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The Eugene native, a star baseball player, decided to walk-on to the Ducks football team, becoming a star on the gridiron as well. After being drafted by the Houston Astros, he decided to return to UO for one more year, to focus solely on football.
I’ve written a few of these introductory columns over the years — joining The Athletic, launching The I-5 Corridor. Now, with University of Oregon football about two weeks from kickoff, I’ve joined Lookout Eugene-Springfield as its new Ducks correspondent.
These intros can be self-indulgent, a little dry and, frankly, boring. I came here to tell stories. You’re here to read stories. And with the season close, there’s ground to make up. We can catch up on the details later.
So let’s begin with the very-not-boring Bryce Boettcher and see if we can stick the landing.
The South Eugene High School alum was one of the Ducks’ three player representatives at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas last month, with a story that writes itself. He’s a former walk-on who came to Oregon on a baseball scholarship, who is returning for his senior season, having already been drafted in the 13th round by the Houston Astros. But now, he’s focusing only on football.
Why give up the sport you’ve already proven yourself in? Why risk something you’ve spent years chasing?
It’s pretty simple, Boettcher told me: He saw an opportunity and is going all in.
“I still want to play baseball. I’m not giving that up whatsoever. But just at this moment, I’m giving everything I have to football,” Boettcher said. “It’s always evolved depending on what’s going on in my life.”
Life now, at 23, is a bit different than when he arrived on campus as a 190-pound center fielder.
He’d succeeded at baseball: In four years with the Ducks, Boettcher played 188 games and, as a senior in 2024, became Oregon’s fifth Gold Glove recipient ever. His defense, speed and emerging power profile made him an attractive pro prospect.
The Houston Astros agreed and on July 16, 2024, took Boettcher as the 403rd pick of the Major League Baseball Draft. For Boettcher, it was a lifelong dream realized.
But there was a memory he couldn’t shake — from two years earlier, after his freshman baseball season, when he walked on to the football team. He was small for a linebacker, joining a roster led by a new coach, and figured there was no way his three-star high school defensive-back résumé would hold up against a locker room full of four- and five-stars.
Then he put the pads on.
“At first I was like, ‘I definitely don’t belong here,’” Boettcher said. “But once I walked out, the instincts started coming back, and it was like, ‘Oh, I can freaking play here.’”
The coaches didn’t know they had a star, but they knew they had something.
“I knew from day one — no, that’s a complete lie,” defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi said. “The A-to-B explosive, aggressive physicality was very apparent. The issue on day one was that you could step right and he might go out through the tunnel, back to the baseball field by accident. But he came in routinely and asked, ‘What do I need to get better at? What do I need to fix?’
“You talk about the epitome of a guy who’s gonna attack the process — he came in with a different mentality.”
Boettcher played sparingly in 2022. The next year, he became the first walk-on to start for Oregon since 2017. In 2024, the pendulum swung. Boettcher the football player became more known in Eugene than Boettcher the baseball player. He would win the Burlsworth Trophy as the nation’s most outstanding player who began his career as a walk-on.
Few moments in 2024 topped him running out of the Autzen tunnel with a baseball bat, before recording 11 tackles, two tackles for loss, and a sack in a 49-21 win over Washington.
“What I love about football is, I feel like whatever you put into the game is what you’re going to get out of it,” he said. “If you run to the ball, if you give more effort, you’re going to succeed. With baseball, sometimes, the harder you try, the worse you play.”
For most of his athletic life, Boettcher leaned on variety. In high school, basketball gave him a break from football. Baseball gave him a break from basketball. Football cleared the slate again.
“Burnout is a real thing, man,” Boettcher said. “If you do the same thing every single day for 365 days, your work is not going to be as good as it once was.”
By avoiding burnout, Boettcher was ready when the opportunity came to go all in. He announced in January he’d return in 2025 for an only-football season after the NCAA approved his waiver for another year. Now at 232 pounds, the senior — on the Bednarik and Butkus Award watch lists and on Pro Football Focus’ Preseason All-Big Ten team — doesn’t just look like a football player; he’s known as one.
He still thinks he’ll play baseball someday. He raves about how the ball sounds off the bat with his added muscle. But the chance to play football, with this team, in his town, is too compelling to pass up.
“I stuck with it,” he said. “When this football opportunity came my way, I made the most of it.”
There aren’t many things in my life that I can relate to Boettcher’s. I write. He hits. I ask. He answers. But after the last four years running The I-5 Corridor, I can relate a little.
I started The Corridor to diversify. I needed time to write about soccer and curling and Wiffle ball and baseball and high school sports and, yes, still plenty of football up and down I-5.
That time made my writing better. It also made me appreciate how special covering the Ducks with the full force of a company behind you can be.
I’ve seen the coolest things covering this program.
I saw Dillon Brooks beat UCLA at the buzzer 10 years after Aaron Brooks did the same. I saw Batman crowd-surf through 40,000 people after Oregon beat Ohio State. I saw CJ Verdell slice through Washington and disappear into the end zone. I saw Sabrina Ionescu hit parking-lot threes, Devon Allen hurdle through the end zone and Payton Pritchard evict the Huskies from Alaska Airlines Arena.
(I also saw the Redbox Bowl — not every day is the dream.)
I’m not young in this business. I’m not that old, either. But I’ve seen enough to know the moments that happen here rival those at any university in the country.
I’ve also seen enough to know moments like the one I’ve been given don’t come around often. Lookout Eugene-Springfield is investing in covering Oregon athletics at a time when the university’s profile couldn’t be higher. They want to tell rich, detailed stories about the people who matter in this community. They want to do it right.
And that’s why, like Boettcher, I’m all in.
