During the 2024 season Oregon had one of the best passing defenses in the country. With success rates near championship caliber during meaningful play (59.3% success rate & 10.47 explosiveness rate allowed) and a raw opponent passing yards per attempt figure of 6.2 YPA (good for 12th in the nation) replicating that will is a tall task in 2025.
Of the program record setting 10 Duck players selected in the 2025 NFL draft none of the 10 players were members of the secondary. Now I believe there are 3
reasons that none of these members of the 2024 secondary were selected in the NFL draft despite Oregon’s great pass defense and I will go in ascending order of importance
- B1G QBs
- Oregon had an excellent pass rush last season that helped aid the secondary
- Oregon’s secondary did not have NFL draftable athletes
Please don’t read that as me saying the secondary was no good and was just in a good situation. I think Oregon’s secondary last season was excellent and one of the 10-15 best in all of college football. When I say the secondary didn’t have NFL athletes it’s because a lot of these players succeeded last year due to their football IQ and experience. Evidence of this is that despite none of them being drafted, 4 of them signed UDFAs with NFL teams, and as of time of this writing are still with their respective teams:
- STAR Brandon Johnson — Philadelphia Eagles
- CB Jabbar Muhammad — Jacksonville Jaguars
- CB Donate Manning — Atlanta Falcons
- CB Nikko Reed – Los Angeles Chargers
So while the secondary doesn’t have any NFL draft picks to replace in the secondary it does have NFL production to replace.
With seemingly every corner and STAR spot up for grabs I won’t lie, I have no idea who is going to be starting and rotating in on a regular basis. So while I feel less comfortable saying playing X will replace Brandon Johnson, and player Y will replace Jabbar Muhammad I can Moneyball this with talent ratings and a 2 deep. For this exercise I’m going to assume this is Oregon’s 3 Deep at Corner and STAR this year
Corner — Theran Johnson — Jahlil Florence
Corner — Ify Obidegwu — Sione Laulea
Star — Daylen Austin — Jadon Canady
I’m sure this 2 Deep is perfect and no one will take issues with it in the comments.
The average HS 247 talent composite rating of the 4 players lost to the NFL = .8762 a Mid 3* which is buoyed quite a bit by Dontae Manning. Which supports the case that these weren’t the most physically talented players but they knew how to “ball” and had been developed over 3-4 years in college.
The average HS 247 rating of the 6 players in my projected 2 Deep = .9145 a mid to low 4*
As a team this year the Ducks are experienced but green, and no where is that more evident then this room, with quite a substantial step up in raw talent but quite a steep drop off in experience.
Personally I’m excited to see who steps up and rises to the top because whoever does earn that precious playing time will have earned it over some other very talented players.
