Eric Dungey has adapted to 4 different offenses in 4 years
Look at Eric Dungey and the change is evident. He is significantly more muscular. He has substantial blonde facial hair on his chin. He isn’t as taciturn as he was in last year’s preseason.
Dungey has evolved from an eager, immature freshman thrown into the fire far sooner than intended to a filled-out sophomore who has a better grasp on how to handle it all. Changing is what Dungey has been doing for years. Change is virtually all he knows.
In the past four years — his junior and senior seasons at Lakeridge (Oregon) High School and first two at SU — Dungey has played in four different offenses and under four different head coaches. Stability in the systems or people that dictate how he plays is something he knows nothing about. Dino Babers’ offense will be the latest test for the signal-caller who made everyone hold their breath last season, for good and bad, and it’s another chance to embrace change.
“Challenging? To a point you just kinda really gotta put a lot of time into what you’re doing and learn what you gotta do,” Dungey said. “I never really had two years under an offense so I never knew how that’s going to be so I’m excited for the opportunity to do that.”
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Under the assumption both Dungey and Babers return in 2017, it will be Dungey’s first time under the same head coach for two consecutive full seasons since his first two years of high school. Longtime prep coach Tom Smythe stepped aside amid Lakeridge’s 2013 state playoff run, Dungey’s junior season, so that Chad Carlson (who essentially coached Lakeridge throughout the season, but wasn’t the official head coach) could finally have the title on paper.
There were also reports of a power struggle that led to the split, but Carlson said “don’t believe everything you read.” Then Lakeridge hired vice principal John Parke as interim head coach in 2014, but Carlson stayed on as offensive coordinator and essentially ran the team again. Through it all, Dungey learned to ignore, adapt and produce.
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“You look at all those things that happened in his life football-wise, all the different changes, all the things that we went through when I was there,” Carlson said. “It had him learning to do the best with what he had control of. He couldn’t do everything for our whole team and that frustrated him his junior year. And then when he figured out he could only do the best for what he could do, that’s when you just saw him shine like no other.”
At Lakeridge, Carlson implemented multiple offenses with numerous sets and different variations of each based on the opponent. There was no set gameplan on offense, instead a fluid blueprint that was constantly changing. It taught Dungey to read defenses before the snap, after the snap and ultimately make split-second decisions on the run like he did in his freshman season at Syracuse.
In 2013, Dungey was spoon-fed the offense in a way, Carlson said, but the biggest change from his junior to senior year was his ability to do it all for himself. No coach was needed anymore to tell him what to do. Dungey could input hot reads on his own, call audibles effectively at the line of scrimmage and recognize what kind of protection he needed.
“He can handle a lot because I really tested him those two years with a lot of language and a lot of different sets and formations and reads to make,” Carlson said. “Although this is gonna be he fifth or sixth offense he’s learned, he probably learned 10 or 12 in those two years we were there.”
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Last year under Scott Shafer, Dungey was far more run-based than what’s expected this year. Dungey has vowed to remain in the pocket more, which will presumably fit into Babers’ Baylor style offense that has produced some of the best passing quarterbacks college football has seen in recent years in New England Patriots starter Jimmy Garoppolo and Matt Johnson, who finished second in passing yards last season.
But this is Eric Dungey, the 20 year old just beginning to scratch the surface of his potential. He’s already made a name for himself with highlight-reel plays courtesy of his audacious running style, but now he has to change. Again. And if the past is any indication of what’s to come, he shouldn’t have any problem doing so.
“Dungey has the chance to be one of the best quarterbacks in college,” wide receiver Steve Ishmael said. “I truly believe that, man.”
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