheem Johnson — we got a good look at what this team will take into the spring game at the end of April as far as a roster standpoint.

As always, media members were allowed to watch in for the first 15-20 minutes of practice, which included stretching, special teams, and some individual work. Here are some of the biggest takeaways as we got back into it.

Several new Ducks join Oregon roster for remainder of spring season

There are a handful of new faces on the Ducks’ roster that joined the team over spring break.

Back in March, we got a good look at which new players, be it transfers or incoming freshmen, would be joining the Oregon Ducks for the spring football season and working with the team leading up to the spring game. We got ideas on positions and found out what numbers everyone would be wearing. It wasn’t the entire 2023 new-player crop, but over half of the new additions were on the ground in Eugene.

After a two-week break for finals and spring break, the Ducks now have more new players with them as they resume practices on Tuesday, growing the roster even more. This won’t be the last time the roster changes, either, though we may be able to feel comfortable with this group of guys until after the spring game. Once May comes around, the transfer portal will open back up, and there are a handful of guys that will surely come and go during that period.

For now, though, here are the newest Ducks to land in Eugene and join the team:

Where Oregon stands in 2023 transfer portal rankings after most recent additions

The Ducks have added a handful of potential starters to the roster via the transfer portal this offseason. Where do they stand in the national transfer rankings?

The Oregon Ducks have fared very well when it comes to talent acquisition under Dan Lanning and his coaching staff. Whether it be in the world of high school recruiting or getting players to join your team out of the transfer portal, it’s clear that there is an endless list of players who want to come to Eugene and hit the field.

While the Ducks made a big splash in the recruiting world during the early signing period, landing a pair of five stars and over two dozen other players, they’ve really done an incredible job when it comes to adding experienced players out of the portal, many of whom will likely compete for a starting spot on the roster from day one.

Most recently, we’ve seen guys like Jordan Burch, Evan Williams, and Tysheem Johnson commit to the Ducks, with a handful of other guys announcing their commitments back in December.

While there are still plenty of transfers to come, let’s take a moment now to see where the Ducks rank in the national transfer portal rankings for the 2023 off-season.