Football Practice Report: Sept. 18
By Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
Venue: Autzen Stadium
Format: Fast Friday
Five years ago, Jarret LaCoste was an Oregon State fan who planned to attend junior college and compete in track and field. This fall, he’s a running back on the Oregon football team, and one of the scout team’s most consistent standouts.
How to get from there to here? Even LaCoste is blown away by the whirlwind of the last few years.
“I didn’t think I’d be playing football at all in college, nor Division I, and not even close to thinking I’d play at a prestigious program like U of O,” LaCoste said Friday, as the Ducks were preparing for Saturday’s visit to Autzen Stadium by Georgia State (11 a.m., Pac-12 Networks). “Not even in my dreams. No way.”
LaCoste was named top offensive back for West Albany High in the fall of 2010 – and also most inspirational, after returning from two seasons lost to a knee injury that required surgery. He was honest with himself about his future as a football player, and so decided to pursue track and field, in which he excelled in the javelin.
In the spring of 2012, LaCoste began throwing for College of the Siskiyous in Northern California, and he was ranked No. 3 in the region the next year. Looking to transfer to a bigger school, his first option would have been Oregon State, which is close to his hometown of Albany and also the school where his father and uncles played football.
One problem: OSU didn’t offer track and field as a primary sport. Thus did LaCoste enroll at Oregon in the fall of 2013. He had a tryout with the storied UO track and field program that October, but despite throwing well, he wasn’t offered a roster spot. What do to next?
“I’m not the type of person to sit around and just do nothing,” LaCoste said. “I like being involved, I love being active – I love just doing stuff. So I was like, I’m going to try football.”
Another tryout, with the UO football team, proved successful, and LaCoste joined the Ducks in the spring of 2014. He’s yet to participate in a game – perhaps that could change this Saturday – but LaCoste was Oregon’s top scout-team player on offense the first week of this season, and he continues to work hard in that role.
Continuing on the theme of unlikely developments for LaCoste, just a few weeks ago the odds were very low he’d end up being the scout-team player of the week for Oregon’s opener. He worked out with the team over the summer, but he was initially slated to join the Ducks once the roster expanded past 105 players after the first game.
Then, Thomas Tyner was sidelined for the preseason. The night before veterans reported for preseason camp, LaCoste got the call to take his spot. He had planned to spend the month of August continuing in his summer job as a fire extinguisher technician, but as tends to happen for LaCoste, plans changed.
“I had to call my boss and say, hey, I got some good and bad news,” LaCoste said. “They called me in for fall camp – that’s the good news. … He was understanding, of course; they’re all huge, huge Duck fans. He said, ‘It’s a great opportunity, make the most of it.’”
LaCoste has been doing so, according to coaches, and bucking the odds with every carry he takes.
Scout-team scrimmage highlights: Usually snaps are run repeatedly from the 50-yard line, but today the staff switched it up and had the offense start at the 20-yard line, looking to convert red-zone situations. Early on they were successful – Morgan Mahalak ran for a short touchdown and then threw two more. One was to J.J. Jones, who scored behind a downfield block by Malik Lovette, and the other came after Mahalak was given a ton of time in the pocket behind an offensive line of Elijah George, Davis Miyashiro-Saipaia, Zach Okun, Shane Lemieux and Calvin Throckmorton.
The string of conversions ended when Mahalak, trying to make something out of a play that broke down pretty quickly, threw a ball into the end zone that was intercepted by Dylan Kane. The freshman defensive back from Hawaii has also picked off Vernon Adams Jr. in the end zone a couple times in the last few weeks; he seems like a guy you want at the back end when you’re up against it in the red zone.
