Nearly three months to the day since its demoralizing Rose Bowl defeat to Ohio State, the Oregon Ducks football team was back in action for the first official spring practice on Tuesday morning at the Moshofsky Center.
The short spring season —15 practices and one game — is all about getting more repetitions, said second-year head coach Chip Kelly.
“This is always an exciting time of year,” Kelly said. “Because you get to get back out, no matter what happened during the winter term, this is the first day you get to go back out and work with these kids.”
Those kids certainly put Kelly and the rest of his staff through the wringer this offseason with more than a handful of legal issues, which most notably resulted in the yearlong suspension of two-year starting quarterback Jeremiah Masoli.
Kelly met with Masoli on Monday afternoon to hash out what his role is going to be this season, and he said Tuesday after practice that he was not at all surprised to see his star player stay with the program.
“He’s just going to practice with us,” Kelly said. “But he’s really not going to take a lot of reps at quarterback because he’s not going to play quarterback for us next fall.”
While Masoli did not take any reps at quarterback during the 7-on-7 drills or the final 11-on-11 series, he did jump in several times as a slot receiver. He caught a pass or two, while three others bounced off his hands and hit the turf. Clearly Kelly isn’t looking to morph his best player into a situational receiver, that’s just one of the many roles he’ll play while serving the remainder of his suspension.
“(We) need somebody to hold the dummy, need somebody to run practice, need somebody to do different things. He understands his role on this team.” Kelly stated.
Redshirt sophomore running back LaMichael James, who will sit out the Ducks Sept. 4 home-opener against New Mexico due to off-field issues, was also in attendance for a portion of the practice, but was seen leaving in street clothes about midway through. James is expected to fully return to practice on Thursday afternoon.
The newest edition of quarterback controversy led to Kelly being swarmed with questions about the first day of competition between senior Nate Costa and redshirt sophomore Darron Thomas.
“They were throwing it around, slinging it around, fortunately for us we don’t have to pick a starter until New Mexico so it’s a long ways away,” Kelly said. “It’s just about getting those guys reps, and I thought both of those guys did some good things today and they made some mistakes, but that’s to be expected on day one.”
From the sideline, it appeared that Costa had the throwing advantage early on as he connected on several of the throws Thomas was unable to make. Thomas on the other hand looked to be the more mobile of the two, while redshirt freshman Daryle Hawkins might have run the best and most consistent zone-read fake of the day.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been out there mixing it up with the first team,” Costa said. “And I just want to get a great connection with those guys and see what we can do together.”
Costa again finds himself in the running for the starting quarterback spot, something he’s grown used during his time at Oregon.
“It is a good feeling,” Costa said. “It’s something that I’ve been dealing with since spring break; I worked hard all spring break preparing for it, and I’ll continue to prepare for it and we’ll see what happens.”
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Daily Emerald
March 30, 2010
Jack Hunter
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