After a breakout season his sophomore year at Heritage High School in Littleton, Colorado, the offers came flooding in for tight end Terrance Ferguson. His first came from Arkansas.

Soon after receiving the offer, Ferguson and his dad, Cody, drove down to Fayetteville for his first official college visit.

The tour culminated in the facility’s main office. Arkansas’ head coach Chad Morris sat the pair down and began to detail the facility’s glamour. When he had finished, he turned to Ferguson.

“How’d you like it?” he asked.

“Sir they’re amazing facilities, no disrespect, but I’m pretty sure every major college has the type of facilities you have,” Ferguson responded. “What I’m looking for is what’s inside the building.”

The interaction cemented Cody’s belief in his son’s potential to succeed at the next level. Ferguson had the confidence to push back, the confidence to know what he was looking for and what he valued at the age of 16.
As a true freshman at college football’s highest level, the 6-foot-6 field-stretching tight end has impressed his coaches, sought guidance from his teammates and is seeing the results early on. Five games into the season, Ferguson has eight catches for 73 yards and two scores. And he is already an integral part of a deep tight end group — a unit that’s been heavily relied on to move the chains through the air and provide key blocks for Oregon’s power run game.
Due to the physical demands of the tight end position, the transition can be a challenging one for a young recruit. Size, physicality and technique are all hugely important for success in the role, and Ferguson has been working on perfecting the job ever since he switched to the position in sixth grade.

Moving from the offensive line to a skill position, Ferguson was plagued by dropped passes early on.

To fix the problem, Ferguson would kneel on both knees in his backyard and have his father throw footballs to him, fast and hard, from close range. Ferguson would catch the ball, tuck it and throw it back. Over and over.

“Even during COVID time, we would go out, and his goal was to catch 300 passes,” Cody said.

Cody admits his son wasn’t always the best player on the field in high school, but it was Ferguson’s off-the-field routines that helped him make leaps on the field.
Ferguson committed to Oregon after his junior year. Oregon had the facilities. It also presented what the sparky recruit wanted from within: accountability, competition, peer-to-peer leadership and, of course, a chance to carve out a role early on.

Cody felt comfortable sending Ferguson away to a place where he said the coaching staff treats him like family.

“All the recruiting and flashy parts makes [the recruiters] feel like salesmen at times,” Cody said. “With Oregon, they were all real people.”

That’s another reason Ferguson chose the Ducks: He values interpersonal relationships — no matter whether he’s learning or leading.
Coming to Oregon in the spring helped Ferguson’s development and gave him the opportunity to learn from older guys in the position such as veteran tight end Spencer Webb. Learning at the college level early on made the transition from high school more natural for Ferguson. He’s not afraid to ask for help. After all, he’s been on the other end of it.

As he continued to put in work during his final high school season, he began to act as a role model for the younger guys on the team.

Ferguson’s high school coach Tyler Knoblock recalls asking Ferguson to take a young receiver under his wing and show him what it takes to be successful.

“What he was able to do for that kid and bring that kid along from just being another guy to truly utilizing his talents so he’s not afraid to share what he’s learned from the game,” Knoblock said. “There’s no secrets; it’s all something that he’s learned, and he’s willing to pass it along to a teammate.”

When Ferguson was back in Colorado in the summer, he continued to go to his old high school practices and workout sessions, sharing insight with the younger guys.

Ferguson’s hot start to the season can be credited in part to his mindset and team-first mentality. Putting in the extra hours off the field and helping out the younger players are factors that contribute to success in the next level of football.

Cody would always tell Ferguson’s high school teams, “Good is the enemy of great. Once you say you’re good enough, you’re never going to be great. And great is something that’s always ongoing.”

He believes his son lives by this mindset.