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Jahlil Florence Believes Oregon's New-Look Secondary Will 'Make a name for ourselves'

Max Torres Author Profileby: Max Torres07/28/25mtorressports
Jahlil Florence
Oregon Ducks cornerback Jahlil Florence at Oregon Football's 2025 team media day. (Photo by: © Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images_

There’s a lot of position groups that will feature new faces on this year’s Oregon team. But there may not be a group that’s facing a bigger transition on the defending Big Ten champions than the secondary, which will replaced all five starters from a year ago.

Redshirt junior cornerback Jahlil Florence started nine games for the Ducks when he was last fully healthy in 2023. He doesn’t think the secondary should be viewed as a question mark heading into fall camp.

“There shouldn’t be no question marks when it comes to our room,” Florence said at Oregon Football Media Day in Eugene. “We got a lot of talent and a lot of depth. Come camp, you guys are gonna see, we’re gonna put in the work. Then come first game, you guys are gonna see the room we have and our secondary and there’s gonna be a real elite group of guys.”

Looking at the rest of the secondary, Oregon brought in a few veteran transfers in Dillon Thieneman (Purdue), Theran Johnson (Northwestern) and Jadon Canady (Ole Miss). Even with those additions, redshirt freshmen and even true freshmen could see their names being called when the season opener against Montana State rolls around.

Florence believes the team’s younger players will be able to hold their own and are even ahead of schedule compared to his journey.

“Ify (Obidegwu), he’s a guy. Dakoda (Fields), Na’eem (Offord), Brandon (Finney), Dorian (Brew). Every single freshman that comes in now is for sure years ahead of where I came in mentally and with the playbook and stuff like that. We came in, we were doing winter training they were on Zooms early, all of ’em. So those guys are gonna be ready. And then we’re gonna see how camp is and see if they really learned that playbook and see how fast it translates going into the season.”

Ify Obidegwu
Oregon Ducks defensive back Ify Obidegwu (7) in the 2025 spring football game.(Photo by: © Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

Many of the defensive backs, specifically the cornerbacks, are both taller and longer than last year’s starters. They also bring track speed from their high school careers along with playmaking ability and elite athleticism.

So it’s not hard to see why a veteran like Florence has giving his teammates the benefit of the doubt when their group is put under a microscope.

“You guys are gonna see the aggression, and you guys are gonna see what this group is,” he said on Monday. “We’re gonna make a name for ourselves and kind of let that last group stand on what they stood on and we’re gonna make a name for ourselves for sure.”

One area the Ducks are hoping they can improve is defending the deep ball. Having taller cornerbacks that can run should help slow down opposing passing attacks.

“It is a big difference. What those guys had better than us (last year), those guys were super quick and change of direction and they all were vets,” Florence said. “They all played the game well, but with us we got about four or five guys in our group that are above 6’2″. And we’re all fast and long, so with that it’s so hard for quarterbacks to be able to throw the ball deep and just get complete passes over and over our heads.”

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