Oregon Ducks Football Fan Confidence Survey Results

Dec 20, 2025; Eugene, OR, USA; Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning smiles during the third quarter against the James Madison Dukes at Autzen Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Craig Strobeck-Imagn Images | Craig Strobeck-Imagn Images

Last week we ran a poll to get the confidence level of the fan base on each position unit for the Football team this upcoming fall. Today I thought we would discuss the results of that survey.

Here are the results in graphical form

Units Fans are Extremely Confident

5 of the 8 position groups the majority of fans are extremely confident. Those being RB, WR, DL, DE, and the Secondary. That type of confidence combined with a star returning QB rightfully places huge expectations on the team this year.

I’m in agreement with the fanbase on these units. For all 4 of these 5 position groups an argument could be made that Oregon has the best room in the country. The 1 room where that argument may be a stretch is the Secondary, but even still I think it’s safe to project Oregon to have a Top 10 secondary in College Football.

Units Fans are Confident

The remaining 3 units the majority of fans are at least confident having answered either “Confident” OR “Extremely Confident”

The middle ground unit was TE where only 1 fan was less than confident in this room. I agree with the fan base on this one as well although I was a little surprised there wasn’t more concern.

Oregon returns one of, if not the best, TE in college football this season with Jamari Johnson but his backup is a one of the few questions I have with the team.

When backup TE is one of your biggest questions on the roster you know you’re in good shape but it still is a relevant question. After Jamari, Oregon doesn’t have a single TE listed on its roster with a collegiate reception, to say the situation behind Johnson is green is an understatement.

Which made the transfer of Roger Saleapaga a bit of a surprise to me as had he stayed I think he definitely would have had a meaningful role. I digress, let’s talk about the guys in the room.

Oregon does have 2 very talented but also very young options in RS FR Transfer Andrew Olesh (.9702) and True Freshmen Kendre Harrison (.9843).

They also have two veteran journeymen who don’t have the same level of talent on paper but are at least older and likely more physically developed in Transfer RS SR Marcus Dixon and RS SO AJ Pugliano.

So while Oregon has plenty of options to be a backup all 4 have a question related to them.

Units Fans Are Most Concerned

The word “Most” is key in the heading as both of these Units the majority of fans are still at least confident in these units. However, these units are the only two units were at least 12% of fans are somewhat concerned. They are unsurprisingly the O-Line and LB.

O-Line

Let’s start with the O-Line. I have discussed the O-Line in good detail in the comment section of other articles, I’m going to summarize those thoughts here so my 2 cents on the O-Line are documented for why I personally responded “Confident”.

Personally I can understand the concern some fans have with this unit. Oregon will not only be be breaking in 3 new starters but 3 Alique Terry developed starters. As a young position coach we haven’t really seen what a homegrown developed Alique Terry offensive linemen looks like. Here is a quick summary of Terry’s time at Oregon:

23, Oregon was implementing new starters but Terry had just been hired to replace Adrian Klemm that off-season. The unit improved throughout the year, but these were very much inherited players not “Terry’s guys”

24, Had 3 returning starters from 2023 plus Poncho who rotated in during meaningful play in 2023. While Terry had been on the job for a year plus now these still felt like inherited players.

25, Was portal based due to the loss of High School kids from Cristobal’s exit and then Klemm’s exit one year later

26, Will be the first year of all start to finish Terry developed Offensive linemen

Given what he inherited and what the O-Line looked like every year I’m very confident in saying that Terry IS NOT a destructive position coach that actively makes his players worse. But I think it’s still somewhat of a question of how much of a value added developer Terry is. There are individual examples of Oregon offensive linemen improving under Terry but not guys from the very beginning to the very end.

The other good news is that Terry has been quite a good recruiter, and if as a position coach he gives himself guys who are already talented that should help in development.

There are 3 positions along the O-Line that seem to be up for grabs. Here are the players that appear to be in contention for those jobs:

LT: Fox Crader .9007 / Ziyare Addison .9470 /Immanuel Ihenacho .9936

LG: Kawika Rogers .8681 /Trent Ferguson .8686 / Demetri Manning .8886 / Douglas Utu .9548

RT: Michael Bennett .8700 / Zac Stauscausky .9310 / Tommy Tofi .9620

The average player rating of those 10 offensive line-men is .9184. A Mid 4*

If you had a team with an average player rating of .9184 they would be the 7th most talented team in the country per last years team talent composite between Notre Dame and LSU

I think the portal has warped peoples minds when it comes to projecting the O-Line. Now because the Portal exists it seems like some fans, and even other media outlets, think along the O-lines as:

Known = Good

Unknown = Bad

Before the advent of the portal teams broke in new O-Linemen all the time, because they had too. Unknowns weren’t automatically bad they were just questions. A lot of those teams that broke in unknowns got happy responses to those questions. and fielded very strong O-Lines.

The point being that, as many readers of this site are aware, if you recruit the line in high school and then develop those players the Offensive line should be in good shape. We know Oregon has done the first part of that already, there are indications that they can develop as well, but now we just need to see the final step of development for some players.

LB

When it comes to LBs I can understand the slightly elevated level of concern here as well but as a reminder 63.6% of fans were at least confident in this room. While I think Oregon got great production out of its starters at LB last year it was by far the thinnest unit on the team for 2 main reasons:

Devon Jackson either regressed or was never fully healthy or both

All of the young LBs got hurt

Now in 2026 Jackson and the young players need to step up to play a big role during meaningful play and there are questions about all 4 of them.

Personally I voted “Confident” for a couple of reasons

Oregon does return Jerry Mixon who I personally think is one of the best off ball linebackers in the B1G

I haven’t fully given up on Jackson yet. I’m not guaranteeing he will bounce back but I think it’s at least a possiblity

The average composite rating of Platt, Williams, and Nix is .9242. If your team had that average talent rating they would be the 4th most talented team in college football

Now if Jackson can’t bounce back AND Oregon gets the unhappy side of the development of Platt, Williams, and Nix the Ducks could be in trouble in this room. But that’s a string of 4 bad things all happening which I don;t think is likely.