EUGENE, Ore. — Bo Nix didn’t want to leave Oregon with any regrets. He also is having too much fun playing college football.
Nix is back for a second season with the Ducks and a fifth in college football after a resurgent performance in 2022. He set career highs by wide margins in several categories, including passing yards (3,593), passing touchdowns (29), rushing touchdowns (14), rushing yards (510) and completion percentage (71.9). Oregon went 10-3 under Nix but didn’t qualify for the Pac-12 title game, and Nix finished outside the top 10 for Heisman Trophy voting.
“The statement, ‘Be where your feet are,’ guys sometimes want more than they have and they don’t appreciate what they do have at the time,” Nix told ESPN. “At some point, I was kind of eager to go to the NFL, and then I figured out, you know, college football is fun. When you’re on a good team, when you’re around good coaches, when you’re around great teammates, a great university, you don’t really want to give that up because you don’t know if you’re going to have it this good anymore, like ever.”
Nix, the son of star Auburn quarterback Patrick Nix, played his first three college seasons at Auburn, recording mixed results under different coaches and offensive coordinators. He transferred to Oregon after the 2021 season and set the team’s single-season completion percentage mark, while becoming the only quarterback in team history to rush for three touchdowns in three games.
After leading Auburn teams that went 21-16 from 2019 to 2021, Nix helped Oregon to its second AP top-15 finish since 2014. But the Ducks fell short of reaching the Pac-12 championship following late-season losses to rivals Washington and Oregon State.
“Winning is a lot of fun, and that’s what keeps you around,” Nix said. “My goal this year is to win a championship in some form or fashion. That will lead to other things. A team’s success is oftentimes more important for an individual’s success than they even realize.”
When Nix started college, he never envisioned ending his career as a married man suiting up for Oregon (he married Izzy Smoke, an Auburn cheerleader, in July 2022). In spring practice, Ducks coach Dan Lanning has seen Nix more involved with mentoring teammates, even those from other position groups.
Nix also is working with new Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein, his fourth different play-caller in his college career.
“It’s like I’m coaching an NFL guy, a veteran who already knows a ton about the game and has seen so many different offenses, but still asks great questions, doesn’t act like he knows everything,” Stein told ESPN. “He wants to be coached really hard. That’s what’s been cool for me. He’s the first guy who I’ve coached who wants information all the time.”
Stein calls Nix, “Coach Bo,” and said he occasionally has to be reined in because of his perfectionist and competitive nature. But the two are building trust, and Nix wants “as much” freedom as Stein will give him to direct the offense at the line of scrimmage.
“He sees the game like an offensive coordinator,” Lanning said. “The growth for him is just knowing that he’s sitting in that seat now, where he doesn’t have to wait for somebody to say, ‘Hey, Bo, you can coach them. You can lead them.'”
Nix wants to lead Oregon to its first Pac-12 championship since 2020, and possibly its first College Football Playoff appearance since 2014, when the Ducks reached the national title game behind Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Marcus Mariota. But his return isn’t motivated by outcome.
“You come back to train again and to develop again,” he said. “I knew that my time at Oregon was going to give me the best chance to be out there playing, have a good time, compete at the highest level, have a great team behind me and do the best we can to win as many games as possible. If we come up short, then at least I knew I did the best I could.”