If you were looking for a starting quarterback to emerge from Oregon’s spring practice sessions, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
After 12 practices, two scrimmages and one spring game, the Ducks still don’t have a replacement for the suspended Jeremiah Masoli. Although, to be fair, they do seem to have two candidates who appear to be very capable of making people forget Masoli.
Following yesterday’s spring game, head coach Chip Kelly said that the battle for the starting job between Nate Costa and Darron Thomas will not be settled until “sometime in the fall”. Neither player, obviously, separated themselves from the other throughout the spring, and now both will lead the Ducks through workouts ahead of the start start of summer camp.
“To be honest with you, it is a little bit of a strange situation, but it’s something I’m comfortable with,” Costa said according to the Eugene Register-Guard. “We’re just going to make it work. We know if we work together, we can’t be stopped.”
While a starter did not emerge this spring, offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich was nonetheless pleased with how the offense progressed throughout the sessions.
“We’re quite a bit ahead of where we were in the passing game,” Helfrich said. “There’s such wide-ranging factors of reasons why, but those guys have really been able to handle more than we’ve done at any point last season, so that’s a good thing. We’re happy with where we’re at that way. But now those guys need to transfer this out to what they can do by themselves throughout the summer and carry it into fall camp.”