The Oregon football team suffered a huge loss when they confirmed that starting left tackle Tyler Johnstone will miss the upcoming season after re-tearing his right ACL. This is the same injury that he suffered against Texas in the Alamo Bowl last season.
“It’s pretty sad,” Doug Brenner said about Johnstone’s injury. “But it’s really an honor to play out there and play for the Ducks. We always talk as a team, if you’re out, you’ve got to be working your tail off twice as hard to be getting on the field and we have no doubt that he’s (Johnstone) is going to be great.”
For Oregon, losing Johnstone wasn’t ideal, but due to their depth on the offensive line, the turnaround has been immediate. The Ducks are known for their next man up approach and it has only put more weight on who will step up in Johnstone’s place.
“We have a lot of good candidates to fill the job,” Scott Frost said. ”
Players like Andre Yruretagoyena will now be among the list of expected players to help fill the void.
“Andre has been competing very well,” offensive line coach Steve Greatwood said. “I’ve seen Andre become more and more confident. We had a long talk about that (confidence) last season and just him assuming the role of what he is. I see him everyday, going out there and doing a good job.”
The Ducks have full confidence in Yruretagoyena and didn’t appear too rattled by the loss of Johnstone. Yruretagoyena, who is a redshirt junior, is experienced at his position and had already been standing out as of one the leaders at his position.
“Andre is coming along,” Frost said. “He was really raw when he first got here and he’s grown up a lot over the course of time. He’s in the mix with a bunch of other guys that have shown us enough in camp to threaten to have a chance for some playing time.”
The sole job of the offensive linemen is to protect and help open up holes for Marcus Mariota and his running backs. And for running backs coach Gary Campbell, it doesn’t really matter who does that job as long as they do it well. He’s confident that whoever fills the spot will do their job.
“All those guys work at their skills and obviously if a guy goes down then the next guy steps up and we have quality players at that position,” Campbell said. “Our running backs don’t care who blocks as long they open up holes.”
Oregon, who was picked to win the Pac-12 North and conference by the media, has their season opener against South Dakota on August 30.
Follow Hayden Kim on Twitter @HayDayKim