There are 21 million reasons why Marcus Mariota won’t be around to trigger the Oregon offense next fall, but whoever wins the job will still have Royce Freeman to toss the ball to in the flat. A lot of smart decisions, like this one, will be relatively automatic (Scott Olmos-USA TODAY Sports photo.)
From the Oregon game notes comes this startling fact: 24 of the Ducks 56 touchdowns have been scored by freshmen. Royce Freeman has 13, Devon Allen 6, Darren Carrington 1, Charles Nelson 3, Kani Benoit 1.
Sophomores Dwayne Stanford and Thomas Tyner have four each as well. At Oregon, youth serves, and gets the horn section and the drums to their feet with regularity.
Next year there will be some dropoff at the quarterback position. In addition to being the only quarterback in captivity faster than the cheetah-fast Devon Allen, the NCAA and national 110 meter hurdles champion, Mariota completes 76% of his passes against the blitz.
No amount of tutoring and watching the master at his work can ready a new starter to duplicate that, not merely the Flyin’ Hawaiian’s speed and escapability, but the efficiency of his brain: he processes the Oregon offense and sifts through its options like some as-yet-uncreated I-Phone 12, mentally swiping through coverages and responses like pages and pages of future Facebook banality. Mariota instantly recognizes what’s happening, what the defense is about to do, and what his players should be doing six seconds from now.
Scott Frost observed this week that the majority of his current triggerman’s infrequent interceptions happen when Mariota sees something the receiver doesn’t–his mind extends out the route and he throws where his receiver ought to be. Larry Bird used to do that, or Wayne Gretzky. A handful of great athletes across disciplines have that knack to see things unfolding and anticipate what should happen next at game speed, like Derek Jeter’s famous cut off and flip to home plate in the 2001 American League Division Series.
All of the sudden they’re just there, with the ball or the puck, in the perfect place, and it takes slow motion and a telestrator for fans to see how brilliant it was. It’s the ultimate source of Mariota’s success as a pro. He won’t be able to run circles around agile NFL linebackers and defensive tackles, but his ability to process the game will get his team in good situations and favorable matchups, even though in the early years, with a bad team and a bad offensive line, there will be shell-shock and a period of adjustment.
But what about the Ducks? At the beginning of the year and especially when the team faltered against Washington State and Arizona Oregon looked like a team headed for a future of 7-5 and 8-4, and maybe even a present. Then Jake Fisher got healthy and the offense found its balance and cohesion, and the Ducks reeled off a four-game winning streak, mowing down opponents like hapless video game monsters, 42-30, 45-20, 59-41, 45-16, scores that jump off the web page in the Sunday morning summaries. The Quack Attack has stormed the PAC-12 since their one hiccup, once again the relentless offensive machine that Kelly built with Helfrich tweaking the margins.
While it’s true the offense thrived with Jeremiah Masoli and Darron Thomas running the show, that was a different and simpler time. Spread football was new and opponents hadn’t adapted to the dizzying pace. Sometimes defenses got so confused, tired and frustrated they could barely get in their stance at the end of drives, helpless and defeated as LaMichael James and Kenjon Barner danced into the end zone. Now opponents see the spread nearly every week, at least a version of it, and the tempo has become the new normal in college football and at practice.
In 2009 Chip Kelly took over in a PAC-12 ripe for plunder and exploitation, with USC reeling from sanctions and half the conference sagging after bad coaching hires. Since then Larry Scott signed a landmark television deal that pays every member school $23 million a year, money they used to hire $3 million dollar coaches and build practice palaces and space age weight rooms. NASA doesn’t have these kinds of resources. At Washington State they gave Martin Stadium and the football operations center a $138 million face lift. Five years after Kelly, the conference coaching fraternity is the Delta House toga party of awesome, with resumes that would have allowed the Germans to win at Pearl Harbor.
Five years after Chip Kelly started the reign of offensive shock and awe, it’s harder to win in this league, and even harder to dominate. What the Ducks once did with innovation and uniqueness, they’ll have to do with talent and a tradition of excellence. Mariota will be gone next year (in all likelihood; his work is done at the college level) but Royce Freeman will be a sophomore and Thomas Tyner a junior. It doesn’t take a genius to hand them the ball. The new quarterback will have Allen, Carrington, Stanford, Marshall and maybe Brown to make him look brilliant, and two high school All-Americans, Jalen Brown and Alex Ofodile, are poised to join the Greatest Show on Field Turf.
The Ducks have built a style and a brand that appeals to the smart, fast and ambitious. Oregon’s 2015 recruiting class already includes the #1 and #19 all-purpose backs in the country in Taj Griffin and Malik Lovette, a four-star quarterback in Travis Waller, Ofodile, and another prolific tight end in Jake Breeland of Trabuco Hills, California who makes a Friday night habit of hauling in 57 and 60-yard touchdowns at 6-5, 205.
Already the Ducks have landed impact recruits for the 2016 class. Tennessee receiver Dillon Mitchell and Woodbury, Minnesota quarterback Seth Green have verbally committed, both four star talents. Brady Breeze, a 6-1, 200-pound safety from Central Catholic who happens to be the nephew of Chad Cota, will also be a Duck. In the bad old days, Oregon would barely have three commits for the current class at this point in the season, and now elite players are lining up for UO offers, even lobbying for them.
Next year’s team gets an infusion of new/old leadership when Bralon Addison and Tyler Johnstone return to the lineup.
Through spring ball and the first three weeks of fall camp there will be a quarterback competition to replace Mariota, and coaches will stress to the new guy that he doesn’t have to be Marcus, because he can’t be. Neither Jeff Lockie, Waller or Morgan Mahalak have Mariota’s unreal speed or experience, but they can be capably taught to distribute the ball in a loaded offense. The battle to succeed the Ducks’ Mount Rushmore quarterback will be a classic confrontation of steady veteran with three years in the program versus the talented and untested. At Oregon, talent usually wins. There’s no seniority system, just a devotion to results and ability.
Whoever wins won’t be the running threat that Super Mario is, and he won’t have number 8’s unreal ability to salvage plays when surrounded. He’ll have to rely more on the weapons around him. Fortunately there are a lot of weapons, starting with Freeman and Tyner getting the ball 30 times a game, running and receiving. Simple throws, uncomplicated reads.
When Oregon takes the field against Eastern Washington next September 5th, Morgan Mahalak will be running the first team offense. He wears number 16. He has the arm and the footwork to be a very good college quarterback, the stature and the fundamentals to handle the job. He can spin the rock. He’ll have to grow into the leadership aspect of it, but with Addison, Freeman, Tyner, Cameron Hunt, Johnstone, Tyrell Crosby, Doug Brenner and Jake Pisarcik lining up around him and that stable of receivers to throw to, the offense will continue to be prolific. He can trust them to do their jobs while he figures it out.
At 6-2, 200 Lockie is a career backup, a very capable, steadying veteran presence, but not the quarterback of the future. Mahalak and Waller have star quality, and so does Green. Lockie has been flawless in his brief appearances this year, completing 85% of his passes in stints against South Dakota and Wyoming, but he won’t hold off Mahalak over the spring and summer. He’s Oregon’s next 3-year starter at quarterback.