Many fans of the Oregon Ducks football team looked ahead at the upcoming 2021 season and saw it as a chance to start the Ty Thompson era in Eugene, ready to marvel at the first five-star quarterback recruit in school history.
However, with 10 spring practices now in the book, it appears that there is a different plan for Mario Cristobal and his team, who has put graduate senior QB Anthony Brown under center with the first-team offense for every rep so far.
“Anthony has earned the reps that he has gotten,” Cristobal told reporters Thursday. “We don’t sense any entitlement from him. Instead what you see is a guy who has really taken ownership and has a lot of pride in what he does. He’s a guy who you can coach hard and who responds to that. He’s a guy who’s also grooming the younger guys knowing that they’re going to thrust into a situation where they compete for reps.”
Brown came to Oregon last season with hopes of being the starter and boosting his draft stock before the end of his collegiate career, but his coming-out party was delayed thanks to Tyler Shough, who got the starting reps until late in the season. However, by the end of the year, it became clear that Brown was the more talented option, and he took the reigns, though coaches still deployed a split-rep system between the two.
Now that he is set in a clear-cut competition again, Brown doesn’t intend on giving up his spot at the top.
“For him to get the reps that he’s had and to respond and have the success that he’s had, every day he gains more and more trust from the players and the coaching staff,” Cristobal said. “With that being said, the other quarterbacks are gaining a lot of trust as well.”
So will things change over the course of the summer as we inch closer to fall camp and real games being played? It would be irresponsible to say no, especially with the talent that we know is possessed by Thompson. But at this point, it seems like the QB1 job is Brown’s to lose, and he doesn’t seem very intent on losing it.
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