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They’re not all Heisman winners — they’re just very good football players.
I haven’t been able to believe my eyes twice this football season, and for some reason both instances involved GoDucks.com editor-in-chief Rob Moseley.
The first came during Oregon’s win over Michigan State.1 No, it wasn’t Jonathan Smith in a green jacket that shocked me — it was the fact that Oregon, a team that has struggled with its kicking game over the years, drilled a 50-yard field goal.
I’ve never seen that, and in my amazement, I tweeted something about Atticus Sappington becoming the first Oregon kicker since Matt Evenson in 2008 to drill one from 50 or more out.
What a pick-up out of the transfer portal from Oregon State.
What a kick to make against his former coach.
I was already spinning up the story in my head when I felt a tap on the shoulder.
It was Moseley.
“Boyle,” he said.
I was confused.
“Andrew Boyle had the kick.”
Delete.
To be fair, Boyle had yet to attempt a field goal or extra point before his strike gave the Ducks a 24-0 lead with 6:47 to play in the third quarter against the Spartans.
And, well, hand up: I barely knew anything about the guy.
I knew of Sappington — he’s the junior from Central Catholic who led the Pac-12 in field goal percentage at OSU last season. He’s the one the Ducks brought in to replace five-year starter Camden Lewis, a kicker who finished his career as the seventh-most accurate in Oregon history, one who also had some notable misses.
And Sappington is the one who had a bit of a shaky start to his tenure at Oregon, missing a 52-yard try against Idaho and a pair of extra points in games leading up to Michigan State.
Boyle is a senior who missed all of last season with a knee injury. And apparently he’s the leg Lanning likes on big kicks — he sailed another 50-yard attempt against Purdue wide left, then drilled a 44-yarder on Saturday against Illinois.
He’s also the one who smashed the line drive into the Ohio State player’s chest for that successful onside attempt.
“When he’s healthy,” Lanning said, “he can definitely help our team.”
The Oregon Ducks are 8-0 and No. 1 in the country largely thanks to the players we expected would make them 8-0 and No. 1 in the country. Quarterback Dillon Gabriel has played himself back to the front of the Heisman race with the surgical way he operates the Ducks’ offense. Jordan James could reach 1,000 yards this week against Michigan, Tez Johnson is on pace for more than 100 catches and Oregon’s defense has been hounding thanks to the help of five-star talents like Jordan Burch and Matayo Uiagalelei.
But there have also been those, such as Boyle, we weren’t talking about as much at the start of the season who have played an important part in Oregon’s ongoing pursuit of perfection.
Here are a few we’d like to note:
Justius Lowe, Wide Receiver
For a team that had seemingly unquestionable depth at receiver coming into the season, things did get a bit thin there for Oregon. For one, there was the Traeshon Holden ejection and subsequent one-game suspension for the spitting incident. But there have also been injuries to expected contributors such as Gary Bryant Jr. and Kyler Kasper.
And while Oregon has continued to rely on Johnson and Texas A&M transfer Evan Stewart to pace the offense, lately it’s been Portland-born sophomore Justius Lowe making his presence felt. Lowe has four catches for 79 yards in Oregon’s last two games, including Saturday’s 34-yard score against a defense that doesn’t typically give up deep shots.
“When we did have the play call it was, ‘OK, there’s a dude in front of me, I just have to run it by him and the ball is going to come,’” Lowe said. “I did just that and, shoot, I was in the end zone.”
After lining up for just 20 snaps on passing downs during Oregon’s first five games, Lowe has averaged 23 snaps per game since Ohio State.
“I’m just really proud of, more than anything, Justius, when he first got here, he’s dinged up with some injuries, and it kind of limited his ability to be on the field,” Lanning said. “We always felt like if he was a guy that was available, he was going to be a guy that can make an impact. And I think he’s probably had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder, because you realize, ‘Hey, I haven’t been available,’ and he’s playing tough, right? More than anything, I tell you that Justius Lowe’s playing tough football.”
Bryce Boettcher, inside linebacker
Before practice got going this fall, Bryce Boettcher was asked, simply, “Why?”
Why, despite being a draft pick in the sport he wants to play professionally, would he risk his future career in baseball by coming back to play football?
For Boettcher, it was a pretty simple answer.
“I’m from here,” said the South Eugene graduate. “I bleed green and yellow. And obviously I want to play professional baseball, that’s something that’s in my future, but I knew that I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here at Oregon to play football, especially with joining the big ten and the squad we got this year. I was super pumped to be a part of that. Ultimately that’s what came into play. I just wanted to come back and play for my city one more time.”
How’s that going? The centerfielder-by-spring-turned-linebacker-by-fall is leading the Ducks with 46 tackles. The senior has a sack, three pass breakups, an interception and is seemingly in on every tackle on the field.
Boettcher came to Oregon as a walk-on in football and baseball. He’ll leave the school as one of its legends.
“I’d like to smell the roses,” said the 13th-round pick of the Houston Astros, “but I’m always onto the next thing in my life.”
A’lique Terry, Offensive line coach
Oh boy, were people ready to blame this thing on A’lique Terry.
When Oregon allowed more sacks through the first two games of the season than it had in all of 2023, there was a loud faction of Oregon fans ready to start the search for a new offensive line coach while also petitioning the NCAA to get departed Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson the retroactive Heisman.
The line was the bedrock of everything the Ducks did in 2023.
And in 2024, it initially appeared like it would be Ground Zero for what went wrong.
With transfer Matthew Bedford’s injury throwing a spoke into the wheel during training camp, the Ducks spent the first two weeks of the season cycling through offensive line combinations before finally finding something that worked. The grouping of, from left to right, Josh Conerly Jr., Nishad Strother, Iapani Laloulu, Marcus Harper and Ajani Cornelius has been the magic formula for an Oregon offensive line that has allowed two sacks since the Boise State game in Week 2.
Also, remember that shirt Terry wore after the Idaho game at practice, the one that reminded his offensive line of Oregon’s paltry 2.9 yards per carry against Idaho?
Here’s Oregon’s YPC totals since Week 1:
3.03, Boise State
7.50, Oregon State
4.25, UCLA
5.76, Michigan State
5.00, Ohio State
3.74, Purdue
5.87, Illinois
It’s hard to say, but I think we should give Terry at least until the end of the year.
Noah Whittington, Running Back
Lanning had already answered a few questions about Noah Whittington’s performance on Saturday, but the last one was able to get a smile to curl across the coach’s face.
How much do you enjoy seeing a running back truck a dude to finish a play in the end zone?
“Great feeling, isn’t it?” Lanning said. “Yeah, it’s awesome seeing guys play physical. And I think that’s something our team prides itself in and when you the opportunity to run through a man’s face, there’s nothing better than that.”
And there haven’t been a lot of better things this season than seeing Whittington as the one running through said faces. The redshirt junior is a little more than a year removed from an ACL tear that derailed his 2023 season, and while the Ducks have seen the emergence of Jordan James as the team’s No. 1 back, it’s clear Oregon’s attack is better with Whittington healthy and running hard as the team’s No. 2. The 5-foot-8, 200-pounder had 56 yards on seven carries against Illinois, including that 2-yard touchdown seen around the internet.
“I was excited, but I was more like mentally trying to calm myself down because the game wasn’t over,” Whittington said. “There were more plays to be made.”
There certainly are — especially with his ability in the passing game. Whittington has more receptions (14 to 13) and two more receiving touchdowns than James this season.
“Yeah, I mean, this guy does everything right every single day, works his absolute tail off,” Lanning said. “I was really thrilled to see him have some success tonight, and he’ll be the first one to tell you, it starts with the guys up front for him. But he ran hard, right? He created some big plays, had a huge catch, obviously, last week, was able to turn that into some really positive runs this week.”
Dillon Gabriel’s legs
Gabriel’s arm is what gets talked about. The Oregon senior is completing 76 percent of his passes and moved into second place all-time in NCAA career passing yardage on Saturday.
And on the surface, it doesn’t appear that his legs have played as much a role in his success. Gabriel is a one-time 400-yard rusher who ran for 387 yards last season with Oklahoma on 93 carries, but through eight games here in 2024, Gabriel has tallied 97 yards on 36 carries — numbers that keep him well below the totals Bo Nix had in Oregon’s offense in 2022 and 2023.
However, the numbers are slightly misleading. Yes, Gabriel doesn’t run as often as Nix. He’s not built in the same way. But those rushing numbers do include the yardage Gabriel lost to all those sacks earlier in the season. And when he’s needed to use his legs, we’ve seen him rip off scoring runs of 27 yards against Ohio State and 54 yards against Oregon State.
“A lot of people want to see me move to running back,” said Gabriel after that one.
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
The second time came during the Illinois game on Saturday. This time, it was Bill Oram tapping me on the shoulder to tell me to look at the jumbotron, which featured a few people being honored down on the field, along with the caption, “Rob Moseley.” They were definitely not Rob Moseley, and the caption soon disappeared.
But then, suddenly, there was Rob Moseley on the jumbotron being presented as Oregon’s 2024 Order of the O honoree.
Congrats, Rob. Here’s a grainy photo:
