In the spring, the Ducks were trying to determine whether they had five answers. A week into fall camp, the conversation has shifted toward finding the right combination and turning competition into cohesion.
When we first started projecting Oregon’s 2026 offensive line, it was the position group I thought carried the most uncertainty on the roster.
That did not necessarily mean I thought the Ducks had a problem. It meant there were considerably more assumptions involved than at quarterback, defensive line or several of the skill positions. Oregon was replacing three starters from another Joe Moore Award finalist, had no returning starting tackle and chose not to attack the transfer portal with a massive reconstruction of the room.
Iapani “Poncho” Laloulu was the obvious anchor. Dave Iuli was an established veteran when healthy. Fox Crader looked like the logical next left tackle, but much of the rest of the group had to be projected through development rather than proven starting experience.
Spring did not eliminate that uncertainty.
If anything, it showed us exactly why A’lique Terry did not want to rush the answer.
Throughout spring, Oregon moved players around constantly. Laloulu and Iuli felt like the established pieces, Crader increasingly looked like the best answer at left tackle, and Michael Bennett III, Douglas Utu, Zac Stascausky, Demetri Manning and others received opportunities in different combinations. Right tackle remained the position I considered the least settled, with Bennett, Stascausky and even Tommy Tofi receiving looks there.
The spring scrimmage reinforced the same idea. Dan Lanning described the offensive line as having “highs and lows” and said Oregon still needed to identify which players were producing “above the line football.” My read at the time was that the offense was sorting rather than struggling.
A week into fall camp, I think the most important thing we have learned is that the question has changed.
It is becoming less about whether Oregon can find five capable offensive linemen and more about which five should play together.
That is progress.
From finding players to finding a unit
Terry provided the clearest description of the room after Oregon’s fourth fall practice when he was asked where the offensive line needed the most improvement.
“Cohesion,” he said.
That answer matters because it moves the conversation forward from where we were in March and April. Terry is still evaluating individual players, but his emphasis has moved toward “the right mesh and the right pairs” and getting a group capable of functioning together.
That does not mean Oregon has selected its five.
It means Terry increasingly believes he has enough possibilities to begin thinking about how the pieces interact.
Dan Lanning made that philosophy clear after the first practice of camp. He said he did not necessarily want a clear five yet and would prefer to find six, seven or even eight players capable of playing winning football. Oregon has developed starting linemen that way before, allowing players such as Josh Conerly Jr., Jackson Powers-Johnson and Laloulu to accumulate meaningful experience before permanently claiming jobs.
Terry is approaching this camp similarly.
There are team repetitions everyone sees, but there are also what Terry described as essentially hidden repetitions in individual work, pods and half-line periods. A player who does not appear at a particular position during a team period may still have taken 15 or 20 repetitions there earlier in practice.
Eventually, that experimentation has to stop.
“We’re gonna start gluing it up a little bit more,” Terry said. “Once guys start to separate themselves.”
Then he offered perhaps the best description of what he wants from the competition.
“Make my life harder. Make my life as hard as possible. That’s a good thing.”
That sounds very different from a coach desperately searching for five answers.
It sounds like a coach hoping enough players force themselves into the conversation that narrowing the group becomes difficult.
Crader increasingly looks like the answer Oregon thought it had at left tackle
Of all the projections we made coming out of spring, Crader has probably changed the least.
He looked like Oregon’s best option at left tackle then, and nothing we have heard during fall camp has moved me away from that.
The interesting part is understanding why the staff’s confidence has grown.
Terry called confidence the “X factor” when discussing Crader this week. The physical ability existed before last season, and Crader had spent years practicing against NFL-caliber Oregon defensive linemen. What changed was getting meaningful game experience and discovering that the things he had repeatedly handled in practice still worked when the stadium was full and the opponent was different.
“You do it in practice,” Terry said. “Until you do it under the lights in Autzen in front of 70,000 and do it at a different stadium in front of that magnitude, you don’t know if you’re truly ready.”
Crader described that realization similarly at Media Day.
“Everything that I went through in the game has happened numerous times in practice,” he said. “That was really the first time I got to feel that feeling of being like, ‘Oh, wow, this is what it’s like.’”
That does not guarantee anything, but I am considerably more comfortable projecting Crader now than I was before spring.
The question at tackle has increasingly moved to the other side.
Michael Bennett III still makes sense, but he is not simply being handed right tackle
Bennett was one of the most interesting additions of the offseason because Oregon did not bring him from Yale to provide developmental depth.
He arrived with extensive college playing experience and exited spring looking like the leader at right tackle.
What fall camp has clarified is how different his challenge is from Crader’s.
Crader had to prove his Oregon preparation translated to real games.
Bennett has already played plenty of college football. His job is making his previous experience translate to Oregon football.
At Media Day, Bennett described the transition in exactly those terms.
“How can I grow and adapt to what Coach Terry and our great offensive line staff, how they coach us?” Bennett said. “How do I elevate it with these new techniques, these new lessons, these new thinking points, coaching points?”
Terry noted this week that Bennett is the one major contender who has not spent years taking repetitions beside most of the other players in the room.
That matters when cohesion becomes the next objective.
Bennett may have more college experience than many of the players he is competing against, but the next few weeks are about turning that experience into shared experience with Laloulu, Dante Moore and whichever guards ultimately line up beside him.
Laloulu has become more important than simply returning at center
If there is one development I probably underestimated when projecting this room in the spring, it is how much Laloulu’s value would extend beyond the snap itself.
Drew Mehringer called him “the rock, the apex” of Oregon’s offensive line after Practice 3.
“He’s vocal. He’s tough. He’s physical. He’s everything that you want that kid to be,” Mehringer said.
Terry expanded on that a day later.
Laloulu is actively teaching younger linemen, speaking more during practice and carrying a role Terry believes veteran Oregon linemen once carried for him. Instead of worrying exclusively about his own season, he is investing in Tommy Tofi and other young players who may eventually compete for meaningful snaps.
“He could easily just be his own, doing his own thing,” Terry said. “But he’s taking full heed to being a leader of the room.”
There is another part of this that should not be overlooked.
Terry has been impressed with the football conversations occurring between Laloulu and Moore. Laloulu understands enough of the offense that Terry hears him discussing receiver and running back responsibilities rather than viewing every call strictly through the center position.
That gives Oregon something extremely valuable while the four positions around him are still being organized.
The line may not be settled.
The center-quarterback relationship is.
Dave Iuli changes the competition by being healthy
The spring picture was also incomplete because Iuli could not participate fully.
He was recovering from lateral triceps surgery and spent much of spring rebuilding his strength. Fall camp has provided a much more encouraging update.
“Dave is cooking,” Terry said this week. “Dave is back grilling.”
Terry said Iuli had performed well in one-on-one work and expects the veteran to be available when Oregon begins playing games.
That matters beyond simply returning one experienced guard.
Terry called Iuli’s spring absence a “blessing in disguise” because the repetitions he could not take went to younger linemen. Nobody wanted Iuli injured, but Oregon entered fall camp with the veteran returning and several younger players having received more spring work than they otherwise would have.
That makes the room deeper than the version we were projecting in April.
It also increases Terry’s problem.
Which is exactly what he wants.
Ziyare Addison may be the player forcing the biggest rethink
If there is one player whose fall camp trajectory has changed the way I look at the competition, it is Ziyare Addison.
He already had moments in the spring game when his athleticism showed up at tackle. In my notes, Addison handled Elijah Rushing well on the edge, showed solid footwork and helped set the edge in the running game.
Now the endorsements are starting to stack.
Terry called Addison one of Oregon’s most explosive offensive linemen and praised his elite feet. His developmental challenge has been controlling the violence in his game, trusting his athleticism and learning to operate with greater calm.
The players across from him have noticed.
Nasir Wyatt was asked at Media Day to identify the toughest Oregon offensive lineman he had faced.
He picked Addison.
“I think it might be a breakout year for him,” Wyatt said.
Crader had similar praise for Addison and Utu.
“Absolute ballers in the weight room, on the field,” he said.
I am not ready to declare Addison a starter based on August praise.
I am ready to say the competition looks different if he continues making it impossible for Terry to treat him simply as depth.
The freshmen do not look like emergency options
Spring also gave us our first serious look at Tofi.
His size was obvious, but what made him interesting was the movement. The longer spring went, the easier it became to imagine him playing tackle even though his body and long-term projection might ultimately point toward guard. My spring notes already had him receiving work on the right side while Oregon tried different combinations.
Fall camp has strengthened the developmental part of that evaluation.
Terry said Tofi has changed his body, losing unnecessary weight while adding muscle and improving his conditioning. The progression also extends to nutrition, hydration, sleep and everything else involved in learning how to operate like a college offensive lineman.
A video of Tofi and the other young linemen doing extra work circulated recently.
Terry’s response was important.
“That’s how they are every day.”
He has also made clear that playing a true freshman is not some theoretical possibility. Laloulu did it. Oregon has repeatedly used young linemen in developmental rotations, and Terry said there is “no doubt” a freshman can earn a meaningful role if he proves ready.
I still do not think Oregon wants to need Tofi immediately.
That is different from saying he cannot force his way onto the field.
So where is the room now?
I feel much better about Oregon’s offensive line today than I did when we began projecting it before spring.
Not because five starters have been announced.
They have not.
The improvement comes from the nature of the uncertainty.
In February and March, we were trying to project whether Crader could become a starting tackle, how Oregon would replace three starters, whether Bennett could translate from Yale, how healthy Iuli would be and whether the younger players were truly ready to provide competition.
Most of those questions have moved forward.
Crader has gained the confidence that comes from real game experience. Bennett remains squarely in the tackle discussion. Iuli is healthy enough for Terry to say he is “back grilling.” Laloulu has become the stabilizing presence Oregon needed, both physically and intellectually. Addison is pushing harder than I expected, while Tofi and the younger linemen are developing quickly enough that Terry is openly discussing the possibility of freshmen contributing.
The concern is no longer whether Oregon can identify five bodies capable of lining up.
The challenge is turning those bodies into a line.
And that is why Terry’s word from Practice 4 matters more than any unofficial depth chart we could put together today.
Cohesion.
The Ducks have spent months creating competition.
Over the next few weeks, they have to turn that competition into five players who move, communicate and think together.
Spring was about finding answers.
Fall camp is increasingly about deciding which ones fit.