Oregon
Checking in with the Oregon Ducks WR room ahead of the 2025 season
We are less than 50 days away from the start of the 2025 college football season, and fewer than two weeks stand between us and the beginning of the Oregon Ducks’ fall camp getting off the ground in Eugene. While coaches and players wrap up their final couple of offseason weeks, we’re ready to jump back into things and take a deep dive into what’s set to take place at Autzen Stadium this year.
The Ducks are coming off of an incredible season that saw a 12-0 regular season, a Big Ten Championship, and the No. 1 seed in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff. The offseason brought significant roster turnover as Oregon sent a program record 10 players into the 2025 NFL draft; however, those players have been replaced by a young yet incredibly talented group of players ready to uphold the standard in Eugene.
Will they be able to complete the job? Expectations are high, but it won’t be an easy task.
Over the next few weeks, many questions will be asked, and a significant number of them will be answered. Once we get a look at things during fall camp, we will be able to predict more accurately how things shape up. However, we already have our depth chart projections for offense and defense from spring. As we continue our preview of the 2025 season, leading up to the kick-off vs. Montana State on August 30, let’s take a deep dive, position by position.
Previous Position Previews
Now let’s take a closer look at the running backs as we prepare for fall camp.
Overall Oregon Ducks WR Check-In
There are numerous positions on Oregon’s roster where talent is abundant, but experience is lacking. That may be no more true than at the WR spot. After losing both Tez Johnson and Traeshon Holden to the NFL, the Ducks were expecting to go into the 2025 season with Evan Stewart leading a young group of pass-catchers into the new season.
Then Stewart suffered an offseason knee injury, putting his 2025 campaign in doubt. Now the Ducks will have to rely on a young group of players with a lot of talent, but very minimal game experience. That group contains high-upside guys like Dakorien Moore, Jeremiah McClellan, Jurrion Dickey, Justius Lowe, and Kyler Kasper, all of whom could be potential gamebreakers. At this point, however, we need to see it before we can accurately project just how good the Ducks’ WR room is going to be this season.
Departing Oregon Ducks Wide Receivers
Tez Johnson
Career Stats: 310 catches, 3,889 yards, 28 TD
Although he was at Oregon for just two seasons, Tez Johnson quickly became the heart and soul of the Oregon program. He had wanted to be a Duck for a long time, and when his adopted brother, Bo Nix, came to Eugene, Johnson followed. The Ducks are thankful he did just that. He turned from a possession receiver to WR1 in his senior season, where he flourished. In his time as a Duck, Johnson had 169 catches for 2,080 yards and 20 touchdowns.
Traeshon Holden
Career Stats: 128 catches, 1,740 yards, 18 TD
Holden turned into a solid No. 2 receiver in 2024 and had a career-high of 45 catches, 718 yards, and added five more touchdowns to his resume. As a big-bodied receiver, Holden was a great complement to both Troy Franklin and Tez Johnson during his time in Eugene.
Returning Oregon Ducks Wide Receivers
Evan Stewart (Injured)
Career Stats: 139 catches, 1,776 yards, 11 TD
Going into the 2025 season, Stewart was projected to be the No. 1 WR for Oregon and among the top pass-catchers in the nation. However, an offseason knee injury derailed that, and now there are questions about when he will return, if at all, this season. We will continue to monitor the recovery timeline, but it seems more likely than not that Stewart will take a medical redshirt this season and instead focus on returning to the field in 2026.
Justius Lowe
Career Stats: 21 catches, 201 yards, 1 TD
Lowe probably would have been a starter on most teams, but most teams didn’t have the receivers Oregon had last season. When he finally got his chance, Lowe delivered. He’ll have plenty of opportunities in 2025, as we expect his workload to be significantly heavier than in years past, especially with Stewart sidelined. If he can be a reliable receiver, it will only help out guys such as Dakorien Moore and Jeremiah McClellan to get into single coverage.
Jeremiah McClellan
Career Stats: 3 catches, 24 yards
McClellan was among the top receivers in the Class of 2024 and was mainly on the scout team last season. But in 2025, he should see the field regularly; that’s how highly the Oregon coaching staff thinks of him. At 6 feet and 190 pounds, he has the chance to develop into a dynamic player for the program. The only question is how quickly he achieves that.
Kyler Kasper
Career Stats: 4 catches, 26 yards
It seems as if Kasper has been in Eugene for a long time. He was just 17 when he saw the field for the first time. Now, as a redshirt junior, the 6-foot-6, 210-pounder should have a more prominent role within the offense. You can’t teach height at the receiver position.
Jurrion Dickey
Career Stats: 2 catches, 14 yards
Dickey came into the Oregon program as one of the top receivers in the Class of 2023, but injuries slowed his progress, and he has been unable to crack the depth chart so far in his career. But in 2025, Dickey has as good of an opportunity as ever to show why he was a 5-star recruit and become an offensive weapon for the Ducks.
Gary Bryant Jr.
Career Stats: 85 catches, 1099 yards, 11 TDs
Bryant returns for one more year in Eugene after being sidelined with an injury for the better part of the 2024 season. He will be a valuable veteran in the WR room, but it remains to be seen whether or not he will be able to establish a prominent role amidst all of the talent around him.
Dillon Gresham
Career Stats: None
Dillon Gresham was one of the few blue-chip receivers that Oregon brought in as a member of the 2024 class, and while he redshirted last year, he showed in the spring game how dynamic of a receiver he can be. It may be tough for him to earn a top spot in the offense, but he is one of the many promising, young pass-catchers on the roster.
Jack Ressler
Career Stats: None
Ressler was another member of Oregon’s 2024 class who redshirted as a freshman and will be looking to work his way up in the depth chart this season.
Incoming Oregon Ducks Wide Receivers
Dakorien Moore
Career Stats: None
Expectations are high for 5-star WR Dakorien Moore, who was the No. 1 rated receiver in the 2025 class and one of the top-ranked recruits in Oregon history. With Evan Stewart sidelined for the foreseeable future, some extra weight is being placed on the freshman’s shoulders to step up and be “the guy” in Oregon’s offense. That may be unfair to ask of a player with no college experience, but based on everything we’re hearing and what we saw at the spring game, he should be up to the task.
Malik Benson
Career Stats: 38 catches, 473 yards, 2 TD
With all the inexperience currently on the roster, it was smart to explore the transfer portal and secure a receiver like Malik Benson. He had a nice season for a poor Florida State team with 25 catches, 311 yards, and a touchdown. He’ll most likely be WR2 or WR3 behind Moore, and with a better quarterback and players around him, Benson’s numbers should rise dramatically.
Cooper Perry
Career Stats: None
Cooper Perry is a blue-chip player in the 2025 class who was rated as the No. 20 WR in the nation. He garnered a lot of positive attention this spring for his ability to make contested catches over the middle, but he will likely redshirt in 2025 before entering the mix in 2026.
Predicting Oregon Ducks Starting Wide Receivers
- Dakorien Moore
- Jeremiah McClellan
- Justius Lowe
The injury to Evan Stewart certainly threw a wrench in Oregon’s starting wide receiver plans this year. What was once envisioned as a trio of Stewart, Moore, and either Lowe or McClellan has now shifted. Moore, McClellan, and Lowe are the most likely candidates to take over as starters, all of whom have minimal to no experience in actual gameplay. Other guys like Jurrion Dickey, Kyler Kasper, Malik Benson, and Gary Bryant will likely get a lot of reps, but my best bet is that trio of guys at the top.
Overall Oregon Ducks WR Outlook
While the outlook for Oregon’s WR group is somewhat uncertain going into the 2025 season, there’s hope and a belief that the players on the roster will flourish with the opportunity and break out. If that’s the case, then the Ducks could easily have one of the best receiver groups in the nation going into the 2026 season. On top of that, the Ducks’ WR recruiting has remained elite under new receiver coach Ross Douglas, who has pulled in 4-star Jalen Lott (No. 33 nationally) and 4-star Messiah Hampton (No. 99 nationally) in this class. On top of that, the Ducks will finally bring in 5-star WR Gatlin Bair next year after his LDS mission comes to a close. Long story short, Oregon’s WR group is loaded with talent; we need to see it play out on the field.
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Ahead of a massive Week 5 showdown between two of the Big Ten’s primary contenders, Oregon visiting Penn State, college football analyst David Pollack broke down the game and explained which side he’s giving the edge to on Saturday evening.
An episode of Pollack’s podcast, See Ball Get Ball, dropped on Wednesday and featured the former All-American’s picks for the top games of the week, which he paired with some in-depth commentary behind why he’s selected the teams and final scores that he has. For the big one, Oregon at Penn State, he explained why the Nittany Lions could have a few aces hiding up their sleeve.
“Penn State ain’t hasn’t had show nothing yet, and they haven’t showed nothing yet,” Pollack said of PSU’s soft open to their 2025 schedule. “Listen, (Andy) Kotelnecki, with a preseason tune-up, he knows exactly who he is, he knows what he is, like, they’re going to score some points,” he added.
Penn State ran off wins against Nevada, FIU and Villanova before taking their bye week ahead of Oregon. En route to outscoring those poor souls by a 132-17 total score, Pollack’s right, Penn State didn’t have to dive deep into their bag. He referenced Georgia’s performance vs. Tennessee from a couple weeks ago, noting that the Nittany Lions have an established ground game to pair with whatever new tricks are introduced in the passing game.
“The run game beat up Oregon a year ago,” Pollack commented. “The run game can be exactly the same as it was, if not better. The receiving corps cannot be worse, and I just think, with all of that, I’m betting on Penn State and I’m betting on who they have, their experience.”
The heads of that strong ground game are senior running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen, contributors since the day they stepped on campus, while quarterback Drew Allar is a veteran returning starter with NFL aspirations. That’s a lot of experience for PSU, whereas Oregon has a younger transfer leading the charge in former UCLA QB Dante Moore.
“I think Jim Knowles will have something for Dante Moore that he’s absolutely never seen before in an atmosphere that’s going to be absolutely ballistic,” Pollack emphasized. “I think Dante Moore is going to look more human than he’s looked, and because of that, they could struggle a little bit. They’re not going to get to 45 like they did a year ago in the Big Ten championship game.”
With the experience edge and having the Ducks migrate across all three time zones to touch down in a “ballistic” Beaver Stadium, Pollack sees too much evidence going in Penn State’s direction for the victory.
“I got the Nittany Lions, man,” he stated. “I got 30-24 Penn State, they take care of business. All of the guys on the front who can make plays, they can get to the quarterback, they can get TFLs. They can rattle Dante Moore and I think they take care of business.”
EUGENE — Oregon’s current starting quarterback could reach out to one of his predecessors ahead of the biggest road game of his career.
Dante Moore visited Penn State as a recruit on Sept. 18, 2021, when the Nittany Lions hosted Auburn and then-Tigers quarterback Bo Nix for a White Out game at Beaver Stadium.
“At the time I didn’t know much of Bo as a person and of course as a player,” Moore said. “He was there throwing a lot of great passes … he was a competitor. The stadium was really loud of course.”
Nix was 21 of 37 for 185 yards and had six carries for 29 yards in a 28-20 loss to Penn State, which has extended its win streak in White Out game to six entering Saturday’s game with No. 6 Oregon.
“It was one of those that once you play in you know why everybody talks about it and speaks so highly of it,” Nix said in an interview with The Next Round days following that game. “It was fun. It was loud and it was exactly what an away game should feel like.”
Moore was reminded of the experience of visiting Happy Valley and seeing his high school teammate, former Penn State safety Jaylen Reed, play against Nix four years ago. He plans to talk to Nix this week about what it was like to play in what is widely considered the toughest road environment in the Big Ten and one of the toughest in college football.
“The stadium was really loud,” Moore said. “Understanding how Bo, how composed he was. Of course, I hope I have the chance to talk to him and hear his thoughts. It’s going to be a great week; it’s going to be a great game. It’s going to be a hostile environment. But I’m going to reach out to Bo for sure to see what things he has to tell me.”
Moore is completing 74.7% of his passes this season for 962 yards with 11 touchdowns and one interception and added 87 yards rushing. But Penn State is the best opposing defense he will have ever faced and a crowd of over 100,000 makes it even more challenging.
Penn State coach James Franklin said Oregon’s offense is operating similarly with Moore as it did last season with Dillon Gabriel, who led the Ducks past the Nittany Lions in the Big Ten Championship game.
“He’s a throw-first guy,” Franklin said. “Is very accurate. Can extend plays. Obviously, has a ton of play playmakers around him. … I think Dante sitting behind Gabriel was really valuable for his development.”
No. 6 Oregon (4-0, 1-0 Big Ten) at No. 3 Penn State (3-0)
- When: Saturday, Sept. 27
- Time: 4:30 p.m. PT
- Where: Beaver Stadium, University Park, PA
- TV channel: NBC/Peacock
- Watch: You can watch this game live for free with Fubo (free trial), with DirecTV (free trial) or streaming live on demand with Peacock.
- Stream: DirecTV (free trial) or Fubo (promotional offers) or Peacock ($10.99/month) or Sling (college football season pass is just $199). Streaming broadcasts for this game will be available on these streaming services locally in Oregon and Washington, but may not be available outside of the Pacific Northwest, depending on your location.
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It was quite the uneventful week in college football, at least for the top teams in the US LBM Coaches poll, including the Oregon Ducks after their 34-14 road win at Northwestern.
The top seven teams in the poll didn’t go up or down from last week. Oregon is still No. 5 in the country as they now prepare for the annual rivalry game with Oregon State at Autzen Stadium. But everyone is pointing to the next game after the Beavers, however.
Oregon goes to Penn State, which is ranked No. 2 in the poll and will likely stay at No. 2 as the Nittany Lions have a bye this week. The Big Ten dominates the poll with Ohio State on top at No. 1 after its 37-9 win over Ohio. Illinois is also in the Top 10 as the Illini are No. 9 in this week’s version of the poll.
Indiana moved up two spots at No. 17 with its 73-0 win over Indiana State.
The biggest move came from Georgia Tech after the Yellow Jackets stunned Clemson 24-21 on a last-second field goal. As a result, the Tigers, previously ranked No. 11, dropped to 1-2 on the season and completely out of the poll.
Besides Georgia Tech, Missouri (No. 22), Vanderbilt (No. 23) and Auburn (No. 25) are newcomers to the poll.
Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.
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