The Oregon Ducks have been in camp for about 10 days and held eight workouts. On Saturday afternoon, Oregon held their first scrimmage of fall camp at Autzen Stadium.

The Ducks carry lofty expectations as coaches, players, and certainly the fans believe Oregon will compete for a Big Ten Conference Championship as well as a berth in the expanded College Football Playoff.

One consistent theme in the Ducks’ workouts has been competition. Coach Dan Lanning and his assistants have assembled an incredibly talented team with a number of positions still up for grabs. This scrimmage is the players’ first opportunity to have live repetitions and impress the coaches.

“It’s gonna be competitive like everything else,” said coach Lanning.

He wasn’t the only one looking for players to step up and compete. Senior linebacker and the leader of what is likely to be a top performing defense in 2024, Jeffrey Bassa, shared his thoughts leading up to the scrimmage.

“I want to see relentless effort,” Bassa said. “That’s for sure going to have to be the main thing. And we gotta take the ball away. I know it’s going to be an opportunity for a lot of the young guys to go out there and get the pads rocking again, so I want to see young guys step up, I want to see young guys fly around to the ball, play with a lot of juice and energy and passion. From the older guys I want to see a lot of leadership, as well.”

Following the scrimmage, coach Lanning spoke with the press and shared his thoughts on the day.

“Good competitive scrimmage. Good physicality, guys out there tackling, running to the ball, blocking hard,“ Lanning said. “(I) thought that all showed up. I think there (are) a lot of things operational that we can clean up and improve. Plenty to work on but saw a slight improvement on where we want to be.”

The Ducks have always been able to provide those big explosive plays and more of the same is expected in the upcoming season. Coach Lanning was asked if the offense was able to bring some of those plays to the scrimmage.

“I think we were limited from an explosive play standpoint. (I) want to be able to see some more of those,” Lanning said. “I thought the offense did a much better job on third down, overall, in comparison to the defense, having some success there.”

As this was the first scrimmage of fall camp, coach Lanning was asked about the biggest positive of the day.

“Just the competitive toughness, right,” said Lanning. “The guys competed from the minute we started to the minute we finished. (We) wanted to win every single rep and did a pretty good job of getting to the next play.”

A key position for the 2024 Ducks will be the play of transfer portal quarterback, Dillon Gabriel. Lanning was asked about the decision making of Gabriel as well as Dante Moore and Austin Novosad during the scrimmage.

“Pretty good,” Lanning said. “We had one turnover on the day, but thought we protected the ball well.”

In terms of individual efforts, Lanning was quick to say that there wasn’t an individual he would say was a standout performer in this scrimmage.

The next steps for Lanning and his coaches are to break down the film of the scrimmage.

“We’ve got to go watch the film, asap,” Lanning explained. “Get a write-up on where we need to grow as a team on every side of the ball. And then figure out where we are at and what we need to attack moving on to this next week.”

Coach Lanning was also asked about the play of Gabriel.

“Yeah, I think he is operating in the system, he understands what we want to be able to accomplish, and he is getting more and more comfortable as we go,” Lanning said.

Given the lofty expectations for Gabriel and a wide receiver room that could be the best in the country, coach Lanning was asked about the relationship between Gabriel and his wide outs.

“I think there is a lot of trust on both parts, for those guys to be where they are supposed to be and the ball to be there when the get there” said Lanning. “I think that’s in a good spot.”

 One area that coach Lanning specifically pointed out as needing improvement is the pace of play.

“No, (the pace) wasn’t there today,” said Lanning. “I’d like to see us to be, again, our pace of play, getting in and out of the huddle, I want to see us improve.”

As to a winner or loser in this first scrimmage, coach Lanning declined to name one or the other but did note good plays on both sides of the ball.

“I don’t think so, not necessarily today,” Lanning explained. “There were highs and lows for both sides of the ball.

Coach Lanning ended the press conference by responding to a question regarding what this team might look like going forward.

“I certainly have a vision,” Lanning said. “I don’t know if we are there yet, but we have talent, we have some ability, we’ve got to improve.”

EUGENE — Oregon’s first fall scrimmage was competitive and physical and also featured one turnover and some pre-snap issues that need to be cleaned up, according to Dan Lanning.

The Ducks held a closed scrimmage Saturday afternoon at Autzen Stadium. The offense was “limited” in explosive plays but did better on third down than the defense, Lanning said.

“Good competitive scrimmage, good physicality,” Lanning said. “Guys out there tackling, running to the ball, blocking hard, thought all that showed up. There were a lot of operational things that we can clean up and improve, whether it’s pre-snap penalties, shift motions, handling those the proper way. Plenty to work on, but saw a slight improvement on where we want to be. Definitely a lot of places for us to grow moving forward.”

The Oregon State Beavers officially begin the 2024 football season on August 31 when they host the Idaho State Bengals. However, preparations for the season have long been underway and continued Saturday in the Beavs’ first intrasquad scrimmage of the fall.

Afterwards, Bray was directly asked if he believes the competition for the starting quarterback job is still a three-man battle.

“I do,” Bray stated. “Yeah, it’s going to go right until the end.”

Ben Gulbranson Leaning Into Experience in Oregon State QB Battle

Fifth-year junior Ben Gulbranson is one candidate for the job, whose experience certainly helps his cause. Idaho transfer Gevani McCoy (also a redshirt junior) is also a strong candidate. Redshirt freshman Missouri transfer and former four-star recruit Gabarri Johnson also impressed Bray with his athleticism in Saturday’s scrimmage, which the defense won.

“I thought Gabarri made some plays with his legs when things weren’t open, which I really like. And then that last play, being able to keep it alive and find the open guy, that was impressive,” Bray noted. “I think they’re all getting better, learning the system, feeling more comfortable. Really the end of this last week and today, I think they’re getting better every day. “

Veteran running back Jam Griffin, when asked, had this to say about McCoy’s time in the offense on Saturday: “He’s getting more comfortable back and he looked pretty good today. So it’s going to be fun watching those guys progress right before the season.”

Bray made it clear that the option of utilizing each of the quarterbacks in a split-responsibility role or in specialized packages is not something they’re really entertaining at this point. With less than three weeks until the season opener, Bray’s just going to wait and see.

“We’re just going to see who’s going to win the job, be the guy, and then we’ll see how we can use the other guys to help us.”