A'lique Terry discusses Oregon's offensive line competition in fall camp.
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00:00 How we doing?
00:01 Good man.
00:02 How's camping going for you guys so far?
00:03 Great camp so far.
00:04 Great energy.
00:05 The guys playing at an extremely high level.
00:07 Got them playing a few different positions, so there's still some challenges going on
00:10 as far as competition goes, but the energy's been great, the juice has been great.
00:13 As long as we bring the energy, everybody else is going to follow.
00:14 So that's been a big mantra for us.
00:15 How do you balance this time of year?
00:16 Building cohesion, chemistry amongst certain guys, but also, yeah, moving around a lot
00:17 of parts to try guys at different spots.
00:18 So you're limited a little bit than you did in the spring, but you still have some mixtures
00:29 going.
00:30 The mixtures may be a little bit more pod-like now.
00:31 You might have guys who stay on the left side play with each other on the left side, guys
00:34 on the right side play with each other on the right side, but you still got to have
00:36 that good, like you said, competition where you're creating that cohesion, because that's
00:39 going to be big for us.
00:40 You want to trust the guy next to you as much as possible.
00:42 So trying to build that while also keeping the competition level high so nobody's ever
00:45 getting complacent.
00:46 Someone who was here when Ope first showed up, just how much of a transformation is this
00:52 to see when he's down 80 pounds in a couple of years, and how much more ready is he to
00:58 play this year at 40 compared to a 400-pound guy a couple of years ago?
01:01 I mean, it's crazy.
01:02 It's really like 100 pounds, because when he got here, he was almost like 420-plus.
01:07 He's lost all 100 pounds-plus.
01:09 He's been consistent at it.
01:10 He hasn't complained about it.
01:11 He's limited what he was eating.
01:12 And to see him change his body, he's always been a high IQ guy.
01:15 So he gets the football part.
01:17 He can play almost four of the five positions.
01:19 But to see him now being able to function in the way he's functioning, weight not being
01:23 a hinder of him, I mean, he's going to be able to help us and benefit us extremely.
01:26 I mean, and he's athletic.
01:27 I mean, he was 430, and he moved well in.
01:29 So imagine what he does with 100 pounds less on him.
01:31 And to us, that's going to help benefit our team, without a doubt, because if any of the
01:34 four spots were to go down, you know Ope can come in there and handle it.
01:37 Where are you guys at with the center competition?
01:40 Obviously, with Alex Gonn, that's a pretty big hole.
01:42 I mean, right now, we had still a good, solid competition.
01:44 You got JPJ in there.
01:45 You got Marcus in there.
01:46 You're getting Pancho in there.
01:47 You got Charlie Pickard and Keenan Rossi.
01:49 So we got five guys right now who are all doing a tremendous job.
01:53 I think they're all competing at a tremendous level right now.
01:55 But I think it's a good mixture between JPJ, Marcus, and Pancho, because the more experience
01:58 we get at center, the better we're going to be.
01:59 Because at any point, if you can have more than one guy be able to think like how Alex
02:03 Forsythe did and be able to get everybody on the same page, your team gets better at
02:06 that point.
02:07 So those guys continue to progress, continue to grow.
02:08 What are the final nuances you need to see?
02:09 I mean, it's kind of a complicated position that you need to see from those guys for their
02:15 game ready.
02:16 From a center standpoint?
02:17 Yeah.
02:18 From a center standpoint, first off, snap consistency.
02:19 Just making sure the snaps are going to be exactly where the quarterback needs it, and
02:21 it won't be a problem for him to take his eyes off his read, because he knows where
02:24 the ball is going to be.
02:25 And then second, just confidence and communication.
02:28 We're going to start playing in front of 50 plus thousand.
02:30 You can't let that hinder your communication to the guys in front of you.
02:32 Being confident, knowing the playbook, knowing the personnel, knowing exactly what we need
02:36 to see, so that way everybody's on the same page.
02:38 Because a little bit of that timidness with communication, that's when you have inmates,
02:41 that's when you have missed assignments.
02:42 And we're trying to limit that as much as possible.