Hours before they took the practice fields, Darron Thomas and his teammates addressed the media for the first time since their Jan. 10 loss to Auburn in the BCS National Championship game at Oregon media day in the Club at Autzen on Monday morning.
Third-year head coach Chip Kelly led off with a 30-minute press conference and addressed a handful of issues on both sides of the football. He was quick to point out the youth of this year’s team, given its 14 returning seniors (only eight of those with starting experience) and 43 combined true and redshirt freshmen on the roster.
Oregon lost five starters on offense — D.J. Davis, Bo Thran, Jordan Holmes, C.E. Kaiser, and Jeff Maehl — but return arguably the most complete backfield in the nation with Thomas, reigning Doak Walker Award-winner LaMichael James, and Kenjon Barner. Add in Josh Huff and Lavasier Tuinei at wide receiver, and the questions around the Ducks’ depth fades quickly.
“It’s also an exciting time,” Kelly said. “In college sports, which is different than professional sports, you don’t get to keep your team for an extended period of time. Kids are going to graduate and kids are gonna move on. Our job as coaches is to kind of find out: Who’s the next one?”
Unlike last summer when Thomas and then-senior Nate Costa battled for the starting quarterback job throughout fall camp — a competition Thomas ultimately won and took Oregon to unprecedented heights in his first year under center — it’s clear that Thomas will play the voice of reason not only to the offense, but the team as a whole.
“Darron is extremely calm, never raises his voice, never yells,” Barner said. “Always calm, cool, and collected. Takes control, gets us going and that’s what you want out of your quarterback.”
Last season, Thomas completed 222 of 361 pass attempts for 2,881 yards and 30 touchdowns against nine interceptions. He was also the third-leading rusher on the team with 93 carries for 486 yards and another five scores, and his performance in the national title game — 27 of 40 for 363 yards and two touchdowns — more than spoke for itself.
“Darron’s a great player,” James added. “He really stands in the pocket, he takes a lot of shots that nobody sees, and he’s an unbelievable leader. He blocks really well, too.
“Darron’s an unbelievable player and I’m really excited to see what he’s going to do this year.”
Thomas admitted he’s been counting down the days until the start of fall camp, saying Sunday night felt an awful lot like Christmas Eve as he anxiously awaited positional meetings and a team walk-through this morning.
And, at least for the time being, Thomas is glad to have people talking about football again instead of the surrounding off-the-field issues.
“We don’t like that, so we’ve just been working hard,” Thomas said. “(We’re) ready for the season, ready to shut everybody up, ready to come out and play ball and forget about all these other allegations and stuff like that that’s eventually going to come out.”
Of course, there were a few Willie Lyles-related questions, which were to be expected considering they’ve yet to truly be addressed with the ongoing NCAA investigation. Though Kelly and his players couldn’t say much, it was clear the issue isn’t a concern at this point.
“There’s always controversy,” James said. “We play for the team and I play for the team. We don’t play for anybody else. If you have to worry about what the fans say or what the media has to write about you, you’re playing for the wrong reasons.”
“I told them the same thing that I said two weeks ago,” Kelly added. “I think that the media around here is the smartest people that I’ve ever been around in my entire life, and if they voted us No. 1 in the conference and No. 3 in the country then they must not think it’s a distraction. So we shouldn’t let it be a distraction.”
And with that, practice officially begins at 1:15 p.m. Fans and media alike will observe the grass practice fields from the grandstands to the south of the women’s soccer field.
Check back for photos and a quick practice update later this afternoon.