The forecast is sunny for Oregon’s first football game at Autzen Stadium on Saturday, but Thursday’s walkthrough practice left players and coaches drenched from the Eugene downpour. Head coach Mark Helfrich said Thursday was all about communication and mindset.
“Everything [was] walkthrough,” Helfrich said. “This is our no sweat day. Got everything we wanted to accomplished from align, assign, communicate. The defense got a little crowd noise work. Happy with our mindset today overall.”
With no practice Friday, Helfrich said the time leading up to the game will be as stress- free as possible, being spent to get game plans coordinated.
“We’ll have some meetings tonight, both positionally and as a team. Tomorrow we’ll do our normal kind of series of meetings. We’ll have the younger guys scrimmage tomorrow, get some true practice work.” Helfrich also spoke about quarterback Marcus Mariota and what he hopes to see from him on Saturday. “We talk about it all the time, get caught in the act of being yourself,” Helfrich said. “I love watching that dude practice, I love watching him play, I love watching him be around our team. It’s a lot of fun to be around that special of a guy and I know he’s ready to roll. Just excited to watch him play.”
Mariota confirmed the excitement, touching on the difference between this year and last season. Last year, Mariota was battling for the starting spot with fellow quarterback Bryan Benett. Now that he knows he’s the starter and has some experience under his belt, he just wants to go play.
“I think I was a lot more nervous last year, a lot more anxious. After that year I feel a lot more comfortable and I’m just really ready to go out there again. I’m really tired of trying to throw on Ifo [Ekpre-Olomu] and T-Mitch. I’m looking forward to playing this Saturday and it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
It’s hard to imagine Oregon’s famously fast paced offense moving any quicker, but junior tight end Colt Lyerla says the Ducks have greatly improved their speed during fall camp.
“Faster. Faster,” Lyerla said when asked how the offense’s speed looked during the past few weeks. “That’s pretty much where we’re at, just faster every day. They gauge that by the amount of plays that are run on the first day of fall camp in 2012 compared to the amount of plays run in 2013, and we’re over 10 percent faster.” Oregon averaged a point scored every 32.9 seconds of possession during the regular season last year, according to ESPN.