Oregon football last-minute predictions for 2024 season
The Oregon football program finds itself in a unique situation heading into the 2024-2025 season. Gone is their longstanding affiliation with the Pac-12 Conference and in is their new affiliation with the Big Ten Conference, a league that includes former Pac-12 foes Washington football, USC football and UCLA football.
The Ducks suddenly find themselves as the co-favorites of the league along with Coach Ryan Day’s Ohio State football team, a fact that is not lost on Coach Dan Lanning in Eugene, Oregon with preparations for the season underway.
The Ducks will enter the season borrowing heavily from the NBA champion Boston Celtics’ 2023-2024 mantra. Meanwhile, an Oregon football quarterback was granted a traveling waiver during a time when he is facing an ongoing felony trial.
The Ducks face the Idaho Vandals in Week One, a team College Football 25 video game players are used to playing against but most college football fans have no clue about.
Oregon football’s season opener will lead into the meat of a schedule that could be tougher than most people realize, and will challenge the Ducks in every conceivable way on their sojourn away from the Pacific Coast.
Here are three fearless, last-minute predictions on the Oregon football team’s upcoming season:
1. Oregon football will face some growing pains-
© Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK
Oregon has a talented roster, but a lot of the Ducks’ top players including new star QB Dillon Gabriel, an Oklahoma transfer, have not played together. The Ducks’ projected starting depth chart includes eight players who are newcomers, transfers or freshmen, out of 22 starting spots on offense and defense.
That’s a lot. Gabriel has the talent and leadership skills to lead an offense full of relatively new players to big things in year one. It’s going to take some time for the Heisman Trophy candidate (some might say Heisman Trophy favorite) to figure out how best to lead this offense and to make the pieces fit together the way they are capable of fitting together.
Working in Gabriel’s favor is an offensive line full of juniors and seniors who could make the transition more smooth than most people realize.
2. Oregon will lose one game no one expects-
Oregon football’s schedule appears to set up in such a manner allowing for them to win the Big Ten with relative ease, or to at least stay near the top of the conference all season.
The Ducks get Ohio State football at home and travel to Michigan to play the defending national champions in a mid-season game on the road. Both games will be hard, but Oregon is the preseason favorite in both of them because of the home crowd advantage at Autzen Stadium vs. the Buckeyes and Michigan’s relative inexperience at quarterback compared to Gabriel’s position as a Heisman favorite with Coach Lanning’s team.
Oregon football should hum along all season and win these and other big games. On paper, of course. The question is whether or not they’ll be able to match the physicality of unfamiliar opponents like Wisconsin and Maryland on the road while still having the energy and firepower to go head-to-head with teams like Washington and Purdue.
Oregon football will need to find a second back to spell Jordan James, who had 11 touchdowns last season with the Ducks. The Big Ten is a tough, physical conference and the running game could be the x-factor for Dan Lanning’s team.
Expect Oregon football to drop one game that no one expects, perhaps vs. Wisconsin football at Camp Randall Stadium. The Badgers’ offensive line isn’t up to its usual expectations but it will be a physical and intense environment at Camp Randall Stadium with Luke Fickell’s team looking to pull the big-time upset.
3. Oregon football will make the College Football Playoff-
Oregon football has the talent to win 10-plus games and compete for a Big Ten title. With 12 teams in the College Football Playoff, Lanning’s coaching acumen and the Ducks’ relative skillsets and talents, a trip to the College Football Playoff seems like a strong possibility.
The prediction here is that Oregon football will make it led behind a Heisman finalist worthy performance from Gabriel at the quarterback position.
His presence in Lanning’s offense plus the play of Jordan James and the rest of the Ducks’ offensive talents makes them an almost universal pick for a CFB spot in year one of the 12-team field, and for good reason.
The post Oregon football last-minute predictions for 2024 season appeared first on ClutchPoints.
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