Stretching back to the 2023 season, the Oregon Ducks ' offense has ranked second, 17th and 10th in scoring and second, 22nd and 16th in total offense. The 2023 campaign was with offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham, who went on to become the head coach of the Arizona State Sun Devils , while the last two offenses have been coordinated by Will Stein, who was hired by the SEC's Kentucky Wildcats .
Rather quickly, the Ducks ' offensive coordinator position has become one of the most sought-after jobs in all of college football — regardless of the bar that Dillingham and Stein set.
Whoever was to emerge as the winner in the offensive coordinator hiring race for Oregon was going to be faced with high expectations. Add in that quarterback Dante Moore , widely projected as either the No. 1 or No. 2 pick in the 2026 NFL draft, is back for one more season.
If the Ducks falter offensively and Moore doesn't have the season expected of him, an avalanche of the blame will fall on the new offensive coordinator. Conversely, if Moore and the Oregon offense exceed expectations, the Ducks' new offensive coordinator is likely to be in the conversation, as history would suggest, for a Power 4 coaching job next offseason.
The man who holds all that weight and more is Drew Mehringer , who operated as the tight ends coach and co-offensive coordinator for the past four seasons.
This won't be Mehringer's first go-round as a Power 4 offensive coordinator in his decade and a half in the coaching ranks, as he served in that position at Rutgers for the 2016 season. He departed from the position to a pass-game coordinator position at Texas after one season, making this his second opportunity to operate an offense with full control — something he isn't taking for granted.
"It's super exciting," he said on Wednesday. "God is good. I'm very blessed and very fortunate here to have the job."
Mehringer, who was brought onto the Oregon staff just weeks after head coach Dan Lanning was hired, has been around the Ducks program for over four seasons. It's the longest that he's stayed at one college during his entire coaching career that dates back to 2010.
"To the point Marshall [Malchow] made, it's the people you get to work with," he said. "I think that makes a huge difference. There's a lot of jobs and things we can do in life, but people matter more than anything else."
The Oregon staff is highly-regarded across the nation as evidenced by each of the last three coordinators — defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi was hired by Cal — earning head-coaching positions.
Expectations are high, but Mehringer has the job and chance that coaches dream about as Oregon's offensive coordinator — something he's not taking for granted and appreciating even more because of the people in the program that he gets to work with every single day.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Drew Mehringer opens up about promotion to OC at Oregon
