Oregon quarterback Bo Nix looks to pass against Colorado during the first half of an NCAA football … [+]
During the middle of last month, a massive billboard appeared on the side of the building at 315 Park Ave. South in Manhattan, one block from Madison Square Park in the borough’s busy Flatiron District.
Most people walking by likely had no idea what they were looking at. It was a high-profile marketing campaign for University of Oregon quarterback Bo Nix, who plays his home games more than 2,900 miles from New York.
The mural shows Nix in his No. 10 uniform with his arms raised and “Bodacious” above him. For older college football fans, it brought back memories of 2001 when Oregon boosters paid $250,000 for a billboard in New York touting quarterback Joey Harrington as “Joey Heisman.”
Harrington ended up finishing fourth in that year’s Heisman voting, but the billboard showed that Oregon was serious about promoting their stars and team, just like it has done in recent years with its flashy green and yellow uniforms.
So far this year, the Ducks are showing they’re more than just a hype-filled program. They are 4-0 and ranked ninth in the Associated Press poll following last Saturday’s 42-6 victory over Colorado, a previously undefeated team that had been the talk of college football thanks to flamboyant coach Deion Sanders.
Despite the lopsided score, the Oregon-Colorado game drew more than 10 million viewers on ABC, making it the largest Nielsen-measured audience this season, according to the Sports Media Watch website. It was also a memorable afternoon for Nix, a fifth-year senior who went 28-of-33 for 276 yards, three touchdowns and one interception and ran for another touchdown. The performance put Nix in the conversation as a Heisman contender.
Nix ranks second in Division 1 with a 79.4% completion percentage and 12th with a 180.5 passing efficiency rating. He has thrown for 1,169 yards with 11 touchdowns and one interceptions.
Coming out of high school, Nix was a highly touted recruit. He then won the starting job as a freshman at Auburn in 2019 and led the Tigers to a 27-21 victory over Oregon in his college debut.
Nix was named the Southeastern Conference’s top freshman and helped Auburn upset Alabama, but he struggled the next two years, leading to his transfer to Oregon before last season.
Todd McShay, a former ESPN NFL draft analyst, said on the Ryen Russillo podcast on Monday that he evaluated Nix after his last year at Auburn in 2021 because he thought Nix may declare for the draft. McShay wasn’t impressed with what he saw on tape.
“I thought to myself, I don’t even see draftable here,” McShay said. “The mistakes he made, everything was on the run, everything was a scramble and a mess. The game was too fast for him. The system didn’t fit what he was trying to do and his strengths. And he seemingly never got coached up in the areas that he needed to be coached up. I don’t think he understood reading defenses and going through progressions and trusted what he was seeing.”
At Oregon last year, Nix showed improvement, completing a career-best 71.9% of his passes for 3,594 yards, 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions and running for 510 yards and 14 touchdowns. Oregon finished 10-3 under first-year coach Dan Lanning, who was previously Georgia’s defensive coordinator.
“(Nix) went through all those lumps and everyone wrote him off,” McShay said on the podcast. “Every scout I talked to was like, Oh, I just can’t trust him. He’s not a pro quarterback.”
McShay pointed out that Nix has thrived again this year under a new offensive coordinator, Will Stein, after Kenny Dillingham accepted the job as Arizona State’s head coach. McShay said he’s been impressed with how Nix has completed at least 10 passes to seven different players this year.
“That shows me a quarterback that isn’t trying to force things like he was at Auburn, that is seeing the whole field, is understanding the offense, knows where the ball goes based on what the defense is showing him,” McShay said. “And that’s not anything we saw from Bo Nix’s game.”
Nix, 23, is now considered a legitimate NFL prospect, according to McShay, who said he has him tied with Duke’s Riley Leonard and Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. as the fifth-best quarterbacks in a loaded 2024 draft class. McShay’s top four are USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Texas’s Quinn Ewers.
Nix has a chance to help his draft positioning as Oregon plays at No. 7 Washington and Penix Jr. on Oct. 14 and against No. 8 USC and Williams on Nov. 11. The Ducks also have three other games remaining against ranked opponents: No. 10 Utah on Oct. 28, No. 16 Washington State on Oct. 21 and No. 19 Oregon State in the regular season finale on Nov. 24.
Depending on how Nix performs the rest of the year, McShay said he could be the third quarterback taken in the draft behind Williams and Maye, who are projected to get selected within the first three to five picks.
“To see what (Nix has) done in a year and four games is remarkable,” McShay said. “Bo Nix is squarely in that mix right now (with the best NFL draft quarterback prospects), which says so much about, A. the coaching but B. the player, the adjustment he’s made and how hard he’s worked to get where he is.”
