Willie Taggart has taken steps to keep Oregon players on their toes this month, like turning a scheduled walk-through Thursday into a full practice.

Venue: Outdoor practice fields

Format: Shells

When Willie Taggart constructed his first UO preseason camp schedule, he did so with the aim of having Oregon ready to play at any and all times.

Initially, that was reflected in varying practice times throughout August – the Ducks have practiced first thing in the morning, mid to late afternoon, and even late into the evening a couple times. But lately, Taggart has made the practice format unpredictable, too.

Originally, Oregon was scheduled to scrimmage on Sunday of this week. That was bumped back to Thursday, then ultimately held Tuesday.

On Thursday, then, would be held a walk-through, in keeping with the game-week schedule Taggart wanted the Ducks to experience this week. But when players arrived at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex early Thursday morning, they found out instead they'd be going through a full practice, and strapped on shoulder pads.

If Taggart wondered prior to camp how the Ducks could handle a quick change, that was answered Thursday morning. On the first play of 11-on-11, Justin Herbert found Charles Nelson matched up against a safety and hit him for a long completion. With the twos on the field, the offense took a similar shot, but Deommodore Lenoir made an adjustment on the ball and picked it off.

Then, midway through practice Thursday, Taggart had the Ducks line up and run gassers – first the offense, as a group, then the defense, back and forth. Practice resumed with another set of 11-on-11 drills, and graduate assistant coach David Gilbertson yelled in encouragement, "Can't let fatigue beat us!"

That drill featured a long completion by Braxton Burmeister to Daewood Davis , and an interception by Arrion Springs . Through a change of schedule in the morning, and a surprise conditioning test in the middle of practice, the Ducks accepted everything Taggart threw at them Thursday and pushed through.

Other highlights: Davis had a couple of highlight moments Thursday; in a punt coverage drill early in practice, he flattened a defensive back on his way downfield to get to the returner. … Another field goal was blocked Thursday – Justin Hollins got his hands on it, and Ty Griffin finished it off with a scoop-and-score recovery. …

In 7-on-7, Burmeister did a nice job of checking down on a screen pass to Kani Benoit , who had a ton of room to run. In the same drill, though, Burmeister was picked off by Dexter Myers (below), who produced a turnover for the second day in a row. … Herbert dropped a ball into the arms of Dillon Mitchell in the end zone in 11-on-11, and on the next play threw a pass underneath that Nelson turned into another long touchdown.

Other observations: The Ducks added defensive lineman Malik Young to the roster Thursday. Young is a junior college transfer originally from Georgia, and is eligible to play as a senior this fall. Taggart called him "a kid that has size, can play with leverage and is really athletic." He provides depth at a spot where the Ducks have suffered some attrition, including a recovery from foot surgery by graduate transfer Scott Pagano . … In kickoff drills, true freshman Jaylon Redd took some reps with the first unit, a strong indication he's in the coaches' plans offensively for the upcoming season. …

The NCAA limit on roster size for preseason camp is 105, but the Ducks have just 98 on hand at this point. Rather than retain a bunch of extra walk-on players for the sake of the scout team, Taggart prefers instead to do more "good-on-good" work. For instance, during a team period Thursday, the first-team offense ran a handful of plays, the No. 2 offense came in and ran a couple more, but then the No. 2 offense stayed on the field and ran some Southern Utah stuff for the sake of the defense. As you might imagine, the defense had its hands full with Tony Brooks-James and Benoit getting the ball as scout-team running backs.

Pre-practice interviews:

Head coach Willie Taggart

Sophomore linebacker Troy Dye

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