Impact analysis: Matthew Hegarty transfer

Every year college football teams face attrition. It results from graduation, early entry into the NFL draft, lack of playing time transfers, academic issues, or any of the myriad of reasons normal college students don't finish. Some departures hurt worse than others.

Last year the Oregon Ducks lost two key members of their 2015 Championship Game team: Heisman trophy winning quarterback Marcus Mariota and Chicago Bear-bound center Hroniss Grasu. While this will certainly sting, the pain for Mark Helfrich and his staff has been suddenly lessened in the off-season. Eastern Washington transfer quarterback Vernon Adams will make a run this fall to replace Mariota, and as confirmed by Oregon on Tuesday, Notre Dame interior offensive lineman transfer Matthew Hegarty will look to fill the cleats of Grasu.

Clearly for Oregon, the NCAA graduate transfer rule has been a sudden boon. In what amounts to a mini-quasi free agency, premium programs with undeniable appeal such as the Ducks can fill temporary depth chart gaps for one year, with ready-made BCS-level players.

Matthew Hegarty certainly fits that description. Out of Aztec, New Mexico ranked as the No. 1 prospect in the state and No. 70 overall recruit in the nation, the then 6-foot-5, 265-pound offensive tackle committed to Notre Dame ten months before 2011 letter-of-intent day and never looked at other teams afterward. Before earning his degree and graduating this year, Hegarty played in 34 games for the Irish and as a senior in 2014, logged 11 starts at center and guard.

During the 2015 Oregon spring game the center position was noticeable for the wrong reason, with several errant snaps causing serious offensive problems. Afterward Coach Greatwood told Duck Sports Authority it would likely be center by committee heading into fall camp.

"Obviously until Doug Brenner gets healthy and gets himself back in the mix there won't be any hard and fast decisions at the center position," said Greatwood. "I was pleased with Jake Pisarcik for the most part. Again, he's got to clean up his snaps. We can't have those kind of issues. I like Cameron Hunt when I saw Cameron in there too. So that give us another option to go to if something happens and those other kids aren't working out."

With the addition of Hegarty to the unit the OL math changes for Oregon. Instead of looking at untested centers Brenner, Pisarcik and Hunt this fall, Greatwood can focus on Hegarty, Brenner and Pisarcik, allowing Hunt to resume his natural role at OG. Since all three center candidates also play guard, all interior positions are strengthened up front by a player certain to make the two-deep added to the mix. Having the depth to rotate big guys is crucial to keeping the troops fresh, particularly given Oregon's warp-speed offensive pace.

With the center position wide open this spring, Greatwood took a look at five different players trying to find the right answer. That will be a smaller number in the fall and Matthew Hegarty will be one of them.

"We'll probably work three pretty hard, right in there," said Greatwood. "It will get condensed pretty quickly. For the first week or so we could work more than three guys."

Graduate transfers Hegarty and Adams will be joined for the Ducks' fall camp by 16 freshmen members of the Class of 2015. In addition to those 16, six members of that class graduated high school early and enrolled for winter term, which in turn enabled them to participate in spring camp last month.

What is not clear at this point is if Oregon can play to the level that landed them in the National Championship game last year. But with the addition of two senior transfers at crucial positions of need, they have a fighting chance of making another run.