Column: Oregon looks like a College Football Playoff contender, so why not be optimistic?
ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt has a famous saying that he uses every so often: “Be optimistic because it costs the same.”
Quite simply, when given the opportunity to think positively or negatively about something, you’ll put the same effort into seeing the bright side, and likely have a more enjoyable time doing so as well.
That sentiment feels especially pertinent for the Oregon Ducks at this juncture in the season. Through four weeks, Dan Lanning looks to have a team that is good enough to not only make it to the Pac-12 Championship Game in Las Vegas at the end of the year, but also compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Why not be optimistic and believe it’s possible? It costs the same…
The naysayers will point to the schedule, and the level of competition so far, using the low-tier caliber of opponents that Oregon had displaced thus far as the main piece of evidence against the Ducks’ optimism. The team from Eugene has a winning margin of 216-53 through four games, which is the 6th-highest margin in school history. They blew out Portland State and Hawaii, while picking up a gritty win over Texas Tech down in Lubbock. On Saturday, they put an end to the No. 19 Colorado Buffaloes’ Cinderella start to the season with a 42-6 beatdown that looked over before the 1st quarter was even close to complete.
The Ducks have lined up against every team on their schedule thus far and found a way to beat them, often in an emphatic fashion. That’s all you can do in the end, isn’t it?
More importantly, they’ve looked like a team that’s got the makeup of a potential contender. On the offensive side of the ball, they are one of the best in the nation, led by QB Bo Nix, who is quite literally the most experienced passer in college football. They have the No. 2 scoring offense, the No. 7 rushing offense, the No. 9 passing offense, and the No. 2 total offense.
Over on the other side of the ball, it appears that the Ducks’ defense is led by a formidable pass rush, and they’re opportunistic and capable of stringing together stops in a way that we haven’t seen since guys like Kayvon Thibodeaux and Jevon Hollard were on the roster in 2019. Oregon has the No. 16 scoring defense, No. 32 rushing defense, No. 9 passing defense, and No. 11 total defense. And you mean to tell me that those numbers don’t add up to someone who looks like a legitimate threat to make it to the College Football Playoff?
I understand the narrative out there about the Ducks. Over a decade ago, they upset a lot of traditional fans of the sport. They tend to go against the grain, and their use of flash, ingenuity, and a lack of tradition makes them an easy target for naysayers, particularly when people want to talk about championship banners. It all makes sense — change is often fought, and the Ducks have been at the forefront of change for the last decade.
It’s a bit ironic at points, too, because under Dan Lanning it feels like Oregon might be trying to go against that flashy nature that put them on the national stage years ago. In his pregame speech that was aired on ABC Saturday afternoon, Lanning preached that this team was “rooted in substance, not flash.” That sounds great, but may cause some eye-rolls when you realize that many of the players he was talking to wore state-of-the-art thermo-reactive cleats from Nike that changed colors based on the player’s body temperature and activity.
They may still look like the flashy Ducks, but this team plays with a blue-collar intensity that Lanning has worked hard to ingratiate into the program since he arrived almost two years ago.
There should be very little surprise that people don’t always want to lump Oregon in with the traditional contenders because they haven’t regularly proven over the years that they are a traditional contender. In certain years, they’ve had great shots, but the sporadic nature of that competition has left the national perspective, and the local perspective in Oregon, feeling a little bit of doubt.
You can feel it this year as well. If you were to take away the green and yellow, while taping over the Oregon name on the scoreboard, anyone would look at the Ducks’ stats and rankings and quickly determine that they look like one of the best teams in the country. However, with the Ducks playing in the best conference in the nation this year, there’s some doubt that they can go all the way and stay standing at the end.
I think a lot of that doubt is rooted in memories from 2022, and the subpar nature in which the regular season ended.
Throw out those memories. Remind yourself that this is a new team, with over half of the roster turned over and replaced by blue-chip recruits and certified additions from the transfer portal. Take away the baggage, and it’s clear that this team is steamrolling in the right direction.
Forget for a second that the Ducks have made it close to the mountaintop a few times before, and been kicked to the bottom before reaching the ultimate goal. It’s hard to do because there is a lot of scar tissue there, but at times it is necessary.
Let yourself believe that the Ducks belong in the CFP race. Be confident that their defense will be able to carry them through a brutal Pac-12 schedule, while the offense puts up points at a rate few teams in then nation can match.
Allow yourself to be optimistic about this Oregon team. It costs the same.
