Three questions for Oregon's defensive line ahead of fall camp 2022

Oregon’s summer offseason is in full swing. While we count down the days until kickoff in Atlanta on Sept. 3, ScoopDuck has you covered with position-by-position breakdowns ahead of fall camp. Next up is the defensive line.

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• Offensive line

Oregon’s defensive linemen Popo Aumavae and Brandon Dorlus were flat-out dominant in 2021.

Both were first-team all-Pac-12 selections, and Pro Football Focus graded the duo out as the two best interior defenders in the conference by a wide margin.

Aumavae and Dorlus are both are back this season and will be major difference makers in Dan Lanning and Tosh Lupoi’s defense. The duo provides a tremendous foundation to build around, and Dorlus in particular has popped up on a few NFL Draft big boards this offseason.

With the start of fall camp less than a month away, here are three questions for Oregon’s group of defensive linemen as they look to build on last year’s strong showing.

How good can Brandon Dorlus be?

At the start of last fall camp, most Oregon fans had high hopes for Dorlus. After all, he had shown some really promising glimpses in 2020 and played his best ball toward the end of the season.

What the junior defensive end accomplished, though, exceeded the hopes of even the most optimistic Duck supporters. Dorlus was a force of nature in 2021. He recorded 25 tackles, seven tackles for loss, and 2.5 sacks. But those numbers hardly tell the whole story of his season.

According to PFF, Dorlus tallied 42 total pressures and 33 quarterback hurries in 14 games. He was a nightmare for opposing offensive coordinators and helped negate the impact of Kayvon Thibodeaux’s injury absence early in the year.

In his first season as a full-time starter, Dorlus looked like a superstar in the making.

It will be really intriguing to see how Lanning and Lupoi go about getting the best out of him. For a coaching staff that is ultra-focused on creating havoc all over the football field, it’s easy to imagine Dorlus becoming even more disruptive in 2022.

What’s the health status of the returning starters?

If the Ducks looked a bit light along the defensive front during April’s spring game, it’s because they were.

Dorlus, Aumavae, and Keyon Ware-Hudson — all of whom started and performed well last season — were sidelined with injuries. None of the three suited up during the spring as Dorlus and Aumavae were both recovering from shoulder injuries and Ware-Hudson was working his way back from multiple injuries.

The good news for Oregon is that it appears all three will be back in plenty of time for the start of fall camp. James Crepea of The Oregonian/OregonLive reported earlier this summer that Aumavae, Dorlus, and Ware-Hudson will all be ready for the start of camp.

With the transfer portal additions of Casey Rogers and Sam Taimani up front, the Ducks should be deeper in the trenches than they were a year ago — despite the departures of Jayson Jones and Kristian Williams.

How impactful will Sam Taimani be?

We mentioned earlier that Aumavae and Dorlus graded out as PFF’s two best interior defenders in the Pac-12 last season.

Well, just a bit further down the list was Sam Taimani, who garnered a very respectable grade of 72.0 during the 530 snaps he played at Washington last season. That was good for the fifth-best grade in the conference.

For a team that had depth concerns along the defensive line entering the offseason, bringing Taimani into the fold was a really positive addition.

So, what exactly are the Ducks getting in their marquee transfer?

“He’s as strong as an ox,” Oregon center Alex Forsyth said in April. “Really sharpening his skills as a pass rusher, I think. He’s fantastic against the run — he’s ginormous and takes up double teams. He’s really improved on his hands, anchoring down against double teams. … We haven’t always had a guy like that who’s a true zero-technique.”

When asked about Taimani during the spring, Lanning was complimentary of the power he plays with and his ability to separate from blocks, but also admitted his conditioning needs to improve.

But that’s undoubtedly something Taimani and the coaching staff will work relentlessly to address.

Currently, On3 tabs Taimani as the 106th best player to switch schools via the transfer portal this offseason. If everything clicks for the junior during fall camp, though, he could prove to be much, much more valuable to Oregon than that ranking would have you believe.