A'lique Terry Talks Competition, Young Faces in Oregon Offensive Line Room

Oregon had one of the best offensive lines in college football last season and only surrendered five sacks all year. Stats like that led the group to being named a finalist for the Joe Moore Award recognizing the best offensive line in the country.

Now entering 2024, offensive line coach A’lique Terry doesn’t expect there to be any dropoff. He met with reporters in Eugene on Wednesday following Oregon’s twelfth practice of fall camp.

Below you’ll find a partial transcription of his press conference as well as some analysis on Oregon’s offensive line.

Question: What do you feel like you learned about your group in the first scrimmage and what are you gonna look to see from the second scrimmage?

Terry: “First scrimmage there’s an urgency to our guys right now that you love to see on film. They’re playing with a sense of urgency, they’re playing with great tempo and they’re playing with a really good physicality. Obviously in camp you start to beat up on each other a little bit and it’s good to see those guys keep that competitive edge. I think we did some really good things in the scrimmage but there’s always gonna be room to improve.”

Question: Kind of in the spotlight (the O-line), particularly when you have to break in a new center. How do you feel like your group’s handling that?

Terry: “They’re handling it well. Still is competition time right now. Variety of rotations, but whoever’s at the center spot is doing a really good of making sure the four rest of ’em are on the same page. It’s been a really camp so far truly.”

Question: Who else is there besides Poncho (Iapani Laloulu) who you’re giving a real look at?

Terry: “Right now we got about four guys rotating at center. So you still got Poncho, you still got Marcus (Harper), you got Charlie Pickard, you got Bryce Bolton, you got Kanen Rossi. We got a ton of guys still competing for that center job and they’re all doing a tremendous job right now. So they’ll keep competing that job out and see who wins it out.”

Question: How do you feel like the competition has developed the offensive line just in its totality?

Terry: “Just overall it really helps. Even when the young guys start to play good ball. It makes the older guys continue to push. Naturally if you’ve been playing a lot of football you feel like the job is just yours. It makes it easier for everybody when the younger guys are competing too, so those older guys keep their level of play up as well. You can see that tremendously. The good thing is our older guys have no issue helping our younger guys. That’s the best thing about Ajani and Josh and even Marcus and all the older guys that have been here. They have no issue bringing a younger guy on and showing him the standard that we’re trying to set in our room.”

Question: You talked about Ajani’s leadership. What can you say about him as a person?

Terry: “It’s just great to see how much he’s grown in the last year. We challenged him a ton last year. He was real respectful that he was the new guy, so he kind of showed and led the way by example. Now he has no issue with being vocal about it. He’s got our young guys after practice, post practice he’s got Shaq (JacQawn McRoy), he’s got Trent (Ferguson), he’s got Fox (Crader), they’re doing a ton of extra work. In the meeting room he’s the first one in there, laughing, joking with the guys but when it’s time to go to work it’s time to go to work. And it’s good to see him way more vocal in that.”

Question: What have you seen from Shaq from this spring and this offseason as someone with his size and actually being able to see him on the field?

Terry: “Everything is trending in the right direction with Big Shaq. It’s so lovely he’s committed himself with Coach Cav (Mike Cavanaugh) every day this offseason to making sure he’s working on his bend and flex ability and you can start to see that take toll. We even got him in there at guard a little bit. And I think you can start to see that he’s starting to get more comfortable in the system, getting more comfortable with the way college football works. He had the advantage of being here early in the spring and you’re starting to see him catch his groove. Gotta loose a little bit more weight, gotta continue to get more flexible, but you can see the player that he can be for us.”

Torres’ Take

Oregon’s offensive line is in a great spot. They return everyone but center Jackson Powers-Johnson from one of the best groups in the country a year ago. Center and left tackle have to be the hardest spots to replace for any coach, but fortunately for the Ducks they return both of their bookend tackles, their guards have a wealth of college experience, and their projected starting center played a ton of QUALITY ball as a true freshman.

From the times that I’ve interviewed Cornelius, he did seem to be more of a soft-spoken, laid back guy, so it’s encouraging to hear that he’s feeling more comfortable heading into his second season with the Ducks and asserting himself as a leader in that room.

The other bit that stuck out to me here is how complimentary Terry was of true freshman JacQawn McRoy. I had to double check, but the 6-foot-8, 375-pound lineman actually GAINED ten pounds since his arrival as an early enrollee last winter. That’s pretty wild to hear, but you can bet that isn’t playing weight and the staff has placed a clear emphasis on getting his body right with the emphasis on losing weight and working on flexibility. If all goes according to plan this year I’d assume he redshirts, but the team’s tackle depth isn’t off the charts, so the staff will continue developing players like George Silva and Kawika Rogers, likely ahead of McRoy.