Venue: Autzen Stadium
Format: Fast Friday

Miguel Nevarez was a young teenager when the Oregon football team played for the College Football Playoff championship in 2014.

He had his whole life in front of him. There were so many directions it might take. In that moment, though, he charted a course for himself.

"When they were at the natty, I decided: I wanted to be a Duck," Nevarez said.

Fast forward a few years, and he's exactly that. And not only is Nevarez playing for the UO football team, he's proving himself invaluable to the Ducks' developmental squad with his versatility in the trenches.

A former two-way lineman for Mountain House (Calif.) High School, Nevarez joined the Ducks in 2018 as a walk-on and practiced along the defensive line. But after a series of injuries sapped the UO offensive line of depth, Nevarez moved to that side of the ball earlier this month.

"It's been a challenge learning the offense, and trying to learn new fundamentals and techniques compared to the defensive line," he said. "But I'm excited for the new challenge."

Nevarez wasn't starting from scratch in his new role. He was two-time offensive lineman of the year in his high school league, after all.

But the standards and expectations as a developmental squad player with the Ducks are different. And the spotlight shines even brighter given that Oregon's head coach, Mario Cristobal, is a former offensive lineman himself, and spends considerable time during practice coaching up the scout-team offensive line for the benefit of the defense.

"It's intimidating, for sure," Nevarez said with a grin. "But he's a great coach. … I've got two great coaches (along with UO offensive line coach Alex Mirabal) who know the O-line."

Cristobal and Mirabal have been deeply invested in Nevarez's development the last few weeks. Injuries to Dawson Jaramillo and Chris Randazzo have required them to look for new ways to stock the scout-team offensive line, and Nevarez has answered the call.

A few years removed from cheering on the Ducks in their quest for a national title, Nevarez is playing for those very same Ducks, and playing an unheralded but critical role in their 2019 season.

"It's an awesome experience," he said. "And a little surreal, for sure."

Developmental squad scrimmage highlights: A week after the secondary gave up a few plays to the scout offense, the passing game was pretty quiet Friday in the Ducks' weekly 10-minute, 24-play scrimmage for the "dev squad." Sean Killpatrick broke up two passes on the first of six possessions in the scrimmage, and Trikweze Bridges made a really athletic play to break up a pass to Devon Williams in the end zone. ….

The front seven made some plays as well. Sua'ava Poti was involved in a couple of stops on run plays, and as usual inside linebackers Nate Heaukulani and Nick Wiebe were around the ball a bunch. Wiebe also had a sack, although the play was allowed to continue and Bradley Yaffe completed a pass to Jack Vecchi. Yaffe had another completion on the final rep of the scrimmage, to Patrick Herbert. …

One of the bright spots this week was running back Jayvaun Wilson, who probably had his best Friday scrimmage period so far this season. He hit the edge a couple times on runs, and also had a nice gain on a short pass from Yaffe. Wilson is a big back but also a dynamic runner who can make tacklers miss.