The Oregon football team may have only lost one receiver to graduation following the regular season, but through four weeks of practice, the receiving corps has been considered arguably the thinnest unit on the team this spring.
The Ducks did not return their lone senior from 2009, Rory Cavaille, who spent the greater part of last season sidelined with a shoulder injury, and also lost junior Jamere Holland and sophomore Garrett Embry because of off-field issues.
In their absence, the majority of the workload has fallen on the shoulders of a talented pair of seniors — Jeff Maehl and D.J. Davis. In addition to handling their own day-to-day workouts, Maehl and Davis also have to show an inexperienced group of backups how to run the zone-read offense from a wide receiver’s standpoint.
“We’ve got some young receivers out there still trying to figure out the plays and some of those other things,” Oregon head coach Chip Kelly said. “Overall depth, and really that’s what we have to develop. We really need some depth at the wide receiver spot.”
Maehl, now in his fourth year as a starter and, debatably, the best returning receiver in the Pac-10, led the Ducks with 53 receptions for 696 yards and six touchdowns last season. He’s been nearly unstoppable thus far in spring drills, with only a handful of the Oregon
secondary able to keep up.
Davis, on the other hand, got off to a slow start last fall before eventually emerging as a consistent playmaker down the stretch of the season. He pulled in 23 catches for 233 yards and two scores on the year, and will most likely see those numbers increase dramatically in 2010.
But aside from Maehl and Davis, pickings have been nothing short of slim so far this offseason.
“Jeff Maehl and (D.J.) Davis are really the only guys we have back there that played a ton,” Oregon offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said. “Unfortunately, some of those younger guys have been banged up, and we haven’t seen their best yet. But they’re battling, again.”
Of those younger players, sophomore Justin Hoffman has set himself apart from the pack and looks to be the closest to being able to contribute come fall. The Churchill High School graduate earned Oregon’s scout team special teams player of the year award during his redshirt season in 2008, and won four weekly scout team honors throughout that year.
While Hoffman stands at just 6 feet 1 inch, he looks to be as elusive as they come and, more importantly, has been able to stay healthy, while the rest of his peers are sidelined almost daily.
“Justin Hoffman has been playing really, really well for us,” Kelly said.
But the wide receiver position strength is weighed greatly in numbers, and no one understands that more than Kelly.
“We feel like we’ve got three proven guys in (Lavasier) Tuinei, Davis, and Jeff Maehl obviously,” He said. “But it’s a matter of trying to figure out who the fourth receiver, fifth receiver and sixth receiver are.”
Tuinei, while proven, has also been in the mix of red jerseys throughout the spring, though he looked to be nearing 100 percent during Friday morning’s practice. Redshirt freshmen Diante Jackson and Blake Cantu have been in similar situations injury-wise, leaving room for players such as Will Murphy and Garrett Davis to more than double their usual reps.
And with only two or three proven players at the position, each day brings a new challenge to Kelly and Helfrich.
“There’s a few ‘wow’ plays every day and a few ‘what in the heck are you doing?’ plays every day,” Helfrich said. “So we’ve got to take those with a grain of salt. But, we’re practicing well and hard, and we’re moving in the right direction.”
[email protected]