Sportswriters are notoriously cautious. They don’t make bold predictions as that would be unseemly. They stick to the script, and write the depth chart as it is, not what it could be. There’s no fault in that, no dishonesty. They just have to stick to facts. It’s not in the newspaper game to dream dreams that never were and ask, why not?
Which is why Aaron Fentress of the Oregonian lists Justin Hoffman and Will Murphy at the top of the Oregon two-deep at wide receiver. He’s just doing his job, as those are the players that are in house and in hand.
But a storm of sexy is coming our way, a “Whitney”-like onslaught of talent and brash creativity. B.J. Kelley, “Rocket80” arrived in town Friday, and Devon Blackmon is also back from a visit home. Rob Moseley reports Rahsaan Vaughn is slated to arrive over the weekend. Tacoi Sumler spent the summer here, and made a nice impression. Josh Huff, he gets more cut and more confident with every month. He announced himself with an 85-yard bang as a true freshman, and his store of fireworks is rich, tightly-fused and colorful. Huff’s the only one who didn’t come to town ready-made with a nickname. De’Anthony Thomas has two or three. For a guy as talented and effective as Huff has been, “Josh Huff” seems nickname enough. The kid with the Captain America physique and the Kenjon Barner speed just keeps making plays. No need for a dramatic pause or trademark dance or flashy sobriquet. The replay is flashy enough. The thing a fan has to love about Huff is, he started making them plays away, acting like that was what he expected. If he made twice as many as a sophomore nobody would be surprised.
(photo at right: B.J. Kelley as a h.s. senior: 51 catches, 1223 yards 16 tds, showing his sexy back to a lot of hapless dbs.)
Hoffman and Murphy are are a couple of hardworking kids. Walk-on Hoffman in particular has worked his way up the depth chart, until he’s almost ready to land a scholarship of his own. He outworked five scholarship players to nail down the top of the depth chart at third wide receiver this spring, but he’ll have to hold off four or five promising speedsters to stay there. The freshmen are just one part of the equation; Blake Cantu and Keanon Lowe were both four-star recruits coming out of high school, Lowe two-way all-state at Jesuit, where he rushed for over 1200 yards and 20 touchdowns. Cantu was an Under Armour All-American from South Lake, Texas who had 111 yards receiving in the 2009 Spring Game. He’s been hampered by injuries. If healthy, he has genuine talent. People get excited about the freshmen. The new hype is always better than the old hype, but these two have potential of their own. When you come out to practice, Eric Dungy always makes an impression. Not the biggest or fastest, but he has good hands and keeps showing up with the football. Cantu has good size at 6-0, 203, and he benches just under 300 pounds, strong enough to get off a jam. Dungy is slender but runs good routes. Coaches’ kids are invariably smart football players. Lowe is 5-9 180 by now, solidly built with a fluid stride. He ran a 10.8 100 and a 21.95 200 as a prep, getting a medal in both at the state meet. Fast enough to compete, and a good athlete from one of Oregon’s top high school programs. They lost in the state championship his junior year.
The weeds of doubt about Oregon this season spring up in three places. Experts question whether the offensive line can be rebuilt in time for LSU after the loss of Thran, Kaiser and Holmes, ignoring the crucial fact that Darrion Weems started at left tackle most of the year in 2011, including tne National Championship Game. Cody and York having been working their way up for a couple of years; only the center is completely new. People forget how good Greatwood is at teaching line play. Ducks have been piling up 6000 yards of offense with regularity ever since the 20-year Oregon assistant started coordinating the running game. The other quibble is replacing six veteran leaders on defense, but that’s tomorrow’s topic.
That refuted, the pundits move on to the question at receiver. “How is Oregon going to replace Jeff Maehl and Drew Davis?” The core of the answer is already in uniform. David Paulson, Josh Huff and Lavasier Tuinei are three solid targets who run hard after they catch the ball. Huff is nearly as fast as Kenjon Barner, and Barner will also take the field part of the time lined up in the slot or flanked wide for a potential screen pass. If you’re a PAC-12 secondary coach, these are among the most terrifying words you will ever hear: “Josh Huff or Kenjon Barner with the football, has a blocker, one man to beat.” Sing it Jerry Allen. We love it when that foghorn blows.
The storm of alluring possibilities continues with the most promising batch of newcomers to ever catch footballs for the Webfoots. It’s still up in the air whether junior college transfer Rahsaan Vaughn will make it: the university student website doesn’t yet include his name. California junior colleges are slow boats in choppy waters when it comes to transcripts. His situation may not be cleared up in time to grant him a decent chance to make an immediate impact. Too bad, because he was rated the number one junior college wide receiver in the country, and the highlight film verifies it. He’s smooth. He’s fast, agile, impossible to catch and hard to tackle. He runs great routes, catching 60 passes for over a 1,000 yards in a run-first offense. But none of it matters if he can’t catch 96 transferable credits by Monday. The boneyard of glory days turned ruin is littered with the gazelle-like femurs of wide receivers who didn’t make grades. Hope Vaughn pulls it together in time to show what he can do.
He’d better hurry, because a high pressure system of badass is gathering at the California border. Devon Blackmon, De’Anthony Thomas, and B.J. Kelley are all potential game changers, and tropical storm Tacoi Sumler has made a hard right turn all the way from Florida, hurtling into town like a hurricane at the speed of 4.24 in the 40. While recruiting class 40 times are normally as reliable as predictions of snow in Portland, Sumler’s was caught on video tape, at a Nike camp in the summer of 2010.
If the Ducks were bringing in one or two of these elite guys, a skeptic might be able to credibly say they have a problem at wide receiver. But there are six fast, capable athletes competing for two spots in the receiver rotation. A storm of sexy is coming our way. And Darron Thomas, with his Barry White voice, can already feel the love.
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