What will Marcus Arroyo's imprint be on Oregon Ducks' offense in 2018?

Offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo enters his first season as Oregon's play caller. (Sean Meagher/The Oregonian)

EUGENE -- Two lines of Oregon receivers formed on a Hatfield-Dowlin Complex practice field Thursday morning, one on either side of the hash marks. Two at a time, Ducks toed an imaginary line of scrimmage and burst upfield against a defense of air.

The process repeated unbroken for several minutes until the coach positioned in the middle of the drill yelled. From roughly 15 yards away, offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo noticed a small mistake: a receiver lined up too close to the yard-marker number, his "split" too narrow. With a bark from Arroyo, the receiver moved half a step wider. Correction over, the drill resumed.

"He's the most detailed guy you'll ever see," Ducks coach Mario Cristobal said.

For the fourth time in as many seasons, Oregon has a new offensive playcaller in Arroyo, the 38-year-old coaching nomad from Colfax, California, who has called plays at six previous stops during a 14-year career. With the exception of an interim offensive coordinator job in 2014 with the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Arroyo's coordinator stints came during stays on the coaching ladder's lower rungs.

Things are different now.

Like playing the lead in "Hamilton," calling the offensive plays at Oregon is a job prized among one's peers. The Ducks' offense has ranked among the most prolific in the country for the past decade while reflecting the visions of the men entrusted with operating it.

Under Chip Kelly, speed was paired with a previously installed spread offense to wild success, a vision that continued under head coach Mark Helfrich's coordinators, Scott Frost and Matt Lubick. In 2017, head coach and play caller Willie Taggart adapted the "Gulf Coast" spread attack from South Florida for the Willamette Valley.

After a disastrous performance in Arroyo's UO play-calling debut in December's Las Vegas Bowl, his imprint on the offense remains to be seen. But through 12 preseason practices, coaches and players identified his attention to detail as unique and believe that focus on the small things will lead to big stats come the Sept. 1 season opener against Bowling Green.

"Marcus is a very smart guy, he's very intelligent, he's organized so everything that we're getting from a standpoint of organization he's good at that," said receivers coach Michael Johnson Sr., a former NFL and college offensive coordinator. "He's called games before. I think he's a guy who's going to go into a game and be fine.

"I like the detail that he's forcing us to learn with. There's a big deal about a split, a big deal about footwork timing. Those type of things are going to make us a more consistent passing game."

Arroyo was a quarterback at San Jose State before becoming an offensive coordinator for the first time, at just 24, at Prairie View A&M in 2004. The Panthers ranked 81st in then Division I-AA in scoring average and 115th in yards per game.

Over his next eight years as a college coordinator at San Jose State (2006-08), Wyoming (2009-10), Cal (2011-12) and Southern Mississippi (2013) his offenses ranked in the nation's top half in scoring twice, at Cal in 2011 and San Jose State in 2006. They finished in the top half for yardage twice, as well, during the same 2011 and 2006 seasons. In that span his offenses also ranked lower than 100th nationally five times in scoring and four times for yardage.

At those stops, however, Arroyo never had a quarterback considered to be a future first-round NFL draft pick. Junior Justin Herbert was relieved when Arroyo stayed on staff after last season, saying the pair bonded soon after Arroyo arrived in 2017 as UO's quarterbacks coach and co-OC. Another bonus: Herbert will play behind an offensive line with three returning starters with 75 career starts combined.

"It's huge," Herbert said. "Instead of starting fresh we get to build on what we did last year. I thought we had a good year last year and made some big steps."

Including Oregon, Arroyo has called plays for seven teams across college and the NFL ranks.

How visible Arroyo's fingerprints will be on the offense could be difficult to identify even well into the season because UO's offense in 2018 is a blend of several distinctive philosophies. Arroyo learned under Jeff Tedford at Cal and Tampa Bay and Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State. Cristobal is incorporating the power-run influences that helped win him and Alabama a national title in 2015. And running backs coach Jim Mastro was a pioneer of the Pistol formation that players say has become the base of UO's playbook.

It's Arroyo's job to distill those disparate influences into a game plan, a role some believe his college position has helped prepare him for.

"The fact that he's a quarterback, he sees it spatially," Cristobal said. "This guy can really teach the big picture and hone it down to the small picture."

Arroyo talks fast -- really fast, tight end Jacob Breeland said -- and wants to continue UO's custom of playing that way, as well.

"Coach Cristobal and the rest of the staff are really going toward more mixing the power with the speed," said junior center Jake Hanson, who has played for a new coordinator every year since he arrived at UO as a redshirt in 2015. "That's really what we've been doing with a lot of loaded formations with two tight end sets and three tight end sets, even."

From those sets, players say, will come numerous options. Receiver Dillon Mitchell played exclusively outside receiver in 2017 as a sophomore and led the Ducks in catches and yards. But in a change he welcomes, he's been asked to play both inside and out this fall. It's one example, Mitchell said, of Arroyo finding the best uses for Oregon's playmakers.

"Moving guys like Jaylon Redd to outside when he's doing sweeps, putting guys like (6-foot-5 freshman) Bryan Addison for jump balls, (Brenden) Schooler for jump balls," Mitchell said.

Said tight end Cam McCormick: "We've got some plays in for tight ends to work around what we're good at."

For those outside the program, it could be long before Arroyo's strengths as play caller are truly revealed. The Ducks' schedule begins with three opponents whose defenses ranked among the eight worst in their respective NCAA subdivisions last season, and UO could roll to a 3-0 start without needing to dig deep into its playbook.

How successfully Arroyo identifies the right formations to exploit the best matchups in those games is a question whose answer won't come for weeks. But the Ducks' confidence in him to do just that is rooted in what they say he's shown them over the course of several months. Arroyo is described as adept at navigating locker room dynamics and getting players to buy in while still holding them accountable if they err on the details -- such as a receiver's too-narrow split.

Hanson called him "definitely a future head coach," likening his leadership style to former Oregon OC and new Nebraska coach Scott Frost, while Mitchell called his influence wide-ranging, a product of the quarterbacks coach interacting with players from all position groups.

"I think he's been very smart since being here, especially last year coming off tough losses and having a so-so year, I think he's improved a lot in his coaching strategies," Mitchell said. "Rallying us together and making sure we never have our head down."

-- Andrew Greif
agreif@oregonian.com
@andrewgreif

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