Oregon Ducks wide receiver Evan Stewart spoke rather frankly when meeting with the media after losing to the UCLA Bruins on Saturday, revealing his thoughts on what the Ducks need to fix in order to salvage the season. The College Football Playoff feels like a distant thought now with Stewart and company likely needing to run the table in order to reach the postseason.
Oregon fell to the UCLA, and the team fell out of the AP Top 25 Poll as well. According to Stewart, he feels as though the Ducks need to shift their focus onto the process instead of results.
"Honestly, as a team, I feel that we're too focused on the outcome. I feel like we definitely as a team just need to hone in on the details and just getting better, like truly. And not worrying about what anybody else thinks outside of the building and just honing in with each other and just really buying into each other and just the craft that we do every single day. I think we do that. I mean, I think we'd be perfectly fine," said Stewart.
The offense struggled as a whole against the Bruins, and quarterback Dylan Raiola was benched in favor of third-string quarterback Brock Thomas with starter Dante Moore out. Stewart spoke candidly about conversations with fellow receiver Dakorien Moore, his role as a leader on the Oregon offense and what the Ducks need to do moving forward.
Frustrations With Offensive Struggles
"As a leader, I mean, only thing you can do is just keep it positive, as positive as it can be. Just try to delete any negative talk and just remain trustworthy in everybody that was going on. It's like, yeah, things might not be panning out right now, but something got to click. So, yeah."
Differences in Offensive Production
"I mean, different defenses, different game flows, different plays. I mean, all types of different just futures that can alter different outcomes. But I mean, all together, I mean, it just wasn't our day, honestly."
Squaring the Returning Talent with Recent Losses
"I mean, of course, we can always talk about the biggest goal, but I mean, as we always say, it's the little ones that we got to complete to get to the biggest one. And, shoot, I mean, we just got to continue to take it week by week. Yeah, it isn't what we wanted. Everything is not, I wouldn't say, out the picture. I mean, we can always make history. But, I mean, it just might just be different how we do it now, you know, than the way we pictured it. But, I mean, we still got faith in everybody, so."
What Brock Thomas Sparked in the Offense
"I mean, we got all faith in every quarterback, I mean, we got in our room. I mean, we're just not expecting Lanning to bring anybody into the quarterback room. We know that if Lanning brought him in, that he's capable. So, I mean, whenever Brock came in the game, we still have faith in him, just like we had it in Dylan and just like we got in ‘Te (Dante)."
What He Saw From Dylan Raiola
"I mean, Dyl’s hard on himself, as any of us are. He knows he didn't play up to his part, and all we could do was just sit there and support him, because we understand how it is, especially when you don't play as well as you want to play. Of course, he felt like he let us down in certain ways and stuff, but we always going to lift him up. He's our teammate, so we never turn our back on him. It's going to take a lot of leadership to move on and chase your goals for the rest of the season."
How He Moves Forward as a Leader
"Well, lucky for me, I mean, especially for my room, it's like, I mean, my first two years of college football, I wasn't doing that much winning. So I definitely know what it looks like. And the experience definitely helps because, I mean, I can give them examples of all types of players that, or not even players, but seasons starting off this certain way and then ending in a different way."
"So it's just, you know, just being a voice for the younger guys and just showing them, you know, some, some decisions that you think are good right now just wouldn't help in the long run."
Conversations With Dakorien Moore
"I mean, for DK, it's like, I mean, I was kind of very similar to DK. He had an All-American season, freshman All-American season last year. I did that, too, when I was at A&M. And, I mean, what I try to tell him is the difference is that you was on a winning team. Like, I wasn't a part of a winning team."
"So it's like, you should be happy about that. It's a lot of things that come with winning that you can't get from losing. I just try to give him example after example and fill his head up with good thoughts because he can be hard on himself too."
Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram for the latest news.
Add us as a preferred source on Google