Identifying the biggest winners, most impressive wins on Oregon Ducks’ historic signing day

No matter how you want to look at it, the notion that the Oregon Ducks aren’t the biggest winner coming out of the first day of the early signing period in college football is bordering on insanity.

The Ducks entered the last 48 hours with some tough recruiting news after the loss of 5-star QB Dante Moore, holding the No. 14 ranked recruiting class in the nation. After Wednesday, they now hold the No. 7 class in the nation and were able to pull off some of the biggest flips and commitments of the entire day.

It started early with the flip of 4-star Baylor Bears QB Austin Novosad. Not too long after the surprising flip came from Notre Dame’s 5-star safety Peyton Bowen, which was soon accompanied by a commitment from 5-star EDGE Matayo Uiagalelei. After a little bit of time passed, 4-star LSU CB Daylen Austin announced that he was flipping to Oregon, and then 4-star Notre Dame RB Jayden Limar completed his flip to the Ducks early in the afternoon.

On top of all of that drama, the Ducks were able to sign a majority of the players who were already committed to Oregon, losing only 4-star CB Caleb Presley in an expected flip to Washington.

The afternoon was capped off with a commitment from OT Ajani Cornelius, one of the most coveted players in the transfer portal, giving the Ducks a potential starter on the offensive line.

Not a bad day, huh?

That’s an understatement. It could very well go down as the best signing day in Oregon history, with the Ducks starting out as the No. 14 class in the nation and finishing well within the top 10.

Here are some of the biggest winners and individual wins from the day:

Dan Lanning

(AP Photo/Andy Nelson)

Obviously, the biggest winner here is head coach Dan Lanning. There should be very little argument about that. As the head honcho for the Ducks, Lanning orchestrated this all, making sure that he had the right people in the right places to get in with the right recruits and make all of the fireworks go off properly. He saw the class take a hit with the loss of QB Dante Moore and the potential loss of CB Caleb Presley. He turned around and flipped QB Austin Novosad and CB Daylen Austin from Baylor and LSU, respectively.

Lanning was brought to Oregon because he had a knack for coaching and was among the best recruiters in the nation, He proved every bit of that on Wednesday, landing one of the best classes in Oregon history.

Austin Novosad Flip

Let’s go into the Novosad flip for a second. This was an absolutely incredible pivot from the Ducks. After it became clear that Oregon might lose their 5-star QB, Lanning had new OC Will Stein go work his magic in Texas and get Novosad, the No. 9 QB in the 2023 class who had been committed to Baylor for over a year, to flip on a whim and sign with the Ducks. Schools like TCU and Texas A&M had been trying to flip Novosad for months, but when the Ducks came calling, it was an easy decision.

“His family I just kind of fell in love with and just the more I got to be around Austin and realized that we were wired similar way,” Lanning said on Wednesday. “And his relationship with Will, I think it is obviously something that we really wanted to tap into and were able to utilize down the stretch.”

Now Oregon has Bo Nix returning for 2023, and Novosad in line to compete for the starting job in 2024. Not a bad outcome after the doom and gloom following Moore’s flip earlier in the week.

Will Stein

Speaking of Will Stein… He sure made a name for himself today, didn’t he?

Oregon’s new OC is now the guy largely responsible for keeping Oregon’s future at the QB position in great standing, pulling off an impressive flip of Austin Novosad from Baylor. Stein and Novosad’s relationship goes back to when the QB was in 8th grade, and they have stayed close over the years.

“Will is a guy that’s felt very strong from the moment he stepped on campus about Austin and obviously Austin’s a guy that he had a relationship with,” Lanning said on Monday. “But that’s a place where Will’s relationships really paid off and he obviously did a phenomenal job there closing out.”

Stein is yet to coach in any games for the Ducks ore really even take over in the position that he was hired in, but he’s already racking up big wins both with the fan base and the coaching staff.

Peyton Bowen Flip

While the excitement surrounding this flip may have lost some steam over the past few hours as nervous Duck fans start to wonder why Oregon has yet to receiver Bowen’s national letter of intent to make the commitment official, it was still a massive win at the time and perhaps the biggest firework that the Ducks saw all day.

Most Oregon fans didn’t know it was coming. Heck, Lanning and his staff didn’t seem to even know it was coming, with the 5-star safety seemingly making the decision to flip to Oregon at the very last second. 

“There’s certainly some moments where you get up there and you feel like you’re right there in the fight, but you don’t know,” Lanning said. “So it’s been a pleasant surprise we’ve gotten.”

Should Bowen get his paperwork through and end up with the Ducks, he acts as an instant-impact player who could potentially start at safety in 2023. It didn’t look like Oregon was going to end up pulling off the flip, but they did in dramatic fashion, and it was one of the more entertaining things that happened in the college football world on Wednesday.

Matayo UIagalelei Commitment

While Oregon fans were busy hooting and hollering about the flip from 5-star Peyton Bowen, another 5-star was getting set to make his announcement.

Elite EDGE Matayo Uiagalelei committed to the Ducks approximately five minutes after the flip came from Bowen, giving Oregon a one-two punch of impressiveness that resulted in 10 stars on the recruiting banner. A flurry of predictions came in on Tuesday night that showed Matayo, the No. 17 player in the nation, was leaning toward Oregon, but until the deal was done, I don’t think a lot of people felt confident it was a lock to happen.

Nonetheless, Matayo committed and signed to the Ducks, and Lanning has one of the premier edge rushers to work with and mold over the coming years.

Ajani Cornelius Commitment

It will technically be classified as a transfer portal commitment and not a recruiting commitment, but whichever way you want to look at it, the Ducks added one of the best available offensive linemen on Wednesday afternoon in former Rhode Island OT Ajani Cornelius.

As one of the most highly-coveted players in the transfer portal, Cornelius received offers from more than 20 schools. He ended up picking Oregon over Nebraska, Ohio State, and Tennessee.

Cornelius now comes to Oregon with prospects of being a starter in 2023 and potentially heading off to the NFL Draft after one or two seasons with the Ducks.

Daylen Austin Flip

John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

It appears that Oregon was ready for 4-star CB Caleb Presley to flip to Washington, and they had a contingency plan in place. I’m not sure it’s even right to call this a contingency plan, since Daylen Austin is the higher-rated prospect and was a bigger target for the coaching staff, I’m told.

Austin had been committed to LSU since May of 2022, and despite a couple of successful visits to Eugene in the past couple of months, he wasn’t planning to sign his NLI until February. However, the Ducks convinced him to move that date up, and they were able to add him to this impressive haul on Wednesday, adding a bonafide player in the secondary.

Jurrion Dickey signing

Maybe it was just the fact that Oregon fans can get a bit paranoid, but there were some real nerves down the stretch that Ducks’ 5-star WR Jurrion Dickey was going to push his commitment back to another day and could be wavering on the Ducks. Dickey had been said to be considering waiting to sign over the past few weeks, and when he announced on Wednesday afternoon that he was delaying his signing with another announcement coming at 6 p.m., fans started to worry.

In the end, Dickey announced his signing at 6:20 p.m. and officially became a Duck. He now becomes the second-highest-rated WR to ever sign at Oregon, behind only Cameron Colvin. A big-time get for Junior Adams and the Oregon staff.

Patience

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Would ya look at that, having patience paid off, didn’t it?

Anyone who is familiar with Oregon Duck fans on social media know that the past week or so has been a pretty bleak time. While a lot of people worried about the foreshadowing of Dante Moore’s commitment, cries that Dan Lanning and the staff were way overrated and not qualified for their jobs.

It’s crazy how much that narrative can change in a matter of 24 hours, isn’t it? While the Ducks did lost a 5-star QB and a 4-star CB, Lanning and the staff turned around and added a pair of 5-star defenders, a 4-star QB with high upside, a 4-star CB, and a 4-star RB all in the matter of a few hours on signing day.

Yea, I’d say he knows what he’s doing.

I will always and forever preach patience until they put me in the ground. More often than not, it will save you a lot of stress in the end. For Duck fans who were willing to sit back and trust Lanning to get to work and do his job, they were rewarded for the confidence on Wednesday.

Keeping outgoing flips to a minimum

(Photo Courtesy of Zachary Neel | USA TODAY Sports)

A lot of our coverage so far has been about the commits that announced to Oregon on Wednesday, but I want to recognize the load of players who had previously committed to the Ducks who made it official by signing their national letters of intent on Wednesday.

So far, as I’m writing this, the Ducks only suffered a pair of flips this season, holding onto the large bulk of the players who committed to them. That group consists of 23 players in total. In today’s day and age of college football, you get used to seeing players commit and flip, sometimes multiple times before eventually signing. That largely wasn’t the case for the Ducks this year.

The Oregon vs. USC recruiting rivalry

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

With Dan Lanning and Lincoln Riley showing up in the Pac-12 during the same offseason — both with a well-known knack for recruiting — the rivalry was on. We saw the early battles over 4-star CB Jahlil Florence and 5-star OT Josh Conerly go in Oregon’s favor, but USC was able to snag their fair share of guys this past year as well.

However, 5-star Matayo Uiagalalei was thought to be a USC guy, with the Trojans battling Ohio State for the pass rusher down the stretch. It wasn’t until Tuesday night that it became clear that Oregon, who was perceived to be in third place in the race, was a real player, and started to pick up predictions to go to Eugene.

Getting a 5-star commit is always great. Getting one to choose you over one of your rivals is something that Duck fans will be dining off of for quite a while.

Dreams of David Hicks

While there were a ton of fireworks on Wednesday, the fun might not be over for the Oregon Ducks.

There is still the commitment from 5-star defensive lineman David Hicks to come, which is expected on Friday. At the moment, Hicks is committed to Texas A&M, where he is expected to stay, but Dan Lanning and the Ducks have been working hard to flip him over the past couple of months, and there are some who feel that he could end up with the Ducks.

247Sports’ Steve Wiltfong said on Wednesday that Oregon landing 5-star Peyton Bowen could potentially swing the pendulum in their favor when it comes to landing Hicks as well.

We will see what the No. 1 DL in the nation has to say on Friday, but for now, dreams of adding another 5-star recruit to this class are not dead.

Story originally appeared on Ducks Wire