EUGENE, Ore. — While the highlights of the Green Team's 28-17 win in Oregon's Spring Game may have come on the offensive side of the ball as Dillon Gabriel tossed a pair of touchdown passes to Justius Lowe and Jay Harris, one standout performance that helped lead to their victory came from sophomore edge rusher, Teitum Tuioti.
Tuioti, the son of the Ducks' defensive line coach Tony Tuioti, quickly found his way into Oregon's defensive line rotation last season as a true freshman. With 256 snaps, he played the fourth-most snaps among edge rushers.
A former four-star recruit and top player in the state of Oregon coming out of Sheldon High School in 2023, Tuioti finished last season recording two sacks and four tackles for loss.
He matched those numbers on Saturday, leading both the Green and White Teams with 2.5 sacks for a net loss of 16 yards in addition to four solo tackles and an assist.
"Exactly what he did today on the field is what he does in practice every day," head coach Dan Lanning said of Tuioti. "This guy's gotten bigger, faster, and stronger. He's very intelligent, you can start to hear his voice out there on the field, so really proud of Teitum and his growth."
Tuioti got to work early, recording his first tackle on just his third play as he helped limit Jordan James to just two yards on his carry.
He kept that momentum going in the first half, helping My'Keil Gardner "bring down" Dante Moore for an eight-yard loss on the Green Team's first sack of the day.
With 13 seconds left in the first half and Moore trying to lead the White Team down the field for a score before the break, Tuioti made sure that wouldn't happen. Lined up across from starting left tackle, Josh Conerly Jr., Tuioti burst inside before spinning into a bull rush, pushing Conerly back into Moore to record the sack and end the half.
"One of my favorite moves is just speed to power," Tuioti said after a recent spring practice. "Just finding a nice balance between my power game and then just winning off the edge with straight speed."
Tuioti continued to make an impact in the second half, bringing down the speedy Jurrion Dickey in space on a screen pass before making arguably his best play of the day two snaps later. Isolated with Terrance Ferguson one-on-one to the short side of the field, Tuioti matched step-for-step with the tight end as he ran down the sideline before breaking up Austin Novosad's pass that would've put the White Team inside the 5-yard line.
He picked up one more sack in the fourth quarter, perfectly executing a stunt as Emar'rion Winston opened up the inside lane for him to come straight through to Moore on third down, forcing the White Team to send their punting unit back out.
Tuioti talked earlier this spring about how putting on weight was a big point of emphasis for him in the off-season, and clearly, that work has already paid off.
"I think I played the season around 240, 245," Tuioti said after one of Oregon's recent spring practices. "So I've just been trying to get up to 255 and just putting on more muscle... Being able to set the edge and help in any way I can in the early downs."
As he heads into his sophomore season, Tuioti has more on his shoulders than ever before, but with a year of experience now under his belt, he will be one of the Ducks' most important defensive pieces coming off the edge.
"I feel more comfortable right now playing," Tuioti said. "I've been in the system, I know how everything's supposed to operate. Right now, I'm just trying to find ways to help the front. Obviously, the front is young and it's also hard to just get this defense down, so something I'm trying to do right now is just find ways to communicate, get everyone on the same page, cause if we all wrong, we all right."
Things definitely went alright for Tuioti on Saturday.