EUGENE — With a change in coaching staff comes a change in systems and terminology and a new set of goals and expectations.

Kenny Dillingham is bringing his version of the Hurry-Up, No-Huddle offense to Oregon, making it clear he wants to play to an extreme up-tempo and get the ball to playmakers in space in order to do so, whether that’s running or passing.

“This system is adaptable to the people we have on our team,” Dillingham said. “We’re going to adapt to those players. I think they’re excited to not get loaded boxes. There’s nothing wrong with having the mentality of running the football. There’s been a lot of teams through a test of time who win a lot of games saying we’re going to run the ball and that dude who’s at seven yards or six yards off the ball is going to have to tackle me and if you don’t make the tackle we go for 50. There’s nothing wrong with that philosophy, it’s just not the philosophy I have.

“I want to try to put our players to win one-on-ones with guys as far away from them as possible in the run game. If those guys get too close we’re going to have to get out of that play and try to get ourselves in a better play with better numbers, better angles and better grass.”

Through winter workouts, film study and the first five spring practices, Dillingham is installing an offense made famous by Gus Malzahn, first at multiple Arkansas high schools, then at Arkansas, Tulsa, Arkansas State and Auburn, and refined by coaching disciples Mike Norvell, Chad Morris, Hugh Freeze, Rhett Lashlee and others.

Dillingham has spent most of his college coaching career under Norvell, with a one-year stint with Malzahn at Auburn in 2019 with then-freshman quarterback Bo Nix, now at Oregon. He’s taking the core philosophy of fast pace and open space and putting his own spin on it, but before it’s on full display on the field it has to be learned and understood and that’s an ongoing process.

“I coach because I truly love to see guys succeed and see that look on their face when they have that success and it clicks,” Dillingham said. “Once it starts clicking, you get addicted to that success and that’s our goal as a staff, is to get our guys addicted to success, addicted to growth. Where if they fail, why did I fail? Not, dang-it I failed! Why did I fail? How can I grow? What did I do wrong? That’s the question we’re trying to strive for is the growth and we always want to ask is why didn’t it work, or why did it work, but could (I) have done something better.”

Nix already has a base of knowledge and understanding from running a different version of the offense in 2019, but said he’s still learning all that Dillingham wants now that he has autonomy in play-calling.

Ty Thompson is taking to the new offense and has taken some first-team reps during spring practices.

“It’s so much fun and I get so much joy out of doing it right and putting in all the time that I do and then it shows out on the field,” Thompson said. “It makes me so happy so that’s part of the reason I’m out here enjoying this sport so much is because I’m really obsessed with what I do. I remember vividly we had a morning meeting about a month ago — we were talking about protections — then we had a walk-through and it was like it just clicked. It was beautiful and I was so happy and I called coach Dillingham and I was like coach, it’s clicking and he was excited for me.

“I like when it’s a lot going on and you see it, you digest it all and you get it right. It’s so satisfying to me. It is a lot and I like having a lot on my plate. I like having the ball in my corner.”

Thompson said the quarterbacks have been watching film mostly from Dillingham’s time at Memphis and Florida State. Those teams were built very differently, with the Tigers producing a 4,000-yard passer and 1,100-yard rusher in 2017 and throwing for over 3,400 yards with 1,900-yard and 1,100-yard rushers in 2018, compared to more run-heavy offenses at FSU the past two years due in part to injuries at quarterback.

It’s why Dillingham doesn’t ascribe to the belief of some that the offense requires a dual-threat quarterback in order to function best.

“We’re going to be able to read players on the field based off of who’s back there,” he said. “Whether we want to read safeties, whether we want to read linebackers or we want to read ends is all predicated off who’s back there taking the snaps.”

Oregon has nine scholarship receivers, mostly first and second-year players, along with five tight ends and four running backs — three presently on campus — to get the ball to. The quarterbacks are enjoying the opportunity to take more shots.

“I think as an offense you want to get one-on-ones because one-on-ones mean for us, I have a saying it’s not a 50-50 ball with our receivers because they’re super talented; it’s more of a 75-25 ball because I think our receivers in a one-on-one can win any jump ball, any contested catch they can go up and get it,” quarterback Jay Butterfield said. “I think one-on-one is what we live for.”