Breeland to take McCormick’s spot at tight end for Oregon
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, September 5, 2018
EUGENE — Oregon’s first key injury of the season came at perhaps its deepest position.
Starting tight end Cam McCormick broke a bone in his left leg during Saturday’s 58-24 win over Bowling Green. Ducks coach Mario Cristobal confirmed Monday the redshirt sophomore from Bend will miss the rest of the season.
McCormick was one of the surprise winners of a position battle during preseason camp when he beat out junior Jacob Breeland for the starting spot.
The 6-foot-5, 253-pound Summit High graduate had one catch before his season ended.
McCormick missed almost all of his senior season at Summit in 2015 after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He took a redshirt year before catching six passes for 89 yards and a touchdown last season.
Breeland, who led Oregon with five touchdown receptions last season while catching 18 passes for 320 yards, will move back into the starting lineup when No. 23 Oregon (1-0) hosts Portland State (0-1) on Saturday.
Junior Ryan Bay and senior transfer Kano Dillon are Breeland’s backups. Oregon expects to play true freshman Spencer Webb, who did not appear against Bowling Green.
“We plan on playing all those guys,” Cristobal said. “Jake has always been a good player for us and really has improved in the run game, and he’s looking to get even better. Kano got in there and made a nice play on a third-down conversion. Ryan Bay is a guy that cannot be overlooked, he had a tremendous camp. … Spencer Webb is coming along real well, he’s still developing as a blocker, but we feel like he could help us in the pass game so that is on the table as well.”
The 6-foot-5, 256-pound Dillon had 28 catches for 499 yards and four scores in three years at South Florida before transferring for his final season. He had a 6-yard reception against Bowling Green. Bay has two career catches.
Oregon linebacker La’Mar Winston and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir each left Saturday’s game to be monitored for a concussion. They are both listed as starters against the Vikings.
“Lamar and Deommodore are both being checked out,” Cristobal said. “They had strong collisions and our protocol for that is very strict and regimented.”
Kicker Adam Stack did not play against Bowling Green due to injury, but he is once again on top of the depth chart for the Ducks. In Stack’s absence, Zach Emerson, a redshirt sophomore from Bend, made his playing debut at Oregon. Emerson, a Mountain View High graduate, was 8 for 8 on PATs and handled all the kickoff duties.
Oregon will likely have the opportunity to go deep down the depth chart as a heavy favorite against Portland State, an FCS program that opened with a 72-19 loss at Nevada on Saturday after going winless last season.
Cristobal’s message to his team is to maintain focus no matter the opponent.
“The truth of the matter is we had some really good plays on Saturday, but also some not so great plays we can improve upon,” he said. “For us to be the team we talked about and trained since January to become, it all relates to how we approach it ourselves. How we make our decisions to improve ourselves because nothing that showed up on tape is not correctable. There is nothing that showed up Saturday that we can’t take to a higher standard. It always starts and ends with that regardless of the opponent.”