EUGENE -- Oregon's first spring under coach Willie Taggart ends Saturday, but the work to revive the Ducks' after a 4-8 season has only just begun.



What can be accomplished in 15 football practices?



A lot, in some ways.



Oregon used April to move past unwanted attention from winter -- the hospitalization of three players after offseason workouts; the resignation of one assistant after a DUII arrest, and the departure of another who also riding in the car at the time -- while working out the kinks ahead of tougher tests in the summer and fall. It was a chance to take Taggart's core tenets of competition and accountability to the field, and a gauge of how much trust is still being built between players and a new coaching staff, and the coaching staff themselves, many of whom had never worked together until 2017.



And still -- it's just four weeks.



Asked if he was most excited to evaluate any specific areas Saturday, Taggart indicated the scale of the rebuild with his answer.



"Yes," he said, smiling. "All of them."



After nearly a month of road-testing the country's 126th-ranked defense he inherited, defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt saw improvement as UO transitions from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense. Players are trusting their instincts more and slowed by the uncertainty of learning a new system less often.



But depth and talent remain unavoidable issues. Continuing a trend from last fall, the offense has started each of the past two scrimmages slowly due to turnovers. And defensively, three contributors on the line alone -- Drayton Carlberg, Gus Cumberlander and Rex Manu -- sat out portions of spring due to injuries, while some freshmen who could push for playing time won't arrive until summer.



"I don't really know if we're going to be able to see or evaluate much until we get into the fall," Leavitt said.



During footwork drills with his linebackers, Leavitt still barks out more corrections in real-time -- "Too slow!" "Do it again!" -- than atta-boys. Last year's staff obviously called out mistakes, too, sophomore linebacker Bryson Young noted by comparison. But something about Leavitt, like perhaps his perma-caffeine buzz from a diet of Pepsi, recruiting and film, has added more urgency.





"Last year was just going through things," Young said. "It's way different. A lot more discipline."



Said redshirt freshman safety Brady Breeze: "We definitely have to approach this year a little differently. Last year with the new defense guys were kind of lackadaisical.



"Leavitt has approached it a little differently. We've got to get better this year."





The work-in-progress state of the defense in spring has mirrored that of the roster as a whole entering the spring finale. Asked their evaluations of the team throughout spring, the Ducks appear confident but pragmatic about the challenge. Last season is still fresh in their memories.



As a result, no one should feel comfortable quite yet.



"I don't think anybody's in the position for us to be able to call them a starter right now," Taggart said. "Nobody's done anything consistently enough to be able to say, 'Hey, you the guy.' They all have issues that they gotta work through and I'm excited to see them work them through it. They're going to have to if they're gonna play for us."



Saturday's spring game, which kicks off at 11 a.m. inside Autzen Stadium and will be broadcast on Pac-12 Networks, marks the third opportunity fans have been allowed to watch an entire practice this spring. That access was one of the many changes Taggart has instituted since his hiring, and while that made waves with fans and media used to the closed practices of the past five seasons, what caught players' attention most was a piece of paper waiting for them inside their locker room.



On a wall near a bank of televisions, a new depth chart has been posted daily throughout April. The fluidity of UO's depth chart has produced freshman first-teamers in cornerback Thomas Graham Jr. and nose tackle Jordon Scott, and allowed veterans such as defensive backs Arrion Springs and Ugo Amadi reclaim their spots among the first-team rotation as spring wore on. Most intriguingly, it was a peek into which stocks were rising and falling in quarterback competition that has seen Justin Herbert on top most often, along with flashes from Travis Jonsen and a transfer by Terry Wilson.



Taggart likes to see how players will respond under pressure, and called UO's two prior scrimmages particularly important evaluations. As the closest thing to a real game yet, Saturday could be just as revealing. But also, as the final and most public workout of the month, spring games tend to carry more weight than is perhaps appropriate. While it is the lasting image fans and media are left with for three months until practices reopen in August, it's still a small part of a larger, incomplete picture.



"I don't think you're going to see a whole lot at the spring game," Leavitt said. "We're not going to do a whole lot of stuff. Nobody does."





Taking the long view, then, makes more sense. Especially given that following last season, multiple players and former coaches acknowledged that missteps from last summer -- under less supervision due to NCAA rules, players were said to repeatedly cut corners in the weight room, in particular -- were the harbinger of the program's worst season in a quarter century.



That cannot happen again, the Ducks said.



"In all my years the summers have been more productive than the springs," Leavitt said. "They can lift the weight, they can condition and get in and study as much film as they want. I expect them to take real big leaps and bounds in the summer."



If UO does make those leaps and bounds, they will be the results of a foundation laid in winter. To address trust issues that contributed to last season's struggles, Taggart divided the 100-plus man roster into smaller groups that cut across position and age to expose players from all positions to interact with one another more often. When he walked the hallways of UO's football headquarters in his first weeks on the job, players were rarely around.



"It was like hide and go seek," Taggart said, "and they knew how to hide pretty good."



Gradually, they've come out of the woodwork, and out of their shells. All-American tailback Royce Freeman spent his first three seasons mostly keeping to himself but said he's forced himself to get uncomfortable by speaking more and taking a more active leadership position.



Will players who like one another more work harder for one another while coaches are away? Time will tell.





"When we can have that as a football team, where guys love to go out there and work without the coaches being there," Taggart said, "that's when we're going to have something really special."



No one's calling UO special yet, even if Taggart says there is a lot to like about his team. But that doesn't mask the fact there's a lot more work to be done once they walk of Autzen Stadium's turf Saturday afternoon.



"We have a long ways to go but we're headed that way," Taggart said Thursday. "Climbing is easier than hanging on. So we're still climbing."



-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif