Oregon Is Betting That Dakota Prukop Will Be the Next Vernon Adams

Just months after playing in the College Football Playoff National Championship with Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, Oregon entered the 2015 season with lofty expectations. And why not? The Ducks had won at least ten games in every season since 2008, and had been to a top bowl game in all but two of those seasons.

Then came regression. Oregon won only nine games last year, and failed to win the Pac-12 North. They lost to Washington State at home and were blown out by Utah, and then they squandered a 31-point lead to TCU in the Alamo Bowl. It wasn't a great season, not by the program's recent standards, but it was awfully interesting thanks to star quarterback Vernon Adams, who transferred in from a smaller school and excelled on a larger stage.

In fact, the Adams experiment was so successful that Oregon will try the same thing again in 2016, this time with graduate transfer quarterback Dakota Prukop—and if the past is prologue, the Ducks will once again be one of college football's most intriguing teams.

A quick review: With nobody to replace Mariota last season, Oregon made the unprecedented decision to poach a quarterback from the Football Championship Subdivision, the lower level of Division I. The Ducks found one of the best—Eastern Washington's Adams—and decided to see how he'd fare in the power conference Pac-12.

Quietly, Adams put together an incredible season. He finished first in the country in yards per attempt (10.2) and first in passer rating (179.09), and all with a finger injury that sidelined him for three games and limited him in two more. He was even better down the stretch against premier opponents, before being injured again against TCU.

Just as impressively, the guy who juked the lights out of FCS defenses just kept doing the same thing at the FBS level:

Between Adams' injuries and a lousy defense that ranked 98th nationally in yards per play, Oregon fell out of title contention last year. But man, were they fun to watch. The entertainment figures to continue this fall with Montana State's Prukop.

Despite having no FBS-level offers coming out of high school, Prukop was one of the country's biggest quarterback recruits this past offseason. How big? Big enough to field graduate transfer offers from Alabama, Texas, Michigan, and yes, Oregon. That's right—college football's reigning national champion and other traditional powers thought that a player a whole division below them was good enough to start for them at the most important position on the field.

Ultimately, Prukop chose the Ducks to make the FCS jump, and it's easy to see why. His 2015 numbers rival what Adams did last season, and he plays similar to Mariota. Take a look:

Prukop will have to face FBS defenses now, but he'll also have FBS talent around him, so these numbers could improve—just as Adams saw his yards per attempt improve last year. Prukop will also have the spring, the entire summer, and the fall to work with the team, whereas Adams only had a few weeks to learn the Ducks' playbook. The offense returns star running back Royce Freeman and its two best receivers, Darren Carrington and Bralon Addison, which means Prukop will have help.

Prukop is an unknown, but he's an exciting unknown, and the stats back that up. "He's another great football player," Addison told Oregon Live. "I don't think it has to do with just the FCS. They have a lot of great players. Our coaches do a great job of finding players to come in and compete no matter where they are—D-III, D-I, FCS, anywhere…. He's just one of those guys."

Indeed, the willingness to jump into this unknown is part of what sets the Ducks apart. Adams could have started for almost any team in the country in 2015, but Oregon was one of the few to take a chance on him and his FCS pedigree. The Oregon program runs like a machine, and its coaches will search everywhere to find a small advantage, especially if nobody else is doing it. The Ducks seem to have found one such advantage in FCS.

With former Michigan coach Brady Hoke also arriving as brand new defensive coordinator, Oregon is heading into one of its most uncertain seasons ever. Banking on another successful FCS talent raid is risky, and it's possible Prukop won't make the jump as seamlessly as Adams did.

On the other hand, great uncertainty also brings great potential. Maybe 2016 Oregon won't reach the level the Ducks have become accustomed to, but if 2015 taught us anything, it's that the ride will be worth watching.

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