Oregon Offensive Line Continues to Roll With The Changes
By Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
If there’s a silver lining to the amount of adversity Oregon is dealing with on the offensive line three games into the 2014 season, it’s that position coach Steve Greatwood can’t recall as much since the 1994 season.
That was the year the Ducks won the Pac-10 and reached the Rose Bowl, of course. “So we’ve been down this road before,” Greatwood said Saturday after Oregon’s 48-14 win over Wyoming, in which another UO offensive tackle was unable to finish the game. “We’ll find the right combinations out there.”
The No. 2 Ducks (3-0) played most of Saturday’s game without senior left tackle Jake Fisher, who was carted off the field with a lower leg injury. Oregon was already without Tyler Johnstone, Andre Yruretagoyena and Elijah George, and it’s not unreasonable to think those four players might have made up the two-deep at the tackle spot this season.
Instead, true freshman Tyrell Crosby made his first career start at right tackle, and walk-on junior Matt Pierson played most of the game at left tackle following Fisher’s injury. The UO offense finished the day averaging 7.1 yards per rush, and though quarterback Marcus Mariota was pressured several times, he was never sacked.
“They did a great job,” senior center Hroniss Grasu said of the new tackles. “All week in practice, they did a great job of getting ready. Our communication was great. Matt Pierson’s been here, so he knows what he’s doing, and Tyrell Crosby, when he’s out there he doesn’t seem like a true freshman.”
Crosby made it clear early in preseason camp he could help this season, and made his collegiate debut in Oregon’s opener against South Dakota. He replaced Yruretagoyena and played most of the second half against Michigan State, before drawing the start against the Cowboys.
“It went good for the most part, I think,” Crosby said. “There were a little bit of nerves. But I kept telling myself, go like you do in practice; you know what you’re doing.”
Grasu said Crosby simply needs to embrace the fact that, “You’re the guy now. Know that you belong out here.” Greatwood said the true freshman can be “a little bit of a puppy” at times, but has a competitive streak that allows him to compensate for inexperience.
Pierson had 10 career appearances entering this season, most of them brief. But with Johnstone recovering from a knee injury suffered in the Alamo Bowl, Pierson spent most of the spring as the No. 1 left tackle, and practiced with the first team for parts of preseason camp as well.
“Obviously I was really upset Jake went down like that,” Pierson said. “But I was just falling back on my training and doing what coaches had been telling me all week. … With the pace we play, you’ve got to focus on your guy, focus on your assignment and then the ball is snapped. That’s all I had time to think about.”
Greatwood was “overall very pleased” with Pierson’s play against Wyoming. “He saw some things, made some good adjustments on the edge, and did a pretty good job,” Greatwood said. “He’s got to work a little harder on keeping his shoulders square on some of the backside blocks we’re trying to execute, but overall I was very pleased.”
It’s early enough in the season, Greatwood said, that he still could consider using a true freshman rather than holding him back for a redshirt. Waiting in the wings is 6-foot-6, 330-pound newcomer Braden Eggert, who spent preseason camp working on his conditioning but has really started to blossom the last few weeks of practice.
Whatever group Greatwood fields moving forward, he wants to see continued improvement. “Thankfully when Marcus scrambles, usually good things happen,” Greatwood said. “But there’s some things we have to clean up. … We’re getting to Pac-12 play here, and things have got to pick up.”
