The depth of Oregon's safeties and nickels is an important focus for the coaching staff in spring practice.
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00:00 All right, last group that we're hitting on here in today's show is the safeties.
00:05 We'll also group in the nickels here, safety slash nickel.
00:09 Maybe I'll go ahead and just adjust the ticker so that we have that.
00:14 But the safety spot is a huge question mark, a really, really big question mark, in my
00:19 opinion, because you lose Brian Addison.
00:21 He transferred to UCLA, Steve Stevens exhausted his eligibility.
00:25 And then Evan Williams is another one of those upperclassmen that's going to be taking
00:29 his crack at the NFL draft.
00:33 And he he jumped really well.
00:34 I know you had a story on the under the radar performances at the pro day.
00:39 So go give is his story read over on Ducks Digest.
00:42 But you lose a lot of guys there, right?
00:45 You get Tysheem Johnson back from Tysheem Johnson back for one more year.
00:48 You add Kobe Savage from Kansas State via the transfer portal.
00:52 And then the other transfer that is going to be, I think, really exciting and needed
00:57 for this team is Brandon Johnson from Duke, a guy who can cover who plays with tremendous
01:02 fire and it's just all over the field.
01:04 I think he kind of got not swept under the rug, but maybe didn't get a whole lot of attention
01:09 because he was at Duke, which hasn't really been known as a college football powerhouse.
01:13 But to their credit, they've been really solid and played Mike Elko into a head coaching
01:17 job at A&M.
01:18 So I'm excited about the group.
01:21 But right now it's it's kind of hard to get a read on just because you have a lot of new
01:25 names that frankly haven't played together.
01:28 Yeah.
01:29 And you mentioned names like Tysheem Johnson and Kamari Turrell, where they got some reps
01:37 in last year.
01:38 So I mean, like, yeah, they get enough playing time like Emory Williams did.
01:43 And Steve Stevens did up over there in that safety position.
01:46 But you got a little experience.
01:48 So at least the coaches, they know what they're getting.
01:51 So they're going to be able to make the right decisions of who's going to be starting and
01:55 all that.
01:56 And then you talked about the transfer, Kobe Savage.
02:00 I think he should be number 21.
02:02 That's just a joke right there.
02:04 But yeah, I think he really is going to bring some depth and experience to that position.
02:09 I mean, you saw what he did at Kansas State.
02:12 Yeah, like 57 total tackles and three picks.
02:15 So you're going to want to see that from the safety spot.
02:19 Just because I mean, Evan Williams, he was great.
02:23 And everything like that.
02:24 But he has only pick up this season, I guess you can count it as was in the senior bowl
02:30 after the season was over.
02:31 So you just want more ball hawking skills from your safeties.
02:36 Ball hawking is going to be a huge key because or like Tysheem Johnson and Evan Williams,
02:41 like they are good players.
02:44 But I don't really think either of them excelled at the level that Oregon needed them to at
02:48 least in coverage.
02:50 They were great blitzing off the edge in those specific instances that I talked about earlier.
02:56 They're both willing tacklers, solid tacklers, but I don't think that they necessarily matched
03:01 up with the wide receivers that Oregon was going against the way that they needed to.
03:05 So that's why I think you kind of are overhauling this position to some degree.
03:09 Kamari Terrell is a returner who's going to be entering his third season at Oregon, have
03:14 been kind of seeing a little bit more from him year by year, really speedy DB that came
03:18 to Oregon out of Texas.
03:20 So he's someone who's got some snaps under his belt in this system.
03:24 Also have guys like Tyler Turner and Cody to Canberra who both redshirted from the 2023
03:28 class.
03:29 But there's a freshman is that I think might be in line to make a bit of noise.
03:34 And that's Aaron flowers out of Forney, Texas.
03:36 He was another all American that I got to see out in San Antonio looked really impressive
03:40 going against some of these top wideouts, fast, physical, quick twitch, good ball skill
03:46 is just in the right place at the right time, a lot of times.
03:49 And then you also have Kingston Lopa, a six five safety at Sacramento that I think is
03:54 exciting.
03:55 And the last guy I'd also mentioned is is Colin Gill, who signed with Oregon out of
04:00 St. John's in DC.
04:03 And he's a bigger DB at like six foot north of 200 pounds.
04:06 So I think he's kind of coming along and hopefully going to be able to take a step forward and
04:10 help out at the safety spot.