Oregon wideout room massively hyped, but it's all Bruce Springsteen and The 3 Little Pigs

While the talent and potential is undeniable, when it comes to the Oregon receiving room, Duck fans are just dancing in the dark.

At this point it's objectively impossible to know if new offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer is building a house of straw, sticks, or a brick mansion on a national championship hill.

It starts with Evan Stewart, who has first-round talent but (to this point) an undrafted free agent resume. Stewart's best games are a thing of beauty. In October of 2024 he scorched Ohio State with seven catches for 149 yards and a touchdown.

Stewart pulled down a 69-yard pass over Denzel Burke. He grabbed balls over the middle. He caught a touchdown pass with a defender draped all over him. He was brilliant, a big reason why Oregon held off the No. 2 Buckeyes 32-31.

Six days later against Purdue, Stewart struck for four catches and 96 yards, including a 49-yard bomb from Dillon Gabriel. But his role in the Oregon offense was inconsistent after that, one catch for 16 yards against Illinois, three for 19 yards against Michigan (though he was credited with a touchdown pass in the left corner and had a sensational one-handed catch negated by a penalty) and one catch for four yards in the 49-21 win over Washington.

Stewart had another big game in the "Jump Around" game against Wisconsin, beguiling the Badgers with 10 receptions for 92 yards. He didn't have a catch in the Big Ten Championship Game against Penn State.

That was 2024, with a noodle-armed but wily Gabriel at quarterback. It's easy to project the Memphis native and former five-star and Under Armour All-American for a massive season with Dante Moore delivering back-shoulder lasers and dropping balls in the bucket, but the former Texas 5A long jump gold medalist and a silver medalist in the triple jump missed the Rose Bowl loss to the Buckeyes with an injury and missed all of 2025 with another one, a torn patellar tendon.

He sparkled in the Oregon Spring Game this April with four catches for 110 yards, including a 76-yard highlight-film touchdown from Nebraska transfer Dylan Raiola.

Yet Stewart participated in the intrasquad scrimmage in a green noncontact jersey. While it's tempting to pencil him in for a 1000-yard season and 60 catches, he's missed a year, missed the playoff game in 2024 and played 10 and eight games in his two seasons at Texas A&M.

Stewart has a winning personality and the talent to be an all-conference receiver. It's impossible not to root for him. He and Dante Moore are close and have good rapport. Objectively, however, it's difficult to be certain about the prospects for his comeback. Hopeful? Absolutely. But the claims of "best wide receiver room in college football" have to be tempered a little. The talent is immense, but the production rests on a set of very optimistic projections.

So too with Dakorien Moore. Moore is another five-star Texas product, twitchy and explosive with a 10.4 100 meters in high school. He lit up Lone State State secondaries for 67 receptions for 1,322 yards and 18 touchdowns in his senior year at Duncanville and flashed other-worldly talent as an Oregon freshman.

With speed, body control and elusiveness after the catch, Moore can be spectacular. At the Oregon Spring Game he nabbed five balls for 133 yards and a TD. In his first season of college football he totaled 34 catches for 497 yards and three touchdowns. But the 5-11, 195 Polynesian Bowl All-American missed four games in 2025, and didn't have more than 28 yards receiving in any of the three games after his return to the lineup in December.

Moore's 60-yard touchdown catch from Brock Thomas resulted in a walk-off win for the Combat Ducks in the spring scrimmage.

Stewart and Moore have all the hype, but football is a game of numbers and consistency

Duck fans got a glimpse of the much-anticipated Moore-to-Moore connection in the Oklahoma State game, a 65-yard touchdown pass.

Like Stewart, Moore is capable of a 60-catch, 1000-yard season, but it hasn't happened yet. Unless the infamous "Duck luck" changes, it won't. Hopes are high but they have to prove it.

At this time last year all the predictions and preseason articles were about whether Stewart or Moore would lead Oregon in receiving, but it turned out to be Malik Benson, who shook off a subpar performance in the Spring Game (two drops) to catch 43 balls for 719 yards and six touchdowns, a big-play surprise for the Ducks, particularly down the stretch with explosive plays against USC, Washington and James Madison, including three touchdowns and a pair of 100-yard games against the Dawgs and Dukes.

That's the best case for a "best receiver room" argument for the Ducks: the depth of their talent. Third receiver Jeremiah McClellan is a marvel who keeps making difficult catches. McClellan sat out the Spring Game, however.

On the bench the Ducks have former five-star and 10.12 sprinter Gatlin Bair, 6-1, 194 and another Texas five-star, Jalen Lott. And Jamari Johnson may be the best pass-catching tight end in college football, an athlete with a knack for big plays. Troy transfer Iverson Hooksposted 72 catches for 927 yards and seven touchdowns last season.

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