Running Back Jaedon Matthews Discusses Oregon Offer and Latest in Recruitment
In this story:
Jaedon Matthews may be part of the 2024 recruiting class, but he's already on Oregon's radar, with the Ducks recently extending an offer to running back out of Saguaro (Scottsdale, Ariz.) High School.
Matthews is part of a fantastic high school football program, as Saguaro recently landed on the NFL's Play Football top 100 high school teams. The team also features cornerback 2023 Northwestern commit Cole Shivers.
Ducks Digest recently sat down with Saguaro sophomore to get the latest on what the offer means for his recruitment.
Matthews has been a fan of Oregon for a long time, dating back to the Chip Kelly era.
“Oregon is my dream school,” said Matthews. “It's always been a big dream to go there ever since De’Anthony Thomas."
Oregon has shown interest in the 5-foot-10 running back and is just one of a few schools in the mix early. The only other offers on the table are from his home state in Arizona and Arizona State
This isn’t discouraging for Matthews, however, as he knows that people are watching him.
“As a class of 2024, you can’t really talk to many colleges, but I know I’m getting eyes.”
Matthews is hoping to take a trip out to visit the Oregon program as he's heard only good things about the environment.
“I heard the environment over there is really smooth,” he said about the Ducks program. “It's not really awkward or like people put on the front. It's just very open spirited to everybody being themselves.”
Without ever being in Eugene, he's heard positive reviews from Saguaro alums who have Oregon ties; Jaylan Jeffers, who recently transferred to UCLA and Oregon offensive tackle Bram Walden. The two have been solid resources as Matthews begins taking a closer look at Dan Lanning's program.
“Since my freshman year, I just been talking (to them) about how I can get up to Oregon and how I can just work my way up to get to that level," he said. "I've always wanted to go up to Oregon. So they taught me and they told me what to do and how to do it.”
With two years left in high school, he knows that there are still areas of his game that he can improve on before making the leap to the college level.
“Just speed and strength and just more balance between getting out of tackles and just breaking tackles and making myself more unmatched with the defense. Starting to understand the difference so I can make adjustments to see where I'm going and how to break through and understand just the flow of everything so it makes it easier on myself.”
The interest from one of Oregon's latest offers is certainly there, and now the next step becomes getting him on campus for a visit.
Join the Community
Follow Joe on Twitter: @JoeZochert
Subscribe to our FREE newsletter to have the latest Oregon Ducks news sent directly to your inbox