MOBILE, Ala. — Oregon needed a new lead running back to replace Jordan James and landed arguably the top back available via the transfer portal in Makhi Hughes.

Coming off back-to-back seasons with over 1,300 rushing yards at Tulane, Hughes immediately becomes RB1 for the Ducks in 2025. He had seven 100-yard games last season on his way to 1,401 yards with 15 touchdowns and 19 catches for 176 yards and two scores for the Green Wave.

“He ain’t no little back,” former Tulane safety Caleb Ransaw said. “He’s more so like a versatile back. He can run and he worked on his long speed; he’s a long runner as well. He’s powerful, he can do some juke moves as well.

“Some people they’re more power backs and there’s receiving backs and just running backs. He can do it all.”

At 5-foot-11 and 210 pounds Hughes is effectively the same stature of James, who declared for the NFL draft.

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Hughes, who also ran for 1,378 yards and seven touchdowns in 2023, has similar situational splits to James, averaging nearly five yards per carry on first, second and third down.

“He’s a workhorse, so you can depend on him first down, second down and third down,” former Tulane defensive back Johnathan Edwards said. “He came to work every day, same guy Day 1 as Day 365. I got a lot of respect for Makhi and he’s going to do great things at Oregon.”

Edwards said Hughes’ power was regularly on display in practice as well as games and running through contact is among his traits.

“He’s not going down on the first tackle,” Edwards said. “I remember in fall camp one of our starting safeties, he blew him up real good and Makhi ran straight through him. It was crazy.”

— James Crepea covers the Oregon Ducks and Big Ten. Listen to the Ducks Confidential podcast or subscribe to the Ducks Roundup newsletter.

Higher education leaders across Oregon are wrapping their heads around the potential impact of a grant funding pause on their institutions and on students.

“Portland Community College does receive a substantial amount of support through the federal government,” said a PCC spokesperson on Tuesday. “We are currently trying to determine the full gravity of the recent actions and executive orders issued by the administration and potential impacts on our students, programs and college.”

PCC is Oregon’s largest higher education institution.

While the freeze on federal funding is now in doubt, following a judge’s temporary order out of Washington, D.C., higher education leaders are looking closely at President Trump’s latest actions to see how their institutions might be affected. The freeze on funding was intended to stop the flow of federal dollars while agencies could review how those streams align with executive orders Trump signed governing diversity, equity and inclusion programs and the administration’s other policy targets.

“We will continue actively assessing any impact that federal actions have on Oregonians served by the postsecondary education and training system,” said a spokesperson with Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission. “The HECC continues in our mission and commitment to advance equitable access to and success in postsecondary education and training for all Oregonians.”

Federal funding for research projects is a particular worry for the state’s larger public universities, which receive millions of dollars in federal research funding each year.

“We’re looking closely at each executive order and agency request to understand the potential impacts on the groundbreaking research conducted by our faculty,” said a University of Oregon spokesperson in a statement.

In response to the memo, Portland State University is advising students and faculty involved in federal research to be more mindful with their grant spending.

“For students and employees working on federally funded research grants, we’re asking leaders to prioritize people and temporarily suspend their non-personnel spending and other grant related costs,” said PSU President Ann Cudd in a letter to the campus community.

Oregon State University is among the biggest recipients of federal research funding in the state. The university was awarded $370 million in federal grants last school year. A letter sent to OSU’s community from its Office of Research and Innovation on Tuesday said the university is reviewing the White House executive actions and providing guidance to campus stakeholders.

“Given Oregon State’s reputation and preeminent status as an institution dedicated to advancing research of utmost importance to the state, the nation and the world, even a temporary pause on the issuance of new awards and on the disbursement of federal funds for open awards has broad impacts across the university,” read the statement.

The U.S. Department of Education released guidance on Tuesday, saying the order would not apply to federal financial aid for students.

It’s still unclear if federally funded student success programs would be impacted. Many of those programs focus on students of color, and students from low-income backgrounds or those who are the first in their families to attend college. Officials anticipate pulling the plug on the programs could have a negative effect on Oregon’s future workforce.

“Oregon’s community colleges are on the frontline for workforce and economic development,” said Abby Lee, executive director of the Oregon Community College Association. “Our focus today and every day is to ensure Oregonians continue to have access to the affordable degrees, certificates, training, and employment opportunities Oregon’s colleges provide.”

English explorer Sir Francis Drake sailed the Pacific in 1579, sacking Spanish galleons and stealing treasure, at least until his boat sprang a leak.

That’s when he found what he called a “Fair and Good Bay” in which to make repairs.

For years, Californians have claimed he landed on their shores. But a scholar at Portland State University says documents in the British Museum show the bay might well have been somewhere along the Oregon coast instead.

Whale Cove near Depoe Bay is a natural harbor with a protected little beach where a ship could be careened — that is, emptied and tipped sideways to expose the hull so sailors can pack gaps in the wooden planks with cotton and tar to stop leaks.

For decades there have been whispers that that’s exactly what Drake did in 1579.

“There are just these little pieces that seem like very tenuous threads,” said retired publisher Rick Beasley, who has heard all the tales.

“There’s a skiff or small boat that is buried in the sediment on the Salmon River,” he said. “There are ballast stones that are out there that divers have found.”

A boy is said to have found an old Spanish coin in his mum’s garden in Newport in 1948. But it was dated after Drake’s landing. Beeswax keeps washing up in the area too. But that’s from a Spanish galleon wrecked off Nehalem.

Exactly where Drake landed on the West Coast in 1579 has been hotly debated for decades. A Wikipedia page lists more than 40 possible locations, from Alaska to Mexico.

California has perhaps the biggest claim, based on findings of old pottery and other artifacts at Point Reyes. The National Park Service even named one area Drakes Bay.

But Melissa Darby, a research scholar in the anthropology department of Portland State University, says her reading of an old document in the British Museum indicates Drake likely landed in Oregon, not California.

The manuscript, from a collection known as the “Hakluyt manuscripts,” was written shortly after the voyage by Richard Hakluyt, one of the queen’s scribes.

“Scholars have been looking at it since the 1850s,” Darby said. “But they’ve been looking at a printed version that was published in 1855. And I went to England and looked at the manuscript itself.”

In her book “Thunder Go North,” Darby says the manuscript indicates Drake sailed as far as 48 degrees north latitude, then landed at 44 degrees for repairs. That puts him somewhere like Whale Cove, near Depoe Bay, instead of Point Reyes, California.

Marco Meniketti, a professor of archeology at San José State University, said people get quite animated about this issue.

“A lot of it has to do with bragging rights, ‘We were the first!’” Meniketti said.

Personally, Meniketti thinks Drake’s descriptions of local tribes match the coastal Miwok tribe in Point Reyes, but there’s room for debate.

“[The debate] is still alive because the evidence is not 100% bulletproof,” Meniketti said.

Drake Navigators Guild points out there are about 30 websites offering what it calls fringe and conspiracy theories on the location of the bay.

Claiming land around ‘Fair and Good Bay’

Back in 16th century England, one way to make a fortune was to gather a few friends together, build a ship and send it out to privateer — that is, steal from Spanish or French ships then divide the spoils with the English crown.

So it was in 1577 that a handful of the most powerful people in England sent Francis Drake out in the Golden Hind and four other ships to sail around South America into the Pacific Ocean.

The voyages proved unbelievably successful, mainly because the Spanish were not expecting English privateers in the Pacific.

“[The Spanish] were caught unawares and unguarded. They had no cannon pointing towards the ocean,” Darby explained. Drake “just went from treasure house to treasure house along the coast. And harried all the shipping.”

Drake’s biggest haul came from a ship called the Cacafuego.

“It took a day and a half just to download all the silver bars and chests of gold,” Darby said.

But Drake couldn’t simply head home with his spoils. In addition to being a privateer, he was a spy. Queen Elizabeth I had charged him with finding the Northwest Passage, a sea route explorers hoped would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Drake headed north. But the Golden Hind was full of plunder and sprung a leak. He had to find a protected bay to careen the ship.

In the official record of voyage, Drake landed at a “Fair and Good Bay” where the crew remained for six to 10 weeks, trading with locals and claiming the land.

Europeans had four requirements for a land claim back then. A flag or plaque had to be placed; a religious ceremony held; the claim had to be published; and the explorer had to have an official discussion with the Indigenous leader explaining the claim.

Darby thinks Drake misread the traditional tribal offering to important visitors.

“They gave Drake this feathered headdress and he said: ‘Oh, well they’re giving me the crown of the country.’ Well, that was a total misconception,” Darby said.

When Drake returned to England, he proved to be both a hero and a problem. His haul provided enough money for Queen Elizabeth to build a fleet of warships. On the other hand, England wasn’t at war with Spain, so the queen had to distance herself.

“The queen said, ‘Oh no. I didn’t send Drake out. He’s a pirate and we’re going to return the treasure to you [Spain].’ That was a ruse,” Darby said.

“The treasure never got returned.”

Most importantly for this story, Drake gave the queen the logs of his voyage, including how far north he’d travelled. The official account places the Golden Hind at 42-43 degrees north latitude. But Darby and others think the real latitude was kept secret because the country that found a Northwest Passage would make millions on a cheaper trade route to Asia.

Darby also thinks England placed the official latitude lower because it was trying to grab land.

“The boundary of New Spain was right around San Francisco. So I’m sure they looked at a map and said, ‘This is unclaimed land.’ Drake didn’t see this land because he was looking for the Northwest Passage. ‘Well, we can’t leave this open so let’s just say he was down there.’”

Debate about where he landed may be heated, but some wonder whether it matters in the current era, when colonialism is largely condemned.

Many people think so, because Drake was the first British explorer to contact Native Americans on the West Coast. Also, crew member Diego was possibly among the first Black people to set foot in the West Coast.

Why people believe Drake landed in California

Darby also thinks history gives insight to the present. For example, one of the reasons the California bay has the momentum as Drake’s landing spot is that a brass plaque was found there in 1937. It was dated 1579 and said in part: “I [Drake] take possession of this Kingdom whose king and people freely resign their right and title.”

Herbert Bolton, a University of California, Berkeley, professor at the time, proclaimed it to be authentic. But a metallurgy test in the 1970s showed the plaque was probably a hoax.

Darby thinks racism was at work.

“[Californians] didn’t like the fact that Spain was claiming a lot of the history of California. And so they wanted to make the history of California a sparkling white history and so Drake was their hero,” she said.

Archeology professor Marco Meniketti also thinks Drake’s landing spot is important, because it spurred the Spanish to push their interest farther up the California coast.

“That created an impetus for Spain to start moving the Mission system further north,” Meniketti said.

The oral histories of some Native American tribes in Oregon do refer to visiting ships and wrecks. But not 400 years ago.

Robert Kentta with the Siletz Tribe said Drake’s sailors probably did trade during the weeks they were fixing their ship, and there are stories of swords and coins being found in Oregon — but nothing decisive. And, Kentta said, the descriptions of some Indigenous artifacts in voyage accounts give him cause for doubt.

“Drake’s journals even talked about the basketry being decorated with feathers, which is a very Central Californian coastal tradition, which has never been practiced here as far as I know,” he said.

The actual location of Drake’s “Fair and Good Bay” may never be decisively confirmed. There is a rumor that the original voyage logs still exist somewhere among the British crown’s private papers. But the truth is probably that they were incinerated in 1698, when Whitehall Palace in London burned to the ground.