‘Enough is never enough’: On Evan Stewart, the ‘blur ball’ and Oregon’s new reality out wide
Tez Johnson may be out, but the Ducks have built for this moment.
Evan Stewart wasn’t under any illusions — he’s the first to admit it. And in today’s game, that kind of self-awareness is rare.
After torching Ohio State’s secondary in Autzen Stadium three weeks ago, and looking every bit of a No. 1 target in his collection of 149 yards and a score, the Oregon wideout did his darndest to tame the plaudits. After the biggest game of his career, he re-emphasized why he came to Eugene in the first place and in doing so heaped the attention onto fellow receiver Tez Johnson.
"I was really just going into the season like, yeah, we've already got a wide receiver No. 1," Stewart said then of Johnson. "And I respect him, you feel me? I didn't want to come in and step on no type of toes. But I did want to come in and contribute.”
He added: "I was really just trying to play my role.”
That role suddenly looks different as first-ranked Oregon eyes an undefeated regular season with three games to go.
Johnson is out indefinitely following a first-quarter shoulder injury sustained Saturday in Oregon’s 38-17 win over Michigan. He played all of two snaps and the Ducks’ offense — save a third-quarter lull, which has become confusingly common for this team — showed no signs of slowing down in his wake.
In front of more than 100,000 at the Big House, Stewart hauled in a back-shoulder fade for a touchdown and speared a sailing endzone shot with one hand, only to have his spectacular grab overturned due to an illegal man downfield penalty.
A former blue-chip recruit who spent two exacting seasons with Texas A&M before transferring this offseason, Stewart has spent the season stretching defenses on the outside as Johnson slices them across the interior. And while Johnson is expected to play again this season, one that could well extend deep into January for Oregon, here in November there’s suddenly a case to be made that there’s no marquee player Oregon was better prepared to lose — for however long — than Johnson.
That’s because there’s a new reality out wide for the Ducks, and the I-5 Corridor caught up with 247Sports National Recruiting Analyst Cooper Petagna last week to outline exactly that.
“They're going to canvas the country to make sure that they're not going to be short on supply of the top playmakers,” he said.
Petagna has been headquartered in Nashville for the last year and a half. He spends his time behind the camera, contributing to multiple podcasts and, simply put, monitoring the nation’s best football players.
An LSU graduate, he’s held notable roles including Recruiting Coordinator at Michigan, Director of Player Personnel at Washington and Director of Recruiting at Oregon. His 11 month stint with the Ducks ended in 2021. He’s been with 247 ever since.
He’ll tell you he’s “stretching” his bandwidth. It’s not without its perks.
“The cool part about my job is that I have to basically, not only have a pulse,” he said, “but have a pretty good feel for the top 300-350 [recruits] in the country, year in, year out. Now with the portal, that will be the same case, right? So you're looking at the top couple percentage points of both high school and college.
“So what I really enjoy, although it is a difficult task to be able to compartmentalize all that stuff, is I get a good feel for what's coming in, and I get a good feel for the player movement in college as well. … I now feel as informed as ever.”
It doesn't take an expert to see the elite balance Oregon has struck between pulling from the prep level and poaching from the portal, particularly as it pertains to pass catchers. But Petagna is uniquely knowledgeable on the Ducks’ operation, not simply for his institutional knowledge (albeit brief), or national recruiting scope, but because of a relationship with wide receiver coach Junior Adams that began when the two shared a building up in Seattle with the Huskies.