A lot of stories have been written about the Oregon Ducks offense this offseason, and for good reason. It's expected to be one of the most prolific scoring offenses in the country once again in 2025.
But as the old saying goes, defense wins championships, and the Ducks want to win a national title sooner rather than later. Oregon's defense should be a talented group and one of those talents is edge rusher Matayo Uiagalelei.
He's not a transfer or a graduate transfer who just came to Eugene yesterday. Uiagalelei has been a Duck since Day one, which is refreshing these days. He's seen it all and developed himself over these past two seasons to become a dominating force on and off the field for coach Dan Lanning's program.
After a career year in 2024, leading the Big Ten with 10.5 sacks, Uiagalelei has seen his expectations raised going into 2025. With those high expectations comes increased pressure. According to defensive line coach Tony Tuioti, Uiagalelei isn't the type of player to let that impact him, though.
"I think anyone that knows Matayo knows that he doesn't really feel pressure. His approach and his process, he works so hard and he trains. He's got complete confidence in his skill and what he can do," Tuioti said. "I think pressure is a privilege. All of our guys come here to Oregon because of that. We don't shy away from pressure. We understand that to be great, we've got to work hard. Every single day, that's what we try to do in practice. Coach Lanning pushes us each and every day."
Tuioti says having that even demeanor is key. Football is an emotional sport, but sometimes you have to keep those emotions in check in order to accomplish your goal/
"For somebody like Matayo, he's always even-keel. He's never too high or too low," Tuioti said. "He's always consistent, but one thing about him is that he's going to show up every time. Especially when we need plays like last year. When we needed to have plays, Matayo showed up. The Wisconsin game he showed up and made an interception at the end. It was third down in the red zone, he's going to show up and make a sack for us. I'm just proud of his development as well."
Both Uiagalelei and Teitum Tuioti came to Oregon as raw as one could be coming out of high school. Now juniors, it seems like those days are far behind them.
"I look back at him and Teitum. They both came in as young 18-year old kids, so to see them now being leaders of this team, just super proud of Matayo and his process," Tony Tuioti said. "We're going to need him to be his best for us to go to where we want to go to."
And where that is for the Ducks is a national championship.
This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire:
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