Oregon Ducks Selected as One of Country's Biggest Winners From National Signing Day
Things looked bleak for Oregon's 2022 recruiting class in mid-December after Mario Cristobal departed for Miami and left the Ducks coaching staff with scraps. Only a handful of players remained committed while others decided to reopen their recruitment to explore their options.
A month and a half later, the Ducks are being praised as a program that had one of the better finishes to the cycle on National Signing Day. Sports Illustrated named Oregon one of its six winners National Signing Day.
Dan Lanning and his staff proved their recruiting prowess over the last month and showed that the Ducks are still a national powerhouse on the recruiting trail. They managed to pull back some recruits that de-committed from the program in December and even flipped a player from the reigning national champions.
National Signing Day 2022 began with a bang for Oregon, as Georgia verbal commit Jordan James, a running back from Murfreesboro, Tenn., flipped to Oregon after a recent official visit. He had been committed to the Bulldogs since March, but it was his relationship with Lanning and Running Backs Coach Carlos Locklyn that prevailed.
That wasn't the only win for Lanning against an SEC foe, which he knows a lot about after spending the last four years coaching under one of the game's brightest minds in Kirby Smart. The Ducks also brought back former commit and in-state linebacker Emar'rion Winston, who had also been considering Florida. He gives the Ducks their third signee from Oregon and a versatile, agile linebacker that can put his hand in the dirt and rush off the edge.
The third and final addition to the Ducks' class was another familiar name, as offensive lineman Dave Iuli decided to lock in with the Ducks for good. Iuli's commitment was perhaps the sweetest for Oregon on National Signing Day, as he chose the Ducks over Mario Cristobal's Miami Hurricanes and Lincoln Riley's USC Trojans.
In total, the Ducks inked 15 players in their 2022 class, including the seven that signed during the early signing period in December. Despite the heap of de-commitments amid the coaching change, the Ducks still sit at No. 25 in 247 Sports' class rankings, good for No. 3 in the Pac-12 behind Arizona and Stanford.
The early mornings and the late nights for Dan Lanning and his staff have paid off. They came into a program looking to salvage a recruiting class that had been pillaged of most of its elite players, and they managed to do just that, and some might even say a bit more.
Perhaps the most impressive feat is that Oregon was able to bring back players like Iuli, Winston, and Jahlil Florence that had de-committed from the program. Lanning had so much on his plate-- from building his staff to recruiting from the prep ranks and connecting with the current roster, it's no wonder he was living out of a suitcase.
But he and the staff didn't forget about those players that had once committed to Oregon, and it's apparent that he helped them fall in love with the program all over again. After a somewhat unsettling end to the 2021 season, maybe Lanning and his staff can convince the fanbase that Oregon football will not regress in 2022 and beyond thanks to their efforts on the recruiting trail.
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