The mid-camp roundtable: On preseason rankings, early opponents and a change of scenery.
The I-5 Corridor's Tyson Alger and Shane Hoffmann on what they've learned halfway through August.
EUGENE — I get the sense that Oregon offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham enjoys the showmanship of a media scrum. He constructs answers like a writer, setting the tempo with a couple long responses before cutting into questions with a red pen.
Are the quarterbacks more comfortable?
“No question.”
Are you excited by their progress?
“100 percent.”
Do you have a date in mind for when you want to settle the quarterback competition?
“No.”
His players seem to love him, as a chorus of “Dilly Dilly” follows when he speaks, and occasionally a grin slips free from the lips of 32-year-old from Phoenix. He’s an old soul, he likes to say, who listens to the Temptations and can rattle off stats from teams of yesteryear. He’s grading players this fall based on explosiveness and hasn’t shied away from chasing great offenses of Oregon’s past. The winner of his quarterback competition will be the one who makes the transition smoothest from the film room to the field.
“At the end of the day, we play football,” Dillingham says. “We’re going to be judged about the process on the field.”
Tempo will be important for these Ducks — and for us in the scrum if we want to keep pace.
Here’s a few other thoughts Shane Hoffmann and I have after the first half of preseason camp: