McLaughlin: Why Oregon Should Not Consider Adding Syracuse Transfer WR Trebor Pena
By SPENCER McLAUGHLIN
Contributor, 750 The Game
Syracuse WR Trebor Pena is in the transfer portal. Oregon WR coach Ross Douglas coached him last year with the Orange en route to a career best season, totaling over 900 yards receiving. I can’t help but ponder whether Pena has called his old position coach to see if there’s a spot for him with the Ducks.
There shouldn’t be.
Pena left Syracuse after reportedly asking for around $2 million to play wideout for the Orange. That report came, of course, from Head Coach Fran Brown. He openly and publicly stated that Syracuse’s would-be leading returning receiver was not worth that much money. I think he’s right.
Is there really a wide receiver in college football comparable to Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith? No, there isn’t. He would be a first round NFL Draft pick this year, after playing his true freshman season in college. In Brown’s view, that’s the caliber of wideout that warrants such dollar figures–not Pena.
Pena’s first call has to be to Oregon, right? It’s been well documented that Oregon is a top tier school when it comes to NIL funds. With familiarity on staff in Ross Douglas, Pena would be upgrading in the brand of his school and conference affiliation if he came to Oregon. The interest here, though, would be one-sided if present at all.
Oregon’s wide receiver room doesn’t have a ton of experienced talent at the power 4 level. Pena’s 900-yard season last year would make him the most proven commodity in Oregon’s wide receiver room. Evan Stewart has yet to eclipse 700 yards going into his 4th season of the sport. Florida State transfer Malik Benson hasn’t hit the 400 yard threshold in 2 seasons with the Seminoles and Alabama.
So why wouldn’t a cross-country transfer make sense? The answer lies in Oregon’s linebacker coach and a recent quote he gave on adding transfers.
“If I’m having to go to the portal, what’s that say about me as a coach when it comes to development?”
He gave that answer in response to whether Oregon would add a transfer at linebacker in the Spring portal window, which is clearly the position group in which a transfer would make the most sense. I thought of this quote when pondering the Pena possibility because although Ross Douglas is new to Oregon, Junior Adams left him a well-stocked cupboard.
Oregon’s run of recruiting at wide receiver in the past several seasons is the best in program history. The biggest young name is 2025’s #1 WR Dakorien Moore, who will have fans holding their breaths this Saturday in their first chance to see him at Autzen Stadium in the Spring Game. There’s plenty of other young talent as well, like 4-star WR Jeremiah McClellan and former 5-star WR Jurrion Dickey. Will their time with Oregon just never arrive? I hope not.
Not every high school recruit is going to work out. The transfer portal is a great tool for adding high quality impact guys (Derrick Harmon in 2024, for instance) or filling roster slots where recruits haven’t panned out. Even in today’s world of the transfer portal, the lifeblood of every program is still high school recruiting.
I think about the last 2 national champions, Ohio State and Michigan. Both teams had transfers, like the Buckeyes’ notable additions of players like safety Caleb Downs and quarterback Will Howard. Those two propelled the Buckeyes to their first national title since 2014. The bulk of Ohio State’s roster, however, was rooted in home-grown high school recruits who developed at Ohio State for several years.
If we were talking about Oregon’s 2018 wide receiver room returning a lot of players from the year before, this is a different conversation. But in 2025 when the Ducks have stacked a huge supply of blue chip prospects, at some point Ross Douglas has to show he can get those guys into positions to succeed.
See you after the Spring Game on Saturday–want to take a stab at formulating a WR 2-deep?
Be my guest.
Spencer McLaughlin is an Oregon Ducks football contributor to 750 The Game. He also hosts the “Locked On Oregon Ducks” and “Locked On College Football” podcasts and has work featured throughout the season here.