Few saw Oregon's demise in 2016 coming.

You can include one Duck veteran player among those shocked by the team's 4-8 season in Mark Helfrich's finale in Eugene.

Fifth-year senior Taylor Alie has seen a lot in his time with the Ducks, but one thing he never anticipated seeing was the implosion that took place last fall.

“I don’t think we knew what was coming," he told reporters prior to Tuesday's scrimmage. "I think we got a little lackadaisical and as soon as the wheels starting coming off, they really came off and no one really stepped up and grabbed the wheel.

"Maybe a bit (of it) was ‘Hey, we’ve got the O on our chest and we’ll come up and perform’."

Fighting against that mentality is chief on Willie Taggart's mind. To combat that Taggart has placed implemented measured to keep competition at the forefront of the team's work on and off the field.

To this point, Alie believes the methods are working.

"I think we needed a bit fire under our belly," he said of last year."Now we have it. Guys are excited and there’s energy. It’s not like we didn’t have that last year, but it’s a different sense. We have a bit of chip on our shoulder now."

Part of that 'chip' on the shoulder comes from not wanting to relive what was a challenging four months a year ago.

"No one wants to go through what we went through last years Especially after we won for so many years, and developed that winning culture.

“Going into this year, you can tell guys are excited and eager to play football and it’s much more of it’s us versus them than a No. 12 versus them."

Alie is battling freshman Braxton Burmeister to be Justin Herbert's primary back-up. DuckTerritory.com outlined that competition earlier in the day.

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