A lot of time during the offseason is spent with fans and media members looking at the current players on a roster and trying to figure out who is going to be the most important going forward. Here at Ducks Wire, we recently dove deep into the incoming transfers and tried to predict which players were going to have the biggest impact right away in Eugene.
While a lot of the focus goes into trying to see how good the new players, both transfers and recruits, will be in their first year with the team, we often overlook which current players on the roster may be poised to make the biggest leap.
I’m talking about the guys who were already good and performing well, that might have a chance to leap into stardom going forward, becoming nationally relevant.
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I had Oregon legend Joey Harrington on the ‘Sco-ing Long’ podcast this week, and I asked him to identify one person that he thought was poised to take that step to the next level this year for the Ducks.
His answer? Wide receiver Troy Franklin.
“I know that’s not really out of left field, it’s almost like ‘yea, of course,’ but the flashes that he showed last year, it almost reminds me of Dillon Mitchell,” Harrington said. “Is Kris Hutson capable? Yeah, sure. Ferguson? Absolutely. But neither one of them has shown the explosiveness that Troy Franklin did. I’m thinking of the two running backs. You know, they’re going to be really good. They’re again going to be really good football players. But I think if you’re talking about somebody who can make the leap from being, ‘hey, he was really good,’ to being ‘okay, that guy’s in the discussion for the Belitnikoff Award.’ Like, that’s the type of guy that Troy Franklin could be.”
Going into his junior season, Franklin is absolutely poised to be the Ducks’ leading receiver for the second-straight season. He closed out his 2022 campaign with 61 catches for 891 yards and 9 touchdowns, and he has been ranked by 247Sports as one of the best-returning WRs in the nation for 2023.
While there is a lot of receiver talent on Oregon’s roster, nobody is as proven as Franklin when it comes to consistency or big-play ability. With QB Bo Nix returning for another season, there are expectations that the Ducks’ offense is going to be elite in the Pac-12.
If that’s going to happen, expect Franklin to be at the center of it.
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