EUGENE — Spend enough time around Mario Cristobal and you’ll surely hear him say some variation of the phrase that’s become the way in which Oregon’s second-year head coach frames every aspect of the Ducks program: “With where this thing is headed.”

Whether it be recruiting, roster management, coaching staff, support staff, equipment staff, strength and conditioning regimen, play-calling, scheming, Cristobal’s vision and master plan is all-encompassing. Where is Oregon getting recruits from and how many from certain states and regions? There’s a detailed model in place to scour Southern California and target offensive and defensive linemen that fit UO’s mold from the Southeast.

It’s why Cristobal wakes up before the sun rises, sleeps only when he can’t keep his eyes open any longer and yet doesn’t seem anywhere near burning out of energy. Why the staff held meetings in hotel conference rooms past midnight while attending satellite camps around Los Angeles for three straight days in June to go over Oregon’s recruiting board for several years out.

There is a job to do, a path to travel with a destination of not only returning Oregon to national prominence, but making it into the next nationally dominant college football power.

The question facing No. 11 Oregon as it prepares to take on No. 16 Auburn at AT&T Stadium on Saturday (4:30 p.m. PT, ABC) is whether the path on which Cristobal believes and envisions the Ducks are headed will merge with where they are now.

Is this Oregon team, with 10 starters back on offense, including the most experienced and one of the best offensive lines in the country and Justin Herbert, perhaps the most NFL-ready quarterback in the country, and senior linebacker Troy Dye and defensive backs Thomas Graham Jr. and Jevon Holland among seven starters back on a defense bolstered by five-star freshman Kayvon Thibodeaux and new defensive coordinator Andy Avalos, ready to stake its claim as a nationally-relevant contender in 2019?

“We’ve talked about it and this a great opportunity for us," Herbert said. “It’s a chance for us to keep taking steps forward and to build on what we’ve done. Slowly over the past couple of years we’ve gotten better each year and that’s another area that we want to go.”

The blueprint for Cristobal’s version of Oregon was built and refined by Nick Saban and seen by Cristobal first-hand while he served as offensive line coach at Alabama from 2013-16. But Cristobal has incorporated his own unique touches, flare, passion and personality that came from his days at Miami as a player and assistant coach, then Rutgers and then a successful but shortened stint as head coach at FIU.

Cristobal’s no-nonsense approach and steadfast belief in brute force and physicality on the lines of scrimmage all predated his time in Tuscaloosa, where he saw the inner workings of the highest of standards that define a college football program. How vast and far-reaching the tentacles can be into every facet of the day-to-day workings of every member of the organization’s existence, at the grandest of scales, and where to place limits so as to foster, achieve and sustain greatness without being overbearing and too invasive.

“Coach Cristobal has his own flavor, his own twist to everything," said offensive guard Dallas Warmack, who Cristobal recruited to Alabama and then to Oregon as a graduate transfer last year. "This is – I don’t want to say a replica of Alabama or anything or school. It’s coach Cristobal’s program and he’s doing his thing and it’s working. You’ll see this season how much we’ve improved. Even last year penalty-wise, we cut down, we were first in Pac-12 in penalties. That alone tells you how serious coach Cristobal is and how much we believe in him and how much everything is clicking.”

Cristobal has modeled his approach at Oregon with a similar tenacity after both Alabama and SEC powerhouse Georgia, where he brought strength and conditioning coach Aaron Feld in from, and made it his own. Because while the obvious comparisons to the perennial College Football Playoff contending Crimson Tide and Bulldogs are naturally obvious, in reality what Cristobal is truly modeling Oregon after most-closely is Clemson. Not only because Dabo Swinney and the Tigers have won two CFP national titles over the last three years, but they’ve done so in a more player-friendly organization yet that is still demanding with an ever-rising standard of performance and accountability that garners respect in a Power 5 conference where the path to dominance can be achieved and sustained.

Thanks to Oregon’s facilities and unmatched resources relative to others in the Pac-12, Cristobal believes UO is capable of reaching that level of greatness.

“We all believe the University of Oregon football program, we’re headed somewhere great,” Warmack said. “Even this year, we’re going to be heading somewhere great. We’re building a legacy, not just for this season, we’re building a legacy for seasons to come. We put in effort with other recruits and other guys and we’re trying to build something for all-time.”

Last year’s 9-4 campaign, complete with a dramatic walk-off overtime win over Washington, drubbings of Cal, UCLA and Oregon State and a grind-out win over Arizona State, as well as a stunning overtime loss to Stanford and frustratingly poor performances at Washington State and Arizona, was labeled internally as a foundational year for Cristobal’s program. But ever since the calendar flipped the demands and standards have risen.

The importance of leaving a lasting impact for the future — while usually emphasized by coaches to players in college sports — has taken on a greater meaning to this team, led by a senior class that has made it a mission to stay on the rise and not ever let the Ducks fall to the depths of what they experienced in 2016.

“(Offensive line coach Alex) Mirabal does a really good job of teaching us legacy,” left guard Shane Lemieux said. “'What’s our legacy going to be?' He always tells us, ‘What are the O-linemen 4-5 years from now going to think of Jake Hanson, Shane Lemieux, Calvin Throckmorton?’ I think what the legacy we leave is how we work, how we teach the younger guys and how we’re remembered here.”

Those inner workings combined with success inside the lines is where Cristobal has challenged his team privately and publicly saying months ago that “it’s time” for the Ducks to achieve the goals they have set for themselves and be the team they want to be.

“He really puts it in perspective for us, the whole season,” Holland said. “We’re trying to win a national championship. I feel like that’s every team’s goal. Coach Cristobal has a unique way of focusing in on the details and having to progress from Jan. 1 all the way to now. He’s put that into a good schedule and he’s done a great job about that.”

Though he hates speaking in cliché's and calls himself out when he does, Cristobal truly does avoid coachspeak. That’s not to say he isn’t guarded at times, or protective of information pertinent to the program’s inner workings, but more often than not what he says publicly barely differs, if at all, from what he’d tell any member of the Ducks organization behind closed doors.

There is no cloak and dagger routine, or “hocus pocus,” as Cristobal routinely says. There is cut and dry truth. Reality. Whether it be complimentary, unflattering or downright hard to swallow.

That mentality and approach is why Oregon’s players, starting first and foremost with the offensive linemen, supported Cristobal’s candidacy to take over leading the Ducks in December 2017.

They see the methods to his madness, the reasons and purpose behind why what’s been demanded of them has become Oregon’s standard.

Saturday night the Ducks return to a grand stage, the marquee matchup of college football’s opening weekend. It’s the biggest game Oregon has been in since the 2015 CFP National Championship, which ironically was also at AT&T Stadium.

Oregon’s road back to games of this magnitude, by far the most important of Cristobal’s career as a head coach, has included bumps and meandered through low points the Ducks have no interest in revisiting.

Where Oregon is on Saturday can be the first stop on the road that ends where Cristobal envisions his program is headed or it can be the first detour of a 2019 season that could still get back on track. Each game presents a proverbial fork in the road and how critical it is to stay on course isn’t lost on Cristobal or Oregon’s players.

“The principles and values of our philosophy are always going to be emphasized,” he said. “They shine, they really stand out, in everything we do. As it relates to this game, this season, they’re always emphasized.”

The process of becoming who you’re supposed to be is the first step in reaching potential. Oregon’s first opportunity to do that has arrived.