Oregon Football Preview 2025: Is This the Year the Ducks Win Something Really Big?
X CFN, Fiu | CFN Facebook | Bluesky Fiu, CFN Oregon Offense BreakdownOregon Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season It almost pulled it off in 2010 under Chip Kelly, losing a tough national title battle with Cam Newton's Auburn, but it never had a chance in the first CFP national title against Ohio State to end the 2014 season - and I have the receipts on that one, telling over 80,000 people in the room that there was "no reason to watch the game."And yeah, the Big Ten Champion Ducks caught an awful break being the No. 1 overall seed last year and drawing Ohio State in the Rose Bowl - instead of the free space scrimmages against SMU and Boise State that Penn State enjoyed - but that goes to the point. Oregon was never winning that game against that Buckeye team, either.
Ohio State had a whole other level of talent, infrastructure, history, and institutionalized unrealistic demands and expectations. So did 2023 Michigan. So did Georgia in 2021 and 2022. So did 2020 Alabama. So did 1999 LSU ... Oregon has only been doing this for a few decades. But it's very, very close to busting through that blue-blood door.
Dan Lanning is young. It's just his fourth year as a head coach, he's 35-6, and five of those six defeats came to teams that played in or won the national championship.(BTW, after bringing up my Ohio State prediction for the CFP pregame and halftime shows in AT&T Stadium, balloon will be popped by certain "friends" reading this, with a polite reminder that I spent six months calling Oregon over Georgia to start the 2022 season - it was 49-3 Dawgs, and it wasn't even that close - in 3 ... 2 ... )
Do Lanning's Ducks have the talent this season to win the national title? Absolutely, only this time around it's the defense that will be the star.Do they have the depth? Yeah, it's young in certain spots, but Oregon has plenty of options to work with. Do they have the experience? Ehhhhhhh, but the coaching staff does, and that should be enough to get the team back in the tournament. And will they get all of the right breaks?There's no Ohio State or Michigan this year, and Oregon will almost certainly be favored in every game but the trip to Penn State.
Take out 2020 - Oregon won the Pac-12 title in the abbreviated season, though - and the Ducks have averaged over 11 wins a season since 2019, and it's about to come up with double-digit wins yet again.All you can reasonably ask for now in the College Football Playoff era is to get your team in a position to make a run year after year after year, and eventually, it'll be your time.For most of the last 25 years, that's what Oregon has done. Its time is coming. Oregon Offense BreakdownOregon Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season
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