Oregon Football Still Sorting out Position Battles as Season Approaches
Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal spoke to the media following Tuesday's fully-padded practice and it really seems like camp is starting to ramp up, as the team is set to begin specific preparations for their week 1 opponent, Fresno State, on Wednesday.
Like any team in the country, the Ducks still have questions to sort out--mainly in the form of position battles. Specifically, many people are focused on the quarterback as we await a formal announcement on who will be QB1 against Fresno State.
Now about those position battles.
Cristobal mentioned some of them have been resolved, but he doesn't plan to put that information out there until all the players are on the same page. The head coach did say, however, that some battles that will go into next week and need some extra time to be decided.
“We’ve got an idea now. We just never come out and formally announce it,” Cristobal said. “We believe in being able to sit with players and making sure that they hear from their coaches first and not read it on a blog or a post or something.”
One battle that is still very much up for grabs is at cornerback, where Freshmen corners Trikweze Bridges and Dontae Manning are both pushing each other hard for playing time opposite veteran Mykael Wright. Cristobal reaffirmed his faith in the abilities of both players.
“It’s been a great competition.” he added. “Those guys have been really really good. Right now, if we’re playing today, both those guys are playing."
While that's a main battle to keep an eye on, younger players in the secondary continue to impress and show they're capable of contributing.
"Just feel real good about the way a couple other guys [have played]-- Avante Dickerson really popped today. He made a really big play in one of our good-on-good periods-- One of our more competitive drills, two-minute, playing some fastball, playing some mixed down stuff. He’s just really active around the football and did a nice job.”
While Fresno State is tantalizingly close, a mere 10 days away, Cristobal was cautious to say whether this fall camp has lived up to his expectations of it being the most competitive one thus far in his tenure.
"We’re not done yet. We’ve got to finish it,” Cristobal said. “We need to challenge each other more. There’s no sugar-coating it. When we go, we go hard. It’s the only way to get the best out of our players. They believe in it. They know we’re a full throttle, physical operation. They know it’s been the key to us progressing over the last few years and it’s gonna be critical for us to completely physical, in great shape, understanding our systems top to bottom.
"Again, the competition has done that so far. We are a long ways away from game one. There’s no way we can stop and say ‘we’ve done a great job, let’s pat ourselves on the back for a good camp’. We’re not done yet.”
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