Welcome back to Autzen Stadium, Oregon football legends Kenjon Barner and Troy Dye! The former Oregon football players will be guest coaches for the spring football game on Saturday, April 27th.

Three-time Super-Bowl champion Barner and current Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Dye are two of the most beloved Ducks ever. 

The Oregon spring football game kicks off at 1p.m. PT on Saturday. In Oregon coach Dan Lanning’s third Duck spring game, he invited Eugene native and fan-favorite artist Mat Kearney to perform a postgame concert on the field of Autzen Stadium. Fans will be invited down onto the field to enjoy the concert. 

Saturday will be the first chance for Ducks fans to see many new transfer players in an Oregon uniform. Quarterback Dillon Gabriel is a Heisman Trophy-contender and has a shot to make an immediate impact on the 2024 football team.  

It will also be the debut for wide receiver Evan Stewart, quarterback Dante Moore, cornerback Jabbar Muhammad and safety Kobe Savage, among others. 

The teams have been set and to no surprise, it is Gabriel leading the green team vs. Moore, who will QB the white team.

Barner played running back for the Ducks from 2009-2012. Under then-Oregon coach Chip Kelly, Barner earned consensus All-American honors in 2012. One of the most-memorable Barner moments came vs. USC in 2023, when the southern-California native set a school-record 321 rushing yards on a career-high 38 attempts and tied for a career-high five touchdowns.

A top contender for the 2012 Heisman Trophy, Barner played in the NFL from 2013-2022. Barner has won the Super Bowl three times (Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots, Tampa Bay Buccaneers.)

After four seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, Dye was recently signed by the Chargers. Dye will be reunited with former Duck teammate quarterback Justin Herbert.

OREGON — Oregon is officially a Tree City USA.

During the April 23 Oregon City Council meeting, City Manager Darin DeHaan presented Mayor Ken Williams with a plaque honoring the city’s designation, which was received last month.

“This has been a project that we started in 2021,” DeHaan said. “I’m proud of our community, proud of our mayor’s leadership and glad to present him this plaque.”

Getting the designation is a big deal, Williams said.

“In small, rural communities like Oregon, you always think of the tree-lined streets and the trees in the summer, and we feel like a community,” he said. “I love that. I’m glad we’re doing that, and I know we have resources set aside to help fund our tree policy and some of the things going with that.”

Tree City USA was created by the Arbor Day Foundation in 1976, according to ArborDay.org. A community can receive annual Tree City recognition by meeting four overarching standards:

1. Maintain a tree board or department.

City Council members unanimously voted to create the Oregon Tree Board on June 28, 2022. Members of the board met three times prior to its official creation.

2. Having a community tree ordinance.

A tree preservation regulations ordinance was unanimously approved by council members on Nov. 8, 2022.

3. Spending at least $2 per resident on urban forestry.

Oregon has a population of 3,604 according to the 2020 census, which means the city must spend at least $7,208 on tree removals, pruning and plantings annually.

In 2023, the city got a $4,700 grant to conduct a tree inventory, something which hadn’t been done since 1998.

4. Celebrating Arbor Day.

Illinois observes Arbor Day on the last Friday in April.

City officials were planning to plant a tree at the city’s wastewater treatment plant on Friday afternoon, but are rescheduling because of weather, DeHaan said. A new date has not yet been chosen.

Oregon was unable to gain Tree City USA status in 2023 because of deadlines.

So many months, meetings and miles later, the Broncos’ first-round plan proved so simple it translates into two letters.

Bo.

Denver set its course for the future and coach Sean Payton put his quarterback evaluation chops on the line in a major way Thursday night by selecting Oregon quarterback Bo Nix at No. 12.

Nix, a six-year college player who started 61 games and put up prodigious numbers the past two years running the Ducks offense, all along felt like a clean fit from a scheme standpoint. He was not, however, considered a particularly good value in the first half of the first round.

In recent years, however, quarterbacks have been picked earlier and earlier. Never faster and more furiously than this night.

USC’s Caleb Williams, LSU’s Jayden Daniels and North Carolina’s Drake Maye went in succession the first three picks. None of Washington, Chicago and New England, respectively, could be convinced to move off those opportunities.

Atlanta dropped the stunner and picked Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 two months after giving Kirk Cousins $100 million guaranteed. Then Minnesota moved up one spot to No. 10 to ensure it got the fifth quarterback of the night in Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy.

All the while, the Broncos were not concerned.

They waited out free agency. They waited out weeks of trade talks before acquiring Zach Wilson from the New York Jets on Monday for minimal cost. What’s a few more picks and a quintet of quarterbacks?

Payton said at the NFL scouting combine that his team would ace the quarterback evaluation process and other teams wouldn’t. Then he stood pat at No. 12 and had no qualms about taking the sixth quarterback of the night.

“It means a lot,” Nix said. “I can’t thank them enough for taking me, and for putting their belief in me. Like I said, there’s a lot in the future that’s going to need to be done — a lot of work to be done, a lot of growing and a lot of getting better. I just appreciate the value that they had in me.”

They left premium options for teams behind. They could have had Georgia tight end Brock Bowers. They could have had their pick of defensive players. The first didn’t come off the board until Indianapolis took UCLA pass-rusher Laiatu Latu at No. 15, the longest stretch of all offense to start a draft in NFL history.

Instead, they did what so much of the top half of the draft order did: took a swing at the game’s most important position.

The Broncos did extensive work on Nix throughout the process, just as they did with the other quarterbacks in the class. They didn’t have a loud presence at his pro day in March, but Sean Payton and company were in Eugene and held a lengthy private workout and meeting with him the next day.

“We talked a lot of football and we talked a lot about (Payton’s) scheme and what he’s done for so many years and how he’s been so successful,” Nix said. “It was a blast talking football, to be honest with you. It was a blast being in there with him and the other coaches. They brought a lot of guys out there to the private (meeting) and I was just very honored to have them around.”

The way the board fell provides a clean and compelling way to measure Denver’s process. Because Nix was the last of the six off the board, the Broncos will have either outfoxed and out-scouted a dozen other teams or it will look like they forced the issue and took a quarterback because they felt they had to take one.

The ramifications of that are equally clear and every bit as compelling: If Nix solves the eight-year quarterback conundrum this franchise has suffered through, this will be a defining night. The pick took no additional draft capital and leaves Payton and general manager George Paton with seven selections moving forward into the next two days to attack other areas of need. There are many.

If not, the wisdom of selecting a player most didn’t have among the draft’s premier talents will be questioned up and down for years. Could the Broncos have landed Nix later? Is he that much better than Spencer Rattler? How many touchdowns did Bowers catch for Las Vegas against Denver this year?

That’s the nature of making this bet. Payton put his first-rounder where his mouth was.

First-rounders have to produce regardless of position, but especially when it’s a quarterback and especially when a team hasn’t made one since 2021.

If Nix learns to operate Payton’s offensive system the way he did Oregon’s, the Broncos will benefit for years to come. If he ends up performing like a typical sixth quarterback taken in a draft, Denver will likely continue to lag far behind in a division that features two of the game’s best quarterbacks in Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert.

No pressure.

QB Bo Nix, Oregon

Round/pick: 1st/No. 12

Age: 24

Height/weight: 6-foot-2/217 pounds

College: Oregon

Hometown: Pinson, Ala.

Notable: Nix is one of the most experienced quarterbacks in this year’s draft class, playing in 61 career games and recording 15,352 passing yards, 113 touchdowns and 26 interceptions. A four-star recruit out of high school and ranked the best dual-threat quarterback in the 2019 class by 247sports, Nix spent three seasons at Auburn before transferring to Oregon and becoming a college football superstar. He totaled 8,101 passing yards, 74 touchdowns and 10 picks in two seasons with the Ducks, posting a 22-5 record.

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