3 Oregon Ducks ranked in PFF’s best returning players for 2022 season
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With all the comings and goings associated with this current Oregon Duck football off-season, it’s easy to pass by the fact that Oregon has some very special players still on the roster and ready to take off to the next level under head coach Dan Lanning.
Three Ducks were recently named by Pro Football Focus as among those top returning players among their respective positions. Two are those three are on the defensive side of the ball, which should make Lanning relax just a tiny bit as Oregon will face Georgia of all teams in the 2022 opener.
Here are the players that PFF thinks Oregon fans should be excited about:
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OL TJ Bass
There were a lot of questions surrounding the Oregon offense in 2021 from the quarterback play, wide receiver depth, and Travis Dye having to step up in CJ Verdell’s absence due to injury. But there weren’t many questions concerning the offensive line, despite the mixing-and-matching along the front with bumps and bruises.
Those five up front, whichever five players were able to take the field, managed to plug away and help Dye to a career season and protect mobile quarterback Anthony Brown. Returning on that line in 2022 will be senior TJ Bass, who PFF rated as a Top 30 overall player in the nation. This is what they had to say about Bass:
Bass pivoted from guard to tackle midway through his 2021 campaign. While the 2020 top-25 ranked JUCO recruit experienced some volatility in pass protection, his standout run-blocking remained. Bass finished with a 90.5 run-block grade for the 2021 season and ranked top 30 among all Power Five offensive linemen regardless of position in negatively and positively graded run play rate — the latter is something only four others accomplished for the year. And it’s not like Bass was a liability in pass protection, either, as he allowed only 14 pressures en route a 74.0 pass-blocking grade for the season.
Up Next: Brandon Dorlus
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DL Brandon Dorlus
Defensive lineman Brandon Dorlus was expected to make a leap in 2021 as a third-year sophomore, but no one could have seen how big of a leap. Dorlus became of the best defensive tackles in the conference and held the defense together when superstar defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux went down with an ankle injury in the season opener. Dorlus finished the year with 25 tackles and 2.5 sacks. Here are PFF’s comments about the Oregon nose tackle:
Dorlus finished the 2021 season as one of college football’s five most valuable interior defensive linemen, with 0.29 PFF Wins Above Average (WAA) generated. For reference, he accumulated only 0.02 WAA his first two years on campus in 2019 and 2020. The former three-star recruit earned a 65.1 PFF grade across 340 snaps in that two-year span before jumping to a 79.2 mark on 665 snaps in 2021. The latter wasn’t an easy thing to do on such minimal volume in the Power Five.
Up Next: Noah Sewell
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LB Noah Sewell
What can be said about Noah Sewell that already hasn’t? Of course, Sewell is one one the top linebackers returning for the 2022 season. Oregon’s lucky he’s not eligible for the NFL draft yet because he would most likely be a first-round pick in 2022. It will be fun to find out how much Sewell’s play will pick up when he has a healthy Justin Flowe lining up next to him on a regular basis. Here’s what PFF had to say about Oregon star linebacker:
The Sewell family once again has one of the best players in college football. After Penei dominated the offensive side of the ball, Noah is now wreaking havoc on defense. The Oregon off-ball linebacker takes on blocks with a vengeance and is a fearful blitzer. Sewell racked up 34 pressures from 98 pass-rushes while earning an 88.6 pass-rush grade in 2021. The way he moves at 6-foot-3, 251-pounds is freaky. Sewell’s tackling needs to be cleaner, but no one has a higher ceiling at the position.
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