Sports reporters Jack Butler, Gus Morris and Shawn Medow review Oregon’s 49-13 victory over Wyoming. They then preview the Ducks’ upcoming game against Arizona State with analysis, sidebars and predictions.

This episode was produced by Alec Cowan.

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Forward Louis King announced that he would commit to Oregon in a short video released on Twitter on Thursday afternoon. The 6-foot-6 King is a consensus five-star recruit who is also rated as the 21st best basketball player in the class of 2018 by ESPN.

https://twitter.com/SweetLouu2/status/910986816706285568

King averaged 13.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game last season as a junior at Hudson Catholic High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was also a member of USA Basketball’s U-19 team that won bronze at the 2017 U-19 World Cup.

King chose Oregon over Kansas, North Carolina State, Syracuse, UConn, Seton Hall, Purdue and Maryland. He joins four-star recruit Miles Norris in Oregon’s 2018 recruiting class.

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In late August of this year, senior kicker Aidan Schneider, senior long-snapper Tanner Carew and several other members of Oregon’s special teams were lounging around in Oregon’s facilities when an idea popped up.

That idea?

Start an Oregon Specialist’s Twitter account devoted to highlighting what is arguably the most entertaining group of players on the Ducks’ roster.

The group had seen other specialist accounts from other schools — Northern Arizona University, Boise State University, University of Minnesota and University of Michigan all have similar pages — and decided to make their own.

So far, it’s been a hit.

The page has gained 784 followers in the little over a month that it’s existed. The posts, which range from catching special teams coaches sleeping to showcasing their specialist skills, usually garner hundreds of “likes” on Twitter. The account also offers some insight into one of the more undervalued groups on this Ducks’ team — a group that may host some of Oregon’s funniest personalities.

“It’s pretty funny,” senior kick returner and wide receiver Charles Nelson said. “Most people don’t know what [the specialists] do anyway.”

The first mention of the account was back on Aug. 27, but the origins can be traced back to a video that the program released of a mic’d up Schneider from a fall practice. In the two minute-long video, Schneider showed why some of his teammates consider him to be the funniest guy on the team.

“4.40, forty?” punter Blake Maimone asks Schneider in the video, inquiring about his 40-yard dash time.

“4.30,” Schneider quips back. “Give me some credit.”

Later in the video, as Schneider stretches, he points up to the sunny sky and tells long snapper Devin Melendez, “Hey, Devin, you can see the moon.”  

That video amassed 253 “retweets” and 1,030 “likes” on Twitter and catapulted Oregon’s specialists into the spotlight, even if for a short time.

Five days later, the account started.

None of Oregon’s specialists will reveal who started the account, or even who specifically runs it. But apparently, only two people have access to it and content ideas are usually crowdsourced.

“Yeah we all kind of contribute a little bit,” Schneider said. “Everyone kind of comes up with content and we have little powwows in the player’s lounge when we have some off time.”

He added, “We have a lot of fun messing around and joking around all the time and kind of wanted to share that with people.”

That isn’t to say that they don’t take their jobs seriously. According to them, a specialist’s duty comes down to two main things: attention to detail and repetition. If you watch them during practice, you’ll see them working on their techniques over and over again, which is exactly what special teams coordinator Raymond Woodie wants from his unit.

“I mean you tell those guys, ‘This is what the plan is, this is what I want you to do,’ and they go out and do it,” Woodie said. “And then you just leave them alone. You don’t mess with their psyche.”

With Oregon out to a 3-0 start, don’t expect the content to slow down anytime soon; the account also highlights the success of non-specialists.

But if there are any suggestions for content out there, the specialists would love to hear them.

“We’re open to suggestions right now,” Schneider said. “We’re kind of workshopping it. But you’ll definitely see some stuff coming out soon.”

Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris

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On paper, No. 24 Oregon (3-0) is a clear favorite against Arizona State (1-2).  Oregon wields one of the most potent offenses in the country, while the Sun Devils rank near the bottom in most defensive categories. That’s part of the reason why the Ducks are listed as 14-point favorites, according to ESPN.

However, Arizona State’s nonconference schedule was much tougher than the Ducks’ which explains its current record and statistics. It also begs the question, how prepared is Oregon for Pac-12 play after a relatively light nonconference schedule?

Well, for starters, Oregon is not overlooking the Sun Devils.

“They’re tremendously athletic,” Troy Dye said. “I mean, it’s Pac-12 play now. So we’re going to start seeing a lot more faster offenses, more athleticism, bigger guys, faster guys; you’ll start seeing a lot more of that now. We’re looking forward to the challenge and just ready to show everybody what we’re made of.”

Arizona State posses a number of offensive weapons, including quarterback Manny Wilkins and running back Kalen Ballage. Ballage ran for 62 yards and two touchdowns and racked up 105 receiving yards in last year’s matchup with the Ducks, which Oregon won 54-35. Wilkins didn’t play against Oregon last season after injuring his shoulder the week prior, but he has impressed in three games this season. He’s completed 68 percent of his 101 passes, with seven touchdowns and zero interceptions.

“[That] boy can throw a good deep ball,” defensive back Arrion Springs said. “He really likes deep and outside. Corners can’t really get to it. He’s thrown, like, 100 passes and no interceptions. Man, that’s really impressive.”

Oregon is preparing for a passing attack from Arizona State, which has thrown for 945 yards and only rushed for 291 as a team this season.

“They give a challenge downfield on deep balls and stuff like that but I feel that’s nothing that we can’t handle,” Springs said. “We just have to make plays on the ball when it’s in the air.”

To counter Arizona State’s athleticism, tackling has become a focal point of Oregon’s defensive approach. The Sun Devils’ offense practically runs on receivers or backs making plays in the open field. Oregon defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt hopes to use this weeks’ matchup as an opportunity to work on tackling, an area he thinks has been a mixed bag this season.

“Sometimes good, sometimes not so good,” Leavitt said. “We got to continue to work on it, especially this week because they has got some athletes.”

Faoliu to play, Nelson status still uncertain

Freshman defensive lineman Austin Faoliu started in Oregon’s first two games this season but didn’t travel with the team to play Wyoming. He was apparently held out with a foot injury, but head coach Willie Taggart said at Wednesday’s practice that he would play on Saturday.

Faoliu didn’t record any stats against Southern Utah, but had one solo tackle and one assisted tackle against Nebraska.

Charles Nelson’s status for Saturday’s game is also up in the air. Nelson sprained his ankle in the first half of Oregon’s 49-13 win over Wyoming. Taggart hasn’t updated his status since Monday when he confirmed Nelson’s injury was just a sprain. Nelson is listed as a starter on Oregon’s depth chart this week but reports say he hasn’t participated in practices this week.

Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris

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If you ask any of Arrion Springs’ teammates what their best story about Springs is, they’ll all probably react the same way.

They’ll pause. They’ll smile. They’ll hold back a laugh.

And then they’ll pause again, while they really wrack their memory for just one story that stands above the rest. The challenge isn’t remembering; it’s picking the best one.

“He’s just a funny dude,” linebacker Troy Dye said. “I can come up with a bunch of stories.”

Those stories range from how Springs acts during practice and conditioning sessions to the time he bought a pair of geckos off of Craigslist (more on that later), and everything in between.   

As he would explain it, Springs has had a “rollercoaster” of a career at Oregon. He’s gone to a National Championship game and through a 4-8 season, which saw the only college head coach he’d played for get fired. He’s played under three defensive coordinators. He’s won, lost, and won back a starting job. He’ll graduate from Oregon after this season, with his eyes trained ahead onto what’s next. He’s hoping it’s the NFL.  

But to truly get an idea of who Springs is and how he ended up at this point, you need to start over 2,000 miles southeast of Eugene, in San Antonio, Texas.

Before he learned how to play football correctly, he had to learn how to walk correctly — a task that may seem menial, but for Springs it took months. He had a medical condition in his legs that caused extreme bowleggedness. He was so pigeon-toed that doctors had to fit him with metal leg braces that forced his legs to straighten while he slept.

As the years passed, Springs’ condition improved and quickly became a non-issue. By the time he entered high school, a healthy Springs was solely devoted to football.

Oregon Ducks defensive back Arrion Springs (1) tackles Oregon State Beavers wide receiver Victor Bolden Jr. (6). The Oregon Ducks play the Oregon State Beavers in the 120th Civil war at Reser Stadium in Corvallis, Ore. on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016. (Kaylee Domzalski/Emerald)

Today, his size and agility make him an ideal cornerback. But back in high school, his size proved to be his biggest hindrance. It was also the deciding factor for him to switch from quarterback to defensive back.

The switch worked as he excelled as a defensive back. The recruiting letters began to pour in from blue blood football programs like Florida State, Texas, Oklahoma, USC and Clemson, just to name a few.

By his junior year of high school, Oregon had jumped into the mix. Former Oregon secondary coach John Neal took the lead on recruiting Springs, and the two meshed well.

But Neal revealed that he almost dropped Springs from his recruiting boards his junior year when Neal perceived there to be an issue with Springs’ grades.

It turned out that Springs was enrolled in several college-level classes his junior year. His grades began to slip because of the advanced workload. Neal, unaware of the advanced classes that Springs was taking, thought that he was simply slacking off in his classes.

But with a couple phone calls, and a discussion with the counselor at Roosevelt High School, Springs set the record straight.

“It gave me a lot of confidence in him that he was in there with all the straight-A students and he was competing and had enough courage to call me and explain that to me,” Neal said. “This is a kid that’s going into his senior year in high school when all this is being figured out, and I almost made a huge mistake on him, but he was the one who straightened me out. I’ve always thanked him for that because that was a really cool thing he did as a really confident kid.”

Springs arrived in Eugene in 2014, a season removed from an 11-2 season where Oregon posted the 13th best scoring defense in the country.

But even before he could make his presence felt on the field, he was making an interesting impression off of it.

Defensive lineman Jalen Jelks, who was part of the same recruiting class as Springs, remembers how Springs got his two geckos. Jelks said that Springs really wanted to get a pet shortly after the two arrived on campus, and had somehow stumbled across two leopard geckos for sale on Craigslist. So, naturally, he bought both.

None of Springs’ teammates know what happened to the geckos — Springs apparently didn’t have them long — but they do know that they vanished as strangely as they had arrived.

“I don’t know what happened to them things,” said Royce Freeman, who lived with Springs at the time. “I came back one day and they were gone. Guess it didn’t work out.”

But what did work out, at least for Springs, was his adjustment to a deep and experienced Oregon secondary his freshman year.

He stepped into an Oregon defense that had racked up 17 interceptions in 2013, the 23rd best in the country. He was expected to compete for playing time with players like Troy Hill, Ifo Ekpre-Olomu and Erick Dargan. The odds were against him, but that hadn’t stopped him before.

He played in nine games his freshman year, including the Rose Bowl, and showcased the skills that Neal had seen back in high school. Granted, Springs took his lumps — Neal called him a “typical freshman,” one who had starting potential but lacked the maturity and consistency to earn hefty playing time.

Oregon Ducks defensive back Arrion Springs (1) breaks up a pass meant for Washington State Cougars wide receiver Tavares Martin Jr. (8). The Oregon Ducks play the Washington State Cougars at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Wash. on Oct. 1, 2016. (Adam Eberhardt/Emerald)

“All this stuff is a process,” Neal said. “It’s a mental process, it’s a physical process, it’s an emotional process, and all of a sudden you’re thrown into the fire and all that stuff is going on all at once.”

Springs soaked up all he could that year from players like Washington, Ekpre-Olomu and even Deforest Buckner and Arik Armstead. He gives them a lot of credit for helping him adjust to college football.

“It was just really fun to be a part of,” Springs said. “I had those guys pushing me. I thought I could play but [those guys] were just taking it to the next level, like what it really takes to play at this level and play really good.”

It certainly showed the following season when he started all 13 games for the Ducks and finished seventh on the team in total tackles.

While Springs thought he had turned a corner that season, 2016 would serve as a harsh wake-up call. Springs started in Oregon’s first eight games of the season but was replaced by sophomore Ugo Amadi for the last four.

Both with and without Springs on the field, Oregon’s defense was one of the worst in the country that season. But like most important things in his life, Springs used this low point as motivation to improve.

 “Just learn how to bounce back,” he said.

Springs started the 2017 season on a better note. His three pass breakups against Nebraska gave him 30 for his career, tied for eighth best in Oregon school history with Cliff Harris. He leads the Ducks with five broken-up passes this season, three more than anyone else on the team.

His teammates also say that he’s grown more mature and confident. What’s impressed them the most, though, is how he’s always stayed true to himself throughout his ups and downs at Oregon.

“He definitely has a big personality, has a lot of self-confidence and he does a really good job of staying true to who he is,” safety Mattrell McGraw said. “He doesn’t let anyone change him, regardless of whether the situation is going bad, going good.

“He’s going to always be Arrion.”

That approach has gotten him this far. Why stop now?

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Sports reporters Jack Butler, Gus Morris and Shawn Medow review Oregon’s 42-35 victory over Nebraska. They then preview the Ducks’ upcoming game against Wyoming with, of course, straight fire predictions.

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For the first time in a long time, Oregon’s defense led the Ducks to victory.

Thanks to four interceptions and a number of late-game stops, including an interception from Ugo Amadi with two minutes left in the game, Oregon (2-0) held off Nebraska (1-1) on Saturday at Autzen Stadium for a 42-35 win. Oregon managed 409 yards of total offense and all 42 of its points in the first half, but got shut out on only 157 yards of offense in the second half.

“We were good the first half,” head coach Willie Taggart said. “Second half, not so good. But it’s great that our guys found a way.”

Quarterback Justin Herbert finished 25-for-33 for 365 yards with three touchdowns and one interception while running back Royce Freeman rushed for 153 yards, his second straight game with over a 150 yards rushing, on 29 carries with two touchdowns.

With Oregon ahead 42-28 with five minutes remaining in the game, Freeman fumbled at Oregon’s 22-yard line. The ball was recovered by the Cornhuskers, who scored two minutes later to make it a one-score game at 42-35.

The Ducks, who led 42-14 at halftime, were suddenly in danger of falling behind.

Matters only got worse for the Ducks as they were forced to punt after a three-play drive that yielded minus three yards. Oregon players said they knew Saturday’s game would be hard-fought. So, when Nebraska took advantage of a stalled Ducks’ offense in the second half, the Ducks were ready.

“Coach Leavitt told us before the game it was going to come down to us, stopping them in the last couple minutes,” linebacker Troy Dye said. “We knew we were going to deal with adversity so we were ready for it.”

Nebraska began its ensuing — and potentially game-ending — drive on its own 43-yard line. But on the first play of the drive, Nebraska quarterback Tanner Lee under-threw a receiver and the ball was snatched out of the air by Amadi, who returned the ball 21 yards to Nebraska’s 35-yard line with just over two minutes remaining in the game.

Lee finished with 252 yards on 19-for-41 passes with three touchdowns and four interceptions.

From there, Oregon ran out the clock and took home the victory to improve to 2-0 on the season.

It truly was a tale of two halves for Oregon, with the offense shining in the first and the defense holding firm in the second. Seeing Oregon’s defense make big stops was surely a welcome sign given its struggles the past two season.

“Coach Leavitt and coach Taggart always talk about us, the defense, going out there and earning respect each and every game,” cornerback Arrion Springs said. “We’re just trying to do that, prove that we can stop the run and just be better this year at defense overall.”

Amadi was not the only standout on Oregon’s defense. True freshman Thomas Graham Jr. made an impact with two interceptions of his own. He was also second on the team with seven total tackles.

“He’s a big time player,” Taggart said. “For him to be as young as he is and know as much football as he does, it’s great to have him. It’s great to know we’re going to have him for a long time.”

Oregon’s defense will be tested once again next week when the Ducks head to Laramie, Wyoming, to take on Josh Allen and the Wyoming Cowboys.

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Key Plays:

— Tanner Lee hits Stanley Morgan for an 18-yard touchdown pass on Nebraska’s opening drive of the second half.

— Nebraska scored again on its next drive. Once again, Lee found Morgan for a 28-yard touchdown pass to make it 42-28 Oregon.

— On second down and two from Oregon’s 38-yard line, Justin Herbert lobbed deep pass into triple coverage that was intercepted by Aaron Williams. Williams returned Herbert’s first interception of the season back to Oregon’s 44-yard line.

— Royce Freeman fumbled on Oregon’s 22-yard line with less than five minutes remaining in the game. Nebraska recovered the fumble and ended up scoring on the ensuing drive, cutting Oregon’s lead to 42-35.

— After an Oregon punt pushed Nebraska to Oregon’s 44-yard line, Tanner Lee’s pass to start the drive was intercepted by Ugo Amadi with 2:06 left to play. Oregon ran the clock out from there and won 42-35.

Oregon rushing

Royce Freeman — 29 carries, 153 yards, two touchdowns.

Oregon passing

Justin Herbert — 25-of-33, 365 yards, three touchdowns, one interception

Oregon receiving

Charles Nelson — eight receptions, 117 yards, one touchdown

Johnny Johnson III — four receptions, 80 yards

Brenden Schooler — three receptions, 41 yards, one touchdown

Dillon Mitchell — five receptions, 80 yards, touchdown

Oregon total offense

566 total yards.

Nebraska rushing

Tre Bryant — 20 carries, 107 yards, one touchdown

Nebraska passing

Tanner Lee —  19-of-41, 252 yards, three touchdowns, four interceptions

Nebraska receiving

Morgan Stanley — seven receptions, 103 yards, two touchdowns

Nebraska total yards

361 total yards.

Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris

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Oregon football beat reporters Jack Butler, Gus Morris and Shawn Medow discuss the 77-21 victory over Southern Utah and preview the upcoming game against Nebraska.

This episode was produced by Alec Cowan.

The post Podcast: Recap of Southern Utah and a preview of Nebraska appeared first on Emerald Media.

Four days removed from Oregon’s season-opening 77-21 win over Southern Utah, the focus has now turned to Nebraska, which visits Autzen Stadium on Saturday. Still, Oregon’s defensive coaches spoke to the media on Wednesday for the first time since that record-setting win.

Defensive line coach Joe Salave’a thought that his players showed some “first game jitters,” but was overall happy with their performance.

“We’ve still got some ways to go but it’s always good to make those corrections after a win,” Salave’a said. “Guys know the standard and the brand of football we’re trying to attain. So it’s been good, starting yesterday.”

Defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt echoed a similar sentiment regarding his defense. He wasn’t happy with Southern Utah’s opening drive that yielded a touchdown but liked seeing how the Ducks’ defense settled down as the game progressed.

“There was some good and bad,” Leavitt said. “The first drive — none of us liked that. But I thought they settled down. They played hard and that’s what I was happy with.”

Preparing for Nebraska 

The Cornhuskers arrive in Eugene with a narrow win against Arkansas State under their belt. The game was closer than many people thought it would be, and given Oregon’s explosive start, it has many wondering if this once highly anticipated game will live up to the hype. The Ducks are now listed as a 14-point favorite on Saturday, but coaches don’t pay attention to betting lines.

“They’re really really good,” Leavitt said. “They set everything up with the run game and if they run on you, you’re not going to have much of a chance to win, everybody knows that. Then they go to play-action off that and they do it very very well. They’ve got a quarterback that can throw the heck out of the ball and they’ve got some real good playmakers. And their tight ends are very very good, can catch the ball and block. So, you’ve got all that.”

The opportunity to play a Big-Ten opponent doesn’t come around often, and Oregon expects to make the most of it

“Well, it’s big bodies, coming downhill,” Salave’a said. “You wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Oregon and Nebraska kick off at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. The game will broadcast by Fox.

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