College Football Morning: Oregon’s Rising, But How High?

Our offseason look at the Ducks.

In a world where the twelve-team playoff comes a year later, Oregon might win this season’s national championship. Oregon maybe goes 15–0. The four-team field would have been different from this year’s top four—the four-team committee cared more about losses in conference championships—but it would have included Oregon, Georgia, Texas, and either Penn State or Notre Dame. Oregon would have stood a better chance against those teams than it stood against Ohio State. Even if the playoff had only expanded to six teams, Oregon would have stood a spectacular chance.

This is a good gut check. Oregon could have gone 15–0. Only through dramatic playoff expansion was Oregon stopped. Or so we think. The point of the gut check is that little things make a big impact on what we come to view as normal.

On the other side: Oregon could well have finished 13–2. If Ohio State beats Michigan, Ohio State probably beats Oregon in the Big Ten Championship, not the Rose Bowl, then probably beats Oregon again in the Cotton Bowl a few weeks later. Only through Ryan Day’s perplexing Michigan mentality did the Ducks enter the playoff unscathed, the national championship favorite until the Buckeyes incinerated Tennessee.

Or so we think.

The point of the gut check is that we really don’t know.

I’m struggling to remember where, but we wrote recently how we think the “don’t overweight a single game” wisdom has swung so far as to be misleading. Single games are useful data points. They tell us a lot about football teams. There’s nuance involved—some ways of winning are more replicable than others; recency matters a variable and indeterminate amount; more data is better than less—but we learned a lot about Notre Dame and Georgia when the pair played one another, just as we learned about Arizona State and Texas when that pair played.

Still, it’s good to remember how close we came to an offseason spent asking how Oregon did it and what the rest of the country could learn from Dan Lanning’s Ducks. Oregon almost went 15–0.

What I really think happened with Oregon was this: They were among the best teams consistently, but their best games weren’t as good as Alabama’s, Georgia’s, or Ohio State’s. They were adept at winning, but not at blowing teams out. They struggled against Idaho. They struggled against Boise State. They won by three scores against UCLA, Michigan State, Michigan, and Maryland, but only three scores. Indiana exhibited more demonstrative dominance. Oregon routinely won comfortably, and everyone else lost, so we didn’t really look for weak points until it came time to preview Oregon vs. Ohio State Round 2. Even then, we kind of threw our hands up, saying, “Bet it looks a lot like last time.”

Once Oregon beat Ohio State, I wonder if we stopped paying attention. We’d been so hard on them for their struggles against Idaho, but 6–0 with a win over Ohio State, a team we thought could be the best in the country, was enough for us to holster our guns. Every week from that game onward, we focused on a different huge showdown: Texas was playing Georgia. LSU was playing Texas A&M. Ohio State was playing Penn State. Oregon? Oh yeah, Oregon. Looked like they won again. And by enough points to spare them the microscope.

So, looking back on it now, and acknowledging how close we were to saying, “Well, Dan Lanning’s the best coach in the country. Simple as that,” let us offer this, a belated examination of the Big Ten champions:

Oregon had significant defensive shortcomings, and while its offense was excellent, it was not better enough than everybody else’s to win a national title via shootout. Against the rush, Oregon finished in the middle of the country in yards per play. Against the pass, they were better, but they didn’t exactly face a murderer’s row of quarterbacks. Ohio State carved them up through the air in part because Oregon prepared for a game like the one the Buckeyes played against Michigan, the one where they handed the ball off all afternoon and tried to save themselves from their own Will Howard. By the time Oregon adjusted, the hole was fourteen points large. Two drives later, TreVeyon Henderson made them pay on the ground, too, and the credits started to roll.

We’ll still happily call Oregon the third-best team in the country this season, and as we look ahead, we remain as bullish as anyone on this program’s long-term trajectory. But they are not coming off a 15–0 season. They’re coming off 13–1. They are not the reigning national champions. They weren’t the best team in the Big Ten.

With that. Four questions for the 2025 Oregon Ducks, and one big answer at the end:

1. How close is the talent to Ohio State’s?

At the moment, there are four uber-talented college football teams. Their names are Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and Texas. They have the most five-stars. They have the most athletic depth. They have the highest ceilings, year in and year out. Others could get to their territory—LSU, USC, Texas A&M, and even Notre Dame could probably figure it out—but at the moment, those are the four.

The fifth most-talented program is Oregon. It’s the next one on the list.

Oregon’s NIL effort has been the subject of much wonderment on the part of other college football coaches. Sometimes, this takes the shape of whining, but more often, they’re just amazed. Through the power of Phil Knight, Oregon responded quickly, forcefully, and effectively to the legalization of NIL, immediately turning themselves into a recruiting power player despite their remote location, uninspiring endowment, and lack of established greatness. Oregon didn’t have more money than everybody else. Oregon built a better business. Oregon’s early NIL efforts were a testament to the importance that a football program and its boosters work in lockstep with one another. There was and remains no wasted motion. Of course, that’s easier in Eugene, where one voice in the room overshadows everybody else’s and that voice is savvy and smart. But LSU and Texas A&M and USC and probably Notre Dame could have done this if they had alignment like that seen under Knight and the Ducks.

The encouraging thing for Oregon is that the work is paying off. They had half as many former five-stars as the big four talent collections this fall, but they have two more on their way this year, plus two already committed for 2026. You only need to land three of those per class to make yourself one of the big boys. Composite five-stars are a rare breed.

The discouraging things for Oregon are that 1) they’re still getting out-recruited and 2) their early NIL efficiency advantage should theoretically fade.

In 247’s Talent Composite, Oregon trailed Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio State this year. In 247’s Composite rankings of the 2025 high school class, Oregon trails Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio State. The four programs they’re trying to catch in talent all beat them at acquiring it this cycle.

As for others catching up: Oregon’s ability to stand up a professional NIL operation was invaluable these last few years. Now that the shock has faded, though, other schools should be able to do the same thing. Phil Knight has a lot of money, but he doesn’t have enough to out-payroll schools like Texas A&M. Get some cohesion in College Station or even a place like Lincoln or Norman, and Oregon returns to being just one of the guys.

2. Can the defense build itself to beat Ohio State?

Ohio State is significant to Oregon because they’re the standing power in the Big Ten. No, they haven’t won it the last four years. But they were closer to the 2022 season’s national title than Michigan, they were just as close as Michigan in 2021, and they were definitely the better team this year, in 2024. Only in 2023 did Michigan put together a team more capable of winning the national championship than Ohio State. The problem for Ohio State was that Ohio State didn’t build a team capable of beating Michigan.

The best explanation of Michigan vs. Ohio State over the 2020’s so far is that Ohio State built a team fast enough to compete with the SEC, so Michigan played to its strengths and built a team strong enough to push Ohio State around inside. Ohio State responded by building a team both strong and fast, but while doing that, their quarterback development program lapsed and Ryan Day started having nightmares of Mason Graham.

What’s so interesting about that interplay—the reason that explanation is so useful—is that it implies matchups matter. It’s not enough to be better than your opponent. You can build a team around your biggest rival’s strength or weakness and use that to torment them, even if you yourself never enjoy their kind of ceiling.

With Ohio State the team Oregon is chasing, Ohio State is the team Oregon must design itself to beat. Oregon can’t build a better football team than Ohio State’s. Not if Ryan Day does his job adequately. Oregon can, however, build a football team equipped to neutralize Ohio State’s advantages and exploit Ohio State’s weaknesses.

The fact of the matter is that in 2025, we don’t know what those weaknesses will be. Ohio State is looking pretty damn good for 2025. So, Dan Lanning’s task these next eight or nine or eleven months is not going to be exploiting Ohio State’s offensive soft spots. It’s going to be figuring out how to cover Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate in one single game of football.

Lanning is trying. Lanning and his defensive coordinators are trying. In the transfer portal, they stole Dillon Thieneman away from Purdue. Thieneman, a safety and an Indiana native, was a third-team All-American as a freshman two years ago. Additionally, Oregon plucked one of the better Big Ten cornerbacks away from Northwestern, landing Theran Johnson to provide a veteran presence. In the high school ranks, Oregon went east and south, landing two of the top five 2025 cornerback recruits in Na’eem Offord (from Birmingham, Alabama) and Brandon Finney (from Owings Mills, Maryland). It’s hard for freshmen like Offord and Finney to pay off right away, but as Leonard Moore’s showing at Notre Dame, it can happen. The bottom line? Oregon’s at least working on finding and developing an answer for Smith.

3. Is Dante Moore ready for the job?

On the offensive side, Oregon pivots from two years of responsible, effective quarterbacking into the high-upside, high-unknown world of Dante Moore. Moore was not particularly good as a true freshman at UCLA, but he played for a bad UCLA team, he got a lot of experience, and he then spent a year under Dillon Gabriel. That could work.

The word out of Eugene is that the coaching staff’s so high on Moore that they didn’t even want someone out of the portal. I’m personally skeptical of this—it’s easy to lay off the portal when the options are limited—but we’ll never know if they would have chased Quinn Ewers or not had the opportunity materialized. However they do feel about Moore, 2025 will tell us how they should feel. Oregon doesn’t play any real cupcakes. Montana State will be rebuilding, but the Bobcats finished the year rated comparably to Syracuse. Oregon also might not face any truly ferocious tests. The Week 4 trip to Penn State will be difficult. The Indiana contest in Eugene will be tough. But in at least two of those plus the Minnesota game, Oregon will be facing a first-year defensive coordinator. The surest defense on this schedule might be Iowa, and Oregon’s offense shouldn’t have to do too much to make that work.

If this is sounding familiar to Oregon’s 2024 campaign: Yes. We might not know what we have with these guys until December. Every single team on their schedule, including Montana State and Oklahoma State and Rutgers, could conceivably give this offense hell. But it’s also possible Oregon gets to the Big Ten Championship at 12–0 having not played any top-ten teams. The Big Ten was a stratified place this year. Moore might get a lot of time to mature.

4. How quickly can the offensive line gel?

It shouldn’t be forgotten how after that Idaho game, alarm bells rang loudly regarding Oregon’s offensive line. The Vandals sacked Gabriel three times and bought a timeshare in the Oregon backfield. Over the rest of the season, though, the Ducks front pulled together and became a productive unit.

This year’s will have to do the same thing.

Oregon will return only two starters from the offensive line. Depending what happens with Matthew Bedford’s eligibility campaign (he’s looking for a seventh year, trying to get a second medical hardship waiver), it currently appears either two or three of the other first-stringers will step into their jobs straight out of the transfer portal. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Offensive lines probably benefit from familiarity within the ranks, but the offseason offers a long opportunity to develop that. Then again, it could be a bad thing. There’s a possibility that the line has issues early, and while Montana State is no peak NDSU, the nightmare scenario for Oregon is plausible: If the rebuilt defense is a lot worse than this year’s, which struggled, and if the rebuilt offensive line has issues out of the gate, like this year’s did, and if Dante Moore is not as prepared as the talking points suggest? The nightmare scenario is plausible.

The Answer

Oregon’s on the rise. There’s no doubt about that. Dan Lanning knows what he’s doing, and the talent level continues to improve. Like Texas and Georgia, Oregon could absolutely put together a national championship contender from the bodies they’ll have. Is their ceiling as high as that of those two programs? No. But they enjoy a more manageable path.

Like Texas and Georgia, though, Oregon’s heading into a rebuilding year. The Ducks, the Dawgs, and the Longhorns are all better built for 2026 than 2025.

A lot, then, will come down to how well Oregon navigates upset threats and how many good teams the Big Ten puts together. Montana State’s an upset threat. Northwestern’s an upset threat. Oregon State and Oklahoma State could be upset threats. At the other end of things, Penn State and Indiana have grand aspirations, and USC should have a great offense, and Iowa’s defense should be fierce. Minnesota and Washington and Wisconsin could all be ranked when the Ducks play them. Even Rutgers could conceivably be a top-25 team.

Among all three other teams we’ve covered so far, we’re not particularly worried about the bottom falling out. Penn State, Texas, and Georgia each have a pretty high floor. With Oregon, the bottom could fall out. They’re a more believable title threat than Penn State, but they, like the rest of these guys, are on the fringe.

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This was the fourth of our little offseason look-ins at noteworthy programs. If you missed the first three, here they are:

• Texas (1/13)

• Penn State (1/14)

• Georgia (1/15)

We’ll focus on the national championship tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday, but we’ll resume these offseason looks later next week with Ohio State and Notre Dame. After that, it’s off to Arizona State, Boise State, Indiana, and the rest until we run out of interesting programs or basketball cuts us off.

On the news side:

Jacolby Criswell entered the transfer portal last night. Criswell started most games for UNC this fall after Max Johnson broke his leg. Johnson’s status is uncertain for 2025, which leaves UNC looking at potentially starting a freshman four-star, Bryce Baker. That doesn’t seem like a great setup for Bill Belichick’s first year, but maybe the ACC gives both BB’s a soft landing.

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This post was also published at www.thebarkingcrow.com, where you can always find all of Joe Stunardi, Stuart McGrath, and NIT Stu’s work.