Oregon football: Mario Cristobal names Anthony Brown Jr. starting QB

Ahead of the season opener against Fresno State, Anthony Brown Jr. has been named the starting quarterback for the Oregon Ducks.

The Oregon Ducks will open their season next Saturday, Sept. 4, against Fresno State. On Friday, according to James Crepea of Oregon Live, head coach Mario Cristobal named Anthony Brown Jr. the Ducks’ starting quarterback.

“The way he handles and has control and command of the offense, his presence amongst the players at the line of scrimmage, his ability to improvise, sometimes negotiate throws in tough situations, his ability to run the ball as well,” Oregon coach Mario Cristobal said of the ways Brown separated himself from the team’s trio of freshmen quarterbacks.

Anthony Brown Jr. has been Ducks’ QB1 since the spring

A three-year starter at Boston College before transferring to Oregon, Brown spent last season as the backup to Tyler Shough. Shough transferred to Texas Tech, leaving Brown as the only Ducks quarterback with any game experience (28 games). He worked with the first-team offense in spring ball, and the job was his to lose even as Cristobal and the coaching staff challenged him.

“I can’t simulate thousands of people yelling and screaming and that type of duress, so we got to create that in practice,” Cristobal said. “We got to create that in situational play in the way that we script practice, in the way that we prepare everything that we do. A lot of credit to him.”

Brown torn the ACL in each knee in 2017 and 2019. The last came on Oct. 5, 2019 against Louisville. He entered the transfer portal after that season, and committed to Oregon on April 1, 2020. It will be exactly 700 days between his last start for Boston College and his first start for Oregon.

Brown gets a comparatively soft landing in the season opener before the Ducks go to Columbus to take on Ohio State Sept. 11. But a couple notable talking heads have predicted an upset in that game.

https://twitter.com/CFBKings/status/1431611698746691588?s=20

If the Ducks pull off that upset of the Buckeyes, Brown will be a driving force with a showing that would announce himself on the national stage. But first things first, with business to get done in a game against Fresno State that should not be glossed over as an automatic win.