‘He’s physically ready;’ Freshman OT Tommy Tofi has impressed early

Playing along the offensive line in Division I football is a lot tougher than it seems. It's rare that a freshman can come into a program and play on the line with effectiveness.

But Oregon freshman Tommy Tofi is working hard to beat the odds. According to offensive line coach A'lique Terry, the San Francisco native is ready to be a factor for the Ducks right now.

“It’s early, he’s been in college for a month, but it's clear he's gonna help us in some shape, form, or something. Like most times with linemen, you talk about strength and conditioning being a little bit of the issue of, can they catch up? He's physically ready," Terry said. "Now it's our job to just make sure our football game within those trenches, the closer you get to the ball, the faster things happen, a lot more processing happens, so that part you've got to make sure he can really handle and understand.

It's hard enough for veterans to play at a high level just because of the different types of defenses and schemes you'll see in a season. Fortunately for Tofi and the Ducks, Oregon's defense is one of the best in the country and practicing against that is like jumping into the deep end of the pool.

So far, Tofi is swimming, quite literally.

"Obviously, the defense is going to give him much variety, but prepping against our defense every single day is helping him. But he's got it," Terry said of Tofi. " (He) loves the game. He came from a great foundation at his high school. He has great football knowledge, and he is a junkie for it. He's swimming at times. Put him at multiple positions, making him feel the differences between guard, left tackle, right back, all that kind of stuff, because it's going to eventually slow the game down for him."

Tofi is a bright spot and Terry says those freshmen that enrolled early are doing a good job at holding their own in the early going.

"Up to this point, right now, in spring, he's (Tofi) been a real bright spot, especially being a young guy," Terry said. "Our young guys that have enrolled early have done a really tremendous job for the first 10 practices of college football.”