Walking out of the second scrimmage of the fall camp on Thursday, quarterback Jeff Lockie was left with mixed emotions as to how the offense looked.
“As a team we did a good job of moving the ball, but still way too many penalties,” Lockie said. “Obviously, my number one thing is we can’t be jumping offsides, we can’t be false-starting when we’re moving the ball like that.”
Although there are still nine days left before Oregon kicks off against Eastern Washington, offensive coordinator Scott Frost was quick to agree with Lockie on the shortcomings of the offense.
As Frost eluded to in his interview after practice, many of the veterans either didn’t see action in the scrimmage or were limited. Whether it be injury related or just rest, the veterans not scrimmaging really paved the way for the younger guys to get their feet wet. The results were seemingly mixed.
“The scrimmage went pretty well. There were quite a few mistakes, maybe more than we like,” Frost said. “We had too many penalties offensively, a few false starts, a few holding calls. That’s the stuff we need to clean up.”
One area where Oregon will not have any shortcomings is its skill positions.
While still trying to figure out who’s going to replace the injured Thomas Tyner at the No. 2 running back spot, it’s come down to a three-man race between Kani Benoit, Tony Brooks-James and true freshman Taj Griffin.
“I’ve really seen a lot of improvement from Kani Benoit. I think he had to put the rest of it together so we could trust him to be on the field and he’s done a good job of that,” Frost said. “Both Taj Griffin and Tony James are really fast and give us homerun threats.”
“I think they’ve really improved a lot from the beginning of camp. I think we’re really comfortable with where we are at with that position,” Lockie added. “Taj is taking a bunch of reps there. He’s super freaky talented.”
Since next week signals the beginning of prep week for the Eastern Washington game, the coaching staff must come to an agreement on which true freshmen will be seeing action this year and which ones will be redshirting.
Making it difficult for the staff are freshmen wide receivers Malik Lovette and Kirk Merritt.
“I think the two young receivers, Kirk Merritt and Malik Lovette, just keep getting better and that’s good to see,” Frost said. “I think those two, on a lot years, we would need them up and playing. We got a few other guys at receivers, so we’ll make the best decision we can.”
Follow Ryan Kostecka on Twitter: @Ryan_Kostecka