The I-5 Thoughts: It was a transformative June for the Ducks and Timbers
On Blue-Chip ratios, emotional goodbyes and electric cars.
Welcome back to the work week, folks. Here are five thoughts about Oregon sports to get you started this July, covering the Oregon Ducks, Portland Timbers and those electric cars zooming around North Portland over the weekend.
Let’s begin in Eugene.
It’s been easy to focus too much on the transfer portal with the Oregon Ducks.
The market of proven, available athletes has played the largest part in Oregon’s success so far under Dan Lanning, with hits like Bo Nix, Bucky Irving and Khyree Jackson paving the way for a team that had the No. 2 scoring offense and No. 11 scoring defense in all of college football in 2023.
And yes, those players quickly departed to the NFL after just a couple of years of service. But the Ducks went right back to the market this offseason, bringing in a bevy of production in a veteran quarterback, an elite wide receiver and multiple pieces on defense.
For a program that started becoming uber-focused on the freshmen coming in back in 2018 when Mario Cristobal transformed Oregon’s principles on talent acquisition, the attention with these Ducks lately has shifted toward established names.
At least that was the argument one could make up until this weekend.
See, on the actual recruiting front, Oregon’s 2025 class was ranked 29th in the country a week ago — a far cry from UO’s program-best No. 3 finish with the 2024 class. Lanning’s produced in every recruiting cycle he’s been a part of since his hiring in Dec. 2021, but Oregon’s relative silence through the first half of the recruiting calendar even had teams like Washington taking note:
Well, it might be worth betting on Rory at The Open here in a couple of weeks.
In the last seven days, Oregon has flipped the script with five commitments. The surge started on Tuesday with Brandon Finney (No. 165 overall), a 6-foot-2 cornerback out of Maryland who could end up as a receiver in Eugene. Oregon followed up on Friday with Jordon Davison (No. 108), a tank of a running back at 230 pounds out of Mater Dei, and Josiah Sharma (No. 235), a 6-foot-5, 295-pound defensive lineman from Folsom, Calif.
Saturday brought the exclamation marks, with the Ducks adding four-star tight end Da’Saahn Brame (No. 123 overall), from Derby, Kansas and Dorian Brew, a 5-star cornerback (No. 28 overall) who was an Ohio State target and now claims the spot as the No. 2 player in Oregon’s class.
A week after having just an OK class, the Ducks roll into July harboring the fifth-ranked group in the country, with two five-stars, 11 four-stars and a lone three-star. And while, yes, the Ducks do rely heavily on the portal to patch up their lineup every year, there is still plenty of importance in that annual infusion of a few dozen 18-year-olds to the roster. Even with a roster that EA Sports NCAA Football 25 claims is one of the deepest in the country, the Ducks will still likely see contributions this season from true freshmen like OLB Elijah Rushing and CB Aaron Flowers this coming fall.