Oregon center Alex Forsyth was the anchor of the offensive line in 2020, starting all seven games during the pandemic shortened season. The 6-foot-4, 300-pound West Linn (Ore.) native patiently waited his turn in a backup role behind five four-year starters before delivering a second-team all-Pac-12 performance during his junior season.
Forsyth signed with the Ducks as a member of the Class of 2017, the No. 2 overall prospect in the State of Oregon and a member of the prestigious Rivals250. He had a stellar career for West Linn high school being named a member of the 6A first team all-State team following both his junior and senior seasons.
Duck Sports Authority’s A.J. Jacobson caught up with offensive line leader prior to 2021 fall camp for this Q&A.
What are your expectations for the offensive line heading into the 2021 season?
We have really high standards here, especially on the offensive line, at the University of Oregon. I think Coach Cristobal and Coach Mirabal do a great job of pushing everybody to be their best. I think we have really high expectations.
Coming into last year, we all held ourselves to a high standard of who came before us: Shane Lemieux, Jake Hanson, Calvin Throckmorton, Brady Aiello, Dallas Warmack, all those guys. Tyrell Crosby. Penei Sewell. All the guys that came before us, they held themselves to a high standard so it would be disrespectful if we didn’t hold ourselves to that standard.
I think we need to keep elevating each other during fall camp and that starts with the older guys setting the example for the young guys. We have to bring them up because when we are gone, we want to leave the same legacy that the guys before us left.
Importance of offensive line chemistry
We only had seven games last year but that was better than a lot of other teams. I am really grateful we got seven games in. For us to start and all play together with guys rotating in, building that chemistry is huge especially on the O line. There is no other position like it where you need five guys literally working as one, with one mind. There is really no other position like it in all of sports so the chemistry part of it is honestly more important that how much talent you have.
The biggest thing is chemistry. You have to have full speed game reps in practice and walk through and they do a great job of it. I heard them say the fall camp schedule is a little different and so that means the walk throughs, and they always are with Cristobal, at game speed.
How big of a rotation on the OL in 2021?
I cannot really answer that but I know that if they are good enough to play, they are going to play. One of the rules Coach Mirabal has is that there can’t be a drop off. So if they take out one guy, they are not going to do that if there is a huge drop off because they need to keep the best five guys out there, keep the five guys fresh.
It’s really going to come down to that, how guys perform during camp, playing at a high level. So there is a lot that goes into it but I would say this is probably the most talent I have been around in this room of guys that can actually play. So it will be a fun, really competitive fall camp for sure.
Areas to improve this season?
We have to be overcommunicating. The biggest thing we need to do is overcommunicate on the offensive line. That is something that I watched the older guys do when I was younger. So I think overcommunication of what everybody is doing, what combos are happening.
When you know what other guys are doing which we all do, if you know 100% what they are doing then you can pass stuff off on the run, there is really nothing the defense can bring that will screw you up.
On communicating in full versus empty stadiums
We haven’t played too much to full stands lately. Hopefully it’s not too loud on offense when we’re at Autzen. Hopefully the fans keep it down when we are on offense.
But really it is no different than when nobody is there, we have to overcommunicate.
