Ducks offer Elite 11 quarterback Bryson Beaver

One million kids play high school football. Twenty get chosen for the Elite 11 finals.

Thursday the Ducks offered three-star Vista Murrieta quarterback Bryson Beaver from Murrieta, California, 6-3, 200.

In May he competed in the Bay Area Elite 11 Regional, winning an invitation to finals in Manhattan Beach, California.

Beaver worked out for Oregon coaches on Wednesday at a camp in Redding, California, according to Adam Gorney of Rivals. They offered him the next day.

A day later he decommitted from Boise State. Oregon was a dream offer, he said.

He's started two years for the Broncos, completing 229-345 passes (66.1%) for 3,214 yards and 33 touchdowns as a junior, picked just six times.

As a bonus, Beaver trains with Akili Smith Sr., the former Duck and No. 3 overall NFL draft pick who's quietly developing a reputation as a quarterback guru. He gets his guys to throw from a sound base and think like leaders, and it shows in Beaver's development.

Last season Beaver led the Broncos to a 21-0 win over Cajon in the Southern Section Division 3 quarterfinals.

He told Ryan Wright of Recruiting News Guru, “My pre-snap reads are a strength,” Beaver said. “That helps me a lot. That lets me know the coverage. As much as I can, I get the ball out early but when I have to, I can scramble. I can avoid the rush and buy time."

"I try to stay on time the best that I can. My accuracy is one of my biggest strengths. I can make the throws I need to. My accuracy separates me from other quarterbacks.”

Beaver said he's working on gaining weight and getting faster, training with Smith and Jose Mohler at Left Coast Athletix. He plays 7-on-7 with Legacy Athletics, getting a lot of extra passing reps over the summer.

Oregon QB Akili Smith Jr. played at Vista for his first two seasons before transferring to San Diego's Lincoln High.

Watching the film, Beaver is a little slight and a bit ungainly but he makes good decisions and the occasional athletic escape. He can drop the ball in the bucket or make crisp throws over the middle. He'll have to grow stronger, but you can see why Will Stein likes him.

The Ducks have offers out to five-star quarterback Ryder Lyons, who visits this weekend and is deciding between BYU and Oregon with offers from USC, Alabama, Ohio State, all the heavyweights.

They've also offered four-star quarterback Matt Ponatoski from Cincinnati, Ohio who visits June 20, a baseball shortstop who's considering Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas and the hometown Bearcats.

Ponatoski could go early in the major league draft, the No. 16 high school prospect in the country according to Baseball America, a .400 hitter with a 97 mph fastball.

Both Beaver and Ponatoski have Elite 11 invites, an opportunity to size each other up and compete against a collection of highly-touted alpha males, an interesting confrontation because both exude more of a boy-next-door energy.

It takes more than swagger to be a good quarterback. The best build trust through confidence and preparation.

Elite 11 is televised by the NFL Network as a series on YouTube. Watching how the two handle the pressure and immersion of that experience should tell a lot about their upside at the college level.

Beaver said to Wright, “Usually the first couple of days in practice as an offense, our coach goes over the film on Monday of the team we are playing, their defense and fronts, then we go through what we saw on film with the scout team."

“That helped a lot seeing it in real life and not just on film. Two or three times a week we would watch film at lunch. I would watch film on my own as well."

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