Da'Jaun Riggs just spilled how Oregon plans to double depth, production at receiver

Will Stein, Ross Douglas, Ra'Shaad Samples and the Oregon players are working the problem, in a way where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The Ducks have a big problem to solve on offense. Evan Stewart went down with an injury in summer training. Tez Johnson, Traeshon Holden and Terrance Ferguson moved on to the NFL. Five-star receiver Jurrion Dickey got hit with indefinite suspension.

Suddenly there was a huge hole, 72% of the production in the passing game just gone in one summer, with a new starter at quarterback.

That's an enormous rebuilding challenge for Stein, Douglas and Samples, a big test for Stein's ability to design an offensive scheme. There's still a wealth of talent in the receiver room, beginning with tight end Kenyon Sadiq and five-star freshman Dakorien Moore, but in terms of returning production, on paper the Ducks look sunk.

Fortunately football games aren't played on paper.

Oregon faced a similar problem in 2014, when they moved running back Byron Marshall to receiver. The Ducks had great depth at running back with true freshman Royce Freeman arriving on campus, but looked doomed at wide receiver after Bralon Addison went down with a knee injury.

After talking with running backs coach Gary Campbell, Marshall, who had run for 1,038 yards as a sophomore in 2013, agree to move to wide receiver, where he grabbed 74 passes for 1,003 yards and six touchdowns as Marcus Mariota and the Ducks went all the way to the national championship game.

That edition of the Quack Attack went 13-2, won the PAC-12 and the Rose Bowl and scored 45.4 points game. So the ability to work the problem from a variety of angles can be crucial for a coach.

In 2025, Stein faces a similar reboot: Missing production, mismatched parts. The Ducks are utterly LOADED at running back with Makhi Hughes, Noah Whittington, Da'Juan Riggs, Jayden Limar, Jay Harris, Dierre Hill and Jordon Davison.

Every one of those guys are dynamic in space, explosive and dangerous. Hughes, Whittington, Riggs, Limar and Hill in particular have good hands.

This week after practice, Riggs laid out a dynamic solution to Oregon's seeming deficiency one place, talent surplus in another.

"Coming from high school, I played receiver, so I really didn't play that much of running back, but when I played running back, I just did whatever they asked," he said.

"Playing wide receiver is normal to me. So getting the playbook, it was real easy, real simple. So them using me in the running back is actually a humongous opportunity to show everybody I'm not just a running back. I could do more than just that.

For Stein, the goal is always the same, to get the ball to playmakers in space.

As a four-star senior at St. John's High School in Washington D.C., the 6-0, 208-pound running back caught 26 passes for 399 yards and two touchdowns, a long catch of 67 yards, a long run of 80, so the versatility has always been there.

Riggs continued, probably with more honesty than Dan Lanning would have liked, "It's not really a position change because I still be in RB room all the time. It's just that now I'm more at the A position, something like Tez did."

"So I'm more there running, you know, flat routes, corners sometimes, screen plays. So I just feel like it's, it's amazing because I can do more than just run the ball and from the back field. I can create space for myself and things of that. So I think it's good."

"Everybody in that room can go from T to A to Z to X, you feel me? So, it's not really a huge change. It's just that now that I'm able
to play another position is also a big opportunity. And not only am I doing it, everybody else in the room is doing it as well. But I feel like it's huge for our room, especially with a running back because I feel like running backs are overlooked."

While it's not rocket surgery, it's pretty exciting for Duck fans. Suddenly the Ducks have twice as many options at receiver, and several of those guys are playmakers that might have languished on the bench without innovation. This offense might be scary for opponents.

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