There are a number of players on the Oregon Ducks roster that have been put in a semi-awkward position — not by anyone’s doing, but rather by a confluence of circumstances.
The Ducks are a young team, with loads of underclassmen looking to step into new roles. As is customary, the team went into the transfer portal and worked hard to bring in veteran players looking for a place to put a cap on their careers and hopefully improve their draft stock before heading to the NFL.
This has led to a lot of veteran players being put into leadership roles, despite being the “new guys” on the team.
Sam ‘Taki’ Taimani is one of those players.
After playing for four seasons at the University of Washington — where he racked up 68 total tackles and 3.5 TFL as a Husky — Taimani transferred to Oregon. Whilst working his own way into the locker room and establishing himself as a productive player, Taimani has been able to grow in a leadership role over the past several months.
“For me, it was just kind of understanding the culture here,” Taimani said on Tuesday after practice. “That was the biggest thing for me is just understanding how they run things, and like kind of buying into that and then kind of leading.”
Despite the relatively young age on Oregon’s defensive line, it’s not like Taki was coming into a defensive room that is lacking experience or production. Becoming a leader in that room is like walking a fine line, always wary of overstepping.
“You can’t really lead unless you kind of give first so I kind of just like, gave things quietly without, you know, telling people,” Taimani said. “And then people noticed that and then, you know, people would come to me for advice and I just started being more vocal and kind of just helped them to bring me into that leadership role. But kind of still sitting back, letting them know I don’t want to overstep any of these vets. You know, they did their time here. So I just got here and I…
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