Brandon Finney Jr.

Yeah.

Well, I wouldn't say that about everybody, because I saw Brandon Finney playing his ass off, right? That's fair.

I saw individual players making plays and playing hard.

I think the bigger problem is, and it felt this way against Portland State.

We are soft on the edge at times, and our linebackers are so slow to diagnose and get downhill.

And unfortunately, we talked about this all offseason, and it was probably my biggest concern for the team, and I think it was misplaced, but it was a concern, is how do we replace Jaden Kennedy? Carl Williams and Devon Benjamin are...

Devon Benjamin's going to be a really good player Carl Williams is a solid veteran but he doesn't carry a very big stick in the run game the second that we put Brandon Finney at star I think we found something because all of a sudden the drive the drive chart for Oklahoma State got really short and unfortunately we were just giving them short fields they had two field goal drives with Finney in at star but it was like they were like six play seven yard drives or 12 yards I don't know when we made

that switch but they did have the 12 play 75 yard touchdown drive and he wasn't playing a lot of star on that drive for whatever reason it was early in the fourth quarter and that was the I mean that was the drive we took the lead on the Evan Stewart touchdown 31 to 30 and then just like against Boise we they just march right down the field and take the lead right back.

Oklahoma State gets four sacks and Oregon gets none with only one tackle for loss.

Drew Mestemaker is bombing an Oregon secondary with Koi Perich, with Brandon Finney Jr., with Ife Obadeguu.

This is a team that lost to Tulsa by 14 points.

Like, what are we doing here? What are we doing? And Oregon was lucky to be in the game.

including through the playoff run and was a borderline starter on Saturday and was out there late in the game.

Now I am not privy to, nor would we ever likely get an answer of because it's strategy based, how Dan Lanning and the defensive staff set up their secondary rotations and Because the guys that started were, of course, Brandon Finney and Ife Obodegwu.

And I thought Ife played well.

I thought Naeem Offord played well.

And I think we'll continue to see nine offered play as, as the season goes along.

He's clearly that third corner.

They've always used a third corner and, and, Depending on how Carl Williams and Devon Benjamin play at nickel, I'm sure there will be Oregon fans that justifiably feel like the best three corners or best three DBs between nickel and the two corner spots they can put on the field are Ify, Brandon Finney, and Naeem Offord.

So I want to see him continue to get better.

And then Naeem Offord is another young guy in the secondary that probably needs to be discussed about more.

Everyone was focused on Brandon Finney Jr. in the freshman All-American campaign that he had as well.

And then Dylan Williams at linebacker is another guy that I'm really excited to see.

Jerry Mixon seems like he's got one of those two inside linebacker starting roles kind of on lock.

I think their best unit is their secondary.

And so it doesn't get any easier, though, with Brandon Finney and the rest of those dudes at, at the Ducks secondary.

I mean, it took some of those highlight reel catches from Boise State to stay in the game, um, against Oregon last week.

And so if you look at it that way, I guess we're an amalgamation of as the sum of all their parts isn't equal to what their actual parts are, it feels like, 'cause they're not playing cohesively.