Marcus Harper Addresses Offensive Line Struggles as Ducks Prepare for Oregon State
Oregon Ducks offensive lineman Marcus Harper II has been a key part of the offensive line in Eugene the past few seasons. On Wednesday the veteran lineman met with reporters following practice to give his thoughts on the team and this week’s matchup with the Oregon State Beavers.
Below you’ll find some of his key quotes and as well as some analysis.
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On what’s happening with the offensive line:
Harper: “We’re kind of just getting adjusted to the new offense. Obviously we’re taking it hard because, obviously not our standard. Getting some of the wrinkles out early. Unfortunately it’s not coming out the way we want it to go but we do a great job of bouncing back and cleaning up the stuff that needs to be fixed. We do it every day in practice, so once we do that, we’ll be good to go. I don’t lose any confidence in this line. I don’t lose any confidence in our quarterback. It actually grows more ’cause we’re learning from it. It’s a learning experience. We just take it on the chin and just keep moving forward.”
On how much more learning can be done at this level:
Harper: “You go back and you look at film—like you say you want to learn from as many positives as you can, we want to try and eliminate as many DBLs as we can, and that’s what we continue to do every day in practice, is try to make sure we eliminate as many DBLs, make sure we’re playing as clean as possible. So that way it’s showing up on Saturday. Like I said, we just continue to go make sure we’re mastering the things that are giving us problems and we just keep moving forward.”
On challenges presented by changing lineup on the interior offensive line:
Harper: “We do it in practice, so as irregular as it is to see something like that happen in a game form, we kind of stuck to it and just kept trying to figure out what was working for us. However long ’til we figure out what needs to work for us we’ll just continue to do it. Everyone cross trains, so it’s not like you get one guy who’s foreign to one side, and then you get another guy going over to the left side.”
On the emphasis of the middle eight (minutes):
Harper: “I don’t know the specific stats of it, but I remember vividly there was a time in the Boise game we emphasized let’s win the middle eight. ‘Cause that’s a chance for—in the middle eight you can get a 14-point spread, however many spread differential—you can widen the gap of the game if win the middle eight. It’s a point of emphasis for us.”
On if O-line struggles could be performance anxiety, anything in practices not translating to the game:
Harper: “No not really. We’re kind of seeing the same things that we see in practices from a look standpoint. Again it’s more so about making sure we’re playing clean, emphasizing our technique and just owning the basics really. And just taking it one play at a time, not trying to do too much at a time.”
Torres’ Take
Nothing too groundbreaking from Harper here, but I expected him say what he did about cross training. I think some people, myself included, want to see a consistent lineup and not so many rotations, but the reality is the staff clearly doesn’t feel like they have a strong feel for what their strongest five are across the board.
So the necessity for rotation definitely makes sense, but you do wonder how long it will take them to get that clarity and at what point they’ll stick their foot in the ground and commit to a group moving forward. I have a hard time seeing that happening before Bedford and Iuli return. Having those guys back should help in theory, but that’s also two more bodies that you need to factor into this equation and we’ve seen how hard it’s been for the Ducks to get five offensive linemen on the same page and operating to the same standard consistently.
