Oregon Suffers Largest Rotation Loss in Lanning Era... But How Bad is it?

The Oregon Ducks are going through a bit of a churn on their roster right now. They have 27 players in the portal (at the moment) and quite a few of them played significant snaps this past season. These are not just guys stuck on the bench, which is the case with most players entering the portal around college football. These are rotation players.

In terms of snap count, this is the largest loss of experience that Dan Lanning has ever experienced at Oregon.

Bigger than the group that transferred after his first season as head coach. Those were mostly Mario Cristobal’s guys.

In terms of snaps, this is a bigger loss of rotation players than 2024 (1,522) and 2025 (801) combined. 15% of the total number of snaps for this season are walking out the door. How will the Oregon staff respond?

Oregon Essentially Lost an Entire Second Unit on Defense

Out of the top 22 players logging snaps on defense this year, the Ducks will have lost 11 players to the portal, graduation, or the NFL. That is a lot of experience walking out the door. With Bryce Boettcher, Jadon Canady, and Theran Johnson graduating this year, and Dillon Thieneman most likely off to the NFL, this leaves a pretty large gap in depth.

Terrance Green had 269 snaps and Tionne Gray had 232 snaps on the defensive line this season. They were the primary backups for Bear Alexander and A’Mauri Washington. The Ducks will now have to look to players like Aydin Breland and Matthew Johnson to step up.

Blake Purchase played 352 snaps and Ashton Porter logged 244 at edge this season. This puts more pressure on Matayo Uiagalelei and Teitum Tuioti to stay healthy. The Ducks have Elijah Rushing and Nasir Wyatt, but are they ready for significant snaps next season?

The Ducks also lost depth at corner and safety, but they are better equipped to handle those losses. They also signed highly ranked transfer Koi Perich at safety out of Minnesota and they’re working on signing another nickel cornerback.

Comparing 2026 to the 2023 Roster Purge

The 2026 transfer class is currently sitting at 3,797 total snaps across 27 players who have entered the portal. That’s an average of 140.6 snaps per player in this class. For comparison, the 2023 class had an average of 102.7 snaps per player. That’s a lot of experience walking out the door.

The 2023 class had more players (32) but only 3,286 snaps. This is significant because most of those players portaling out after the 2022 season were not Lanning’s guys. They were holdovers from the Cristobal era. This group is all Lanning and Tosh Lupoi.

That 2023 class ended up producing 17 players who went on to play 200 or more snaps in the 2023-2024 season. In total, they played 6,548 snaps for their new teams. I would not be surprised if this 2026 class eclipses that number.

How Good are These Players?

We have established that Oregon is losing a lot of experienced players. Are they any good? It’s one thing to lose guys, but it’s another thing entirely to lose quality players to the portal. Here are the top 7 players in the portal in terms of snaps on defense.

Player	Position	Snaps	PFF Grade
Blake Purchase	Edge	352	66.1
Terrance Green	DL	269	62.2
Ashton Porter	Edge	244	66.4
Tionne Gray	DL	232	65.7
Kingston Lopa	S	169	61.3
Daylen Austin	CB	148	70.9
Sione Laulea	CB	116	77

Based on PFF’s talent scale, most of these players would fall into the 60-69 range of “average or replacement-level starter.” That tracks. Only a couple of them are in the 70-79 “good to above average starter” level.

The offense is even less concerning in terms of talent level. There are only 5 players who logged more than 100 snaps this season.

Player	Position	Snaps	PFF Grade
Cooper Perry	WR	192	47
Roger Saleapaga	TE	165	57
Jayden Limar	RB	161	72.9
Justius Lowe	WR	132	57.3
Jay Harris	RB	103	69.6

Most of these players fall into the “below average” or “very poor” ranges of PFF. Only Limar graded as a “good” or “above average” player. Harris got a large portion of his snaps in the Peach Bowl and he graded as “average” or “replacement-level starter.”

On paper there isn’t really a massive loss of talent. It’s just depth that’s concerning.  

What is Driving this Exodus of Players?

This feels like the most significant transfer portal since the rules changed. It’s not just Oregon. A lot of teams are being hit hard by the portal. I mentioned Ohio State already. The success of the top transfer schools from 2025 and the money that’s being thrown around certainly has an influence on guys entering the portal. But players seem to have zero patience at this point to wait their turn.

Class	# of Players
R-FR	8
R-JR	7
R-SO	7
FR	3
JR	1
SO	1

The breakdown is 13 offensive players and 14 defensive players, but the number of snaps is extremely lopsided. The defensive players account for 1,735 snaps this season and the offensive players only account for 983. There was also 1,079 snaps on special teams. Why is the defense losing so many key players and the offense is not?

It makes sense to have a lot of guys leave when you change coaches, but why are so many transferring after such a successful season? Is it because they want playing time, more money, or does it have to do with Tosh Lupoi leaving?

An Exodus Usually Reserved for Teams with a Coaching Change

Looking around college football, there are definitely teams with more transfers than Oregon. The thing is, most of them are going through a coaching change. Out of the 70 teams that are listed on the On3 transfer portal ranking, only 24 teams have 25 or more players in the portal.

Of those 24 teams, 12 recently hired a new coach. It makes sense that Penn State has 47 players in the portal, or Oklahoma State has 61 (yikes). Iowa State just essentially transferred their entire team over to the Nittany Lions. There are a few teams on the list that don’t make a lot of sense, but the majority do.

Team	Transfers	Reason	AVG On3 Player Rating
Auburn	36	New Coach	74.53
Ohio State	30		72.86
Michigan	27	New Coach	72.33
LSU	32	New Coach	71.97
Penn State	47	New Coach	70.79
Iowa State	54	New Coach	69.7
Kansas State	25	New Coach	69.4
Florida State	38	Culture	68.89
Michigan State	32	New Coach	68.89
Baylor	28		68.71
Oregon	27		68.7
Colorado	34	Culture	68.15
Florida	25	New Coach	67.8
Oklahoma	27		67.52
North Carolina	31	Culture	67.45
Cal	31	New Coach	66.19
Arkansas	37	New Coach	65.7
Kansas	26		65.69
Oklahoma State	61	New Coach	65.3
UCF	32		65.13
Mississippi St	34		64.18
West Virginia	40		63.45
Illinois	28		62.71
Washington State	32	New Coach	62.28

Initially, I was surprised to see that Ohio State has 30 players in the portal this year. That was back when Oregon only had 14 players transferring. That number quickly shot up to 27 today, and since then I have looked up the stats for the Buckeye players. They have 30 players but only 2,663 total snaps. That’s an average of 88.8 snaps per player. As mentioned earlier, Oregon is averaging 140.6 per player.

So why is Oregon on this list? Is it as simple as the coordinators leaving or is it about money and playing time? Oregon has the 11^th highest average player rating of the bunch, but only Ohio State and Baylor are higher with no obvious reasons for a high number of transfers. All the other teams have a new coach… or a bad culture.

Just for comparison, Alabama has 21 players in the portal with an average player rating of 72.14 from On3. Georgia has 12 players in the portal with an average rating of 72.42, Notre Dame has 15 players and a rating of 69.67 and Texas A&M has 14 players with an average of 68.29. All of these teams except TAMU are losing better players than Oregon, but not as much depth.

On the bright side, it’s easier to replace depth than it is to replace talent.