There’s a common thread throughout college football, that the same message just lands differently when it’s coming from a fellow player: even from one who is hardly playing.
That message can take different forms. Sometimes it’s technical, football things: how to pick up a block in a specific scheme or adjust quickly to an audible.
Often, however, it’s about dealing with everything else: eating, road trips, game-day preparation, taking care of your body and the extended grind of a long, draining and demanding season.
It feels like there’s always a game the next day, always a flight to catch, always a meeting to attend, always an interview to do and always a bump or a bruise to manage. With a cyclical week in between games, and so much pressure inherent in those games, that means self-care becomes more than just a recommendation — it’s a necessity. It’s a job. And it’s important for the younger players to rely on their veterans – their older, more experienced teammates – as much as possible.
“I definitely learned early on how important it is to take care of your body,” offensive lineman Marcus Harper II said. “Now, I do my best to help the younger players realize that too.”
However, there is a scarcity issue that prevents this model from being replicated throughout college football.
Especially now during a time when a postseason mass exodus isn’t out of the ordinary in this uncertain era of the transfer portal. Where even grizzly vets will move cross-country for the chance of a championship. Where even local legends and four-year starters will pack up shop for a payday. At the start of the 2023 season, ESPN reported that transfers made up 20.5% of rosters in 2023, up from 6.5% in pre-NIL 2019.
Put simply, there aren’t a lot of role-model-caliber players in their older years looking to become mentors to the youth, especially when the veterans might be just fitting in at a new school themselves.
And even if there were more, the pressures of being drafted and departing to the transfer portal can make it difficult to keep even well-liked veterans on the roster. Those NIL and sponsorships make it easy for all players to depart quickly, and seek playing time somewhere else.
Oregon football, amid all the change and roster turnover, has proved to be an exception. The Ducks’ roster has established a culture of teamwork; a group of sages proven to withstand the transfer portal.
For some, it’s a stage to be passed through on the way to coaching later in their lives. For others, it’s just a way to give back in ways players and other coaches have to them.
“He knew what I was capable of,” Harper II said of his former coach at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, Tom Cicero. “When I didn’t even know what I was capable of… I love him, and I think he loves me too.”
“I do feel old,” 22-year-old Ajani Cornelius said. “I think I fit in as the cool vet, but when it’s time to lock in, it’s time to lock in.”
And for others, like tight end Patrick Herbert, it’s a way to do a job.
Herbert, a sixth-year senior, is the perfect example of a rock-steady force at tight end for the Ducks despite filling a grittier role.
He even admits that being a block-first tight end is a trade that he likes because “it goes under the radar, and you’re not in the spotlight.”
So while Terrance Ferguson, one of Herbert’s closest friends who he even minted an NIL deal with, is making highlight reel catches, his success wouldn’t be possible without Herbert, in more ways than one.
“I’ve never met somebody who puts the team first like he does,” Ferguson said of Herbert. “It’s just stuff on the field that people don’t see. He’s still an elite athlete. He goes down into those blocks and blocks his butt off no matter what. He’s someone I look up to, especially off the field.”
Herbert, however, sees it otherwise. When asked what he thought of Ferguson calling him the most selfless player he’d played with Herbert admitted that he “has no idea why he’d say that,” through a grin.
Through Lanning, the Ducks’ roster includes 18 juniors and seniors who started their careers at Oregon and have built a program that emphasizes the importance of comradery in their facility, emphasizing their veterans and the invaluable effect they have on success.
“I think our leadership shows up,” Lanning said. “Those guys that understand what it takes to be great, that’s where it has to come from first. When your best players want to work the hardest, that’s when you have a chance.”
And whether it’s now-NFL center Jackson Powers-Johnson or then-freshman lineman Iapani Laloulu — “Man, I thank him a lot, Jackson would help calm me down and remind me to just play my game.”
Or even best friends Ferguson and Herbert’s teamwork in the tight-end room, it’s clear the Ducks have one goal in mind, which is to win a National Championship.
Together.