Ducks Decide To Go With Veteran Play Caller For The Rest Of The Season

The Oregon Ducks are on a quest to find a replacement for former offensive coordinator Will Stein. It appears that when Stein left, he took all of the good vibes right along with him. 

After a 10-point performance against the Illinois Fighting Illini, Dan Lanning made the decision to dismiss Drew Mehringer from his duties as the play caller. It hadn't been good all year long, and it was especially bad in a must-win game over Illinois.

To replace him, at least for the rest of the year, Lanning has made the decision to hire Jay Johnson to replace him.

Johnson has been a coach for over 30 years. His first job in 1993 came at Hickman High School in Missouri before getting to the college level in '94 and being there for the rest of his career. Stops at Missouri, Augsburg, Truman State, Kansas, Southern Miss, Louisville, Central Michigan, Louisiana, Minnesota, Georgia, Colorado, Michigan State, Wyoming, and now Oregon.

Yes, he has been a coach at many different levels at 15 different places, never spending more than three seasons at one place. 

In his history, he has been the offensive coordinator on eight different occasions, the most recent being in 2025-2025 at Wyoming. His offense at Wyoming was, unfortunately, not all that good.

He averaged just 19 points per game and 327 yards per contest, which was ranked 130thin the country. 

For the Ducks, for right now, his job isn't to go out and score a million points, and he doesnt expect to lead this team to a National Championship. He expects to just level out a disaster of a season and find ways to move the football. 

The Ducks' offense this year has been awful ever since quarterback Dante Moore's season ended with a scary head injury. Before Moore went down, the offense had two decent showings and one absolute stinker against Oklahoma State.

There was never any continuity, never any identity, and never any consistent success for the Ducks at any point when they had the football.

Hopefully, some of those things get corrected under Johnson's watch, and more so, hopefully, there is some quarterback development that happens with some of their young guys who are there now and might be there in the upcoming years.

The Ducks needed to make a change, and they had to finish the year with some pride. Johnson gives them the opportunity to settle things down and try to get things going in the right direction.