Oregon Football: 5 things to watch in 2019 spring game

2. Can one of the young kickers step up for Oregon?

Over the past decade, Oregon has been a team that loves to put tons of points on the board. If they had their way, there would be little need for competent placekicking as they pile on touchdown after touchdown.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t always worked out to plan for the Ducks. Field goals didn’t directly cost Oregon any victories in 2018, but they played several close contests that could very well have been decided by kicks. Because Adam Stack was so inconsistent, though, Mario Cristobal was less likely to utilize his kicking game. Stack, in the end, went just 6-of-10 in 2018 with a long of only 39 yards.

With Stack injured during the spring, it opened the chance for one of the new kickers on the roster to possibly step up and claim the starting job with a strong performance. Early enrollee Camden Lewis, who was the fourth-ranked kicking recruit in the country, will compete with walk-on players Zach Emerson and Taylor Koth to try to unseat Stack atop the depth chart.

Early results have been less than promising, as all three missed kicks from 40 yards during the public scrimmage earlier this month in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro. The spring game at Autzen presents a final opportunity for one of these three to separate himself from the pack and put Stack’s job in jeopardy.