It was all going so well for Oregon. They rolled through the early stretch and ended a few coaching jobs in the process. They launched Okie State into the Kuiper Belt (bye, Mike Gundy. You were a man. You were 40.) and then broke James Franklin in that epic 2OT whiteout game.
And then came Indiana, destroyer of worlds and devourer of souls. Let's waddle through the season that was for the Ducks.
What were the expectations?
Biff: I mean, high! Oregon has been part of my college football fanhood since 1999 when I started following the Gophers and the teams met in the Sun Bowl. It happened again in 2003 when I was in the Minnesota band and that time we won, but it feels like every season since then Oregon has been a part of the college football firmament.
That's just a perception through my lens, but isn't it realistic to have expectations for Oregon at this point after all of the money in the program, the strong fan support, and the talent coming through that program? I'm not sure I expected Oregon to win the conference but it wouldn't have been at all shocking.
Kind of...: Minnesota blew that Sun Bowl, BTW. Probably cost them a top ten finish. Anyway...yeah, expectations were high for Oregon last year, though, they had lost Dillon Gabriel, and there were some question marks. OSU and [giggles] PSU were the clear top two teams in the B1G last year going into the season.
Transient Buckeye: Oregon was coming off an undefeated regular season, a Big Ten Championship, and a quarterfinal berth in the College Football Playoff. Yes, they lost a lot of key contributors off that team, but the Ducks have recruited very well for years, and have also been highly $u₵₵e$$ful in bringing in talent through the transfer portal (them's the rules, it's not really fair to hate on Oregon for having learned them well). Most observers felt that Oregon should be well-positioned to reload for another solid run in 2025. They were viewed as legitimate Big Ten title contenders, very likely to make the CFP field, and as a team that could potentially bring home the crystal football if things broke right.
So, how'd it go?
Biff: Given I said winning the conference "wouldn't have been at all shocking", you can infer that they didn't. But hell, they only lost to Indiana! It's just that it happened twice, which wouldn't be a lot if they hadn't happened 3 months apart.
Overall, Oregon stopped juuuuuuust short of looking like a juggernaut. Close wins at Penn State and at Iowa showed some cracks in the armor but Penn State wasn't bad especially in late September, and Iowa had a great season and is a very challenging place to play. 51-34 against James Madison might look suspicious but, it's Oregon scoring 51 points. The 34?
Kind of...: Honestly, it's hard to complain that much, when you only lose to the national champion. Except that was also true of Oregon in 2024. And, in 2023, they only lost to the national runner-up. If you want to be the man, you've got to beat the man. And Oregon hasn't beaten the man. (Well, they DID beat OSU in 2024, but in the wrong game.) You get the picture. Sticking with "this century," this is the best, most consistent, CFB program without a natty.
Transient Buckeye: Oregon was very good, as expected, though probably not quite at the level of a legitimate title contender. They went 11-1 in the regular season, their only blemish being a home loss to Indiana. Since Indiana and Ohio State were both undefeated in conference play, the Ducks missed the Big Ten title game (they hadn't played OSU). But at 11-1, they were more than comfortably in the CFP field. They put up more than half a hundred on James Madison in the first round (though, as @Biff notes, the fact that the Dukes went up and down the field on them all night long should've been a little worrying). In the Ducks' final appearance of the season, they shut out Texas Tech 23-0 in a game that was both a solid win for the program, and a very difficult game to watch.
What were the highlights?
Biff: There were three wins that I found particularly impressive, all of very different character. The 18-16 squeaker at Kinnick Stadium showed that Oregon could win dirty (not meaning they cheated, it's just that nobody comes out of Kinnick clean except Brian Ferentz). On the road at USC showed they could win competitive against matched styles of play. Finally the 23-0 quarter-final against Texas Tech at the Orange Bowl showed they could bury a good team. Which we already knew, but it was edifying to see it in the Playoff.
Kind of...: Yeah, @Biff notes a good collections of wins. The win over Texas Tech was particularly impressive give that it was in the CFP and Oregon was coming off a questionable defensive performance. They shut the Red Raiders down cold. Really made you think they might have a chance of avenging the regular-season loss to Indiana in the semis...
Transient Buckeye: The double-overtime win over Penn State in Happy Valley looked a lot better at the time than it turned out to be in retrospect, but even when you take that into account, Oregon still traveled across three time zones and beat Penn State in a Whiteout game, which is no small thing. A last-second field goal allowed them to thwart the Kinnick Stadium voodoo and escape Iowa City with a win. Beating old Pac-12 rival USC had to feel good. And the Ducks managed to win two CFP games, though the first of these came against a clearly-overmatched G5 team. Not a bad set of achievements for a team trotting out a first-year starting quarterback.
And the lowlights?
Biff: Losing to Indiana twice. I will say that the first loss against Indiana at Autzen was when I really started believing that Indiana could Do The Thing. I recall watching Oregon's desperation increasing with each drive in the 4th Quarter and I'm just not used to seeing Oregon look desperate. The desperation kicked in a lot earlier in the semi-final loss.
Kind of...: Oregon blew out Texas Tech, but right after that, Indiana did what they did to Alabama, and with fewer injuries to their RBs than Oregon suffered. Sure, Alabama was pretty fraudulent by the end of the year, but the Hoosiers' performance was such that they felt like a decided favorite against Oregon despite the Ducks shutting out the #4 seeds.
And that was appropriate. Because Indiana just throttled Oregon. To be fair, the Ducks engaged in plenty of self-sabotage. But 42-7 in the third quarter speaks for itself.
Transient Buckeye: Some of you may have noticed that I referred to the Texas Tech game as Oregon's final appearance of the season. That wasn't because I forgot what happened to them in the CFP semifinal rematch with Indiana. It's because the Ducks completely no-showed for that game. The Hoosiers boat-raced them out of Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta even faster than Ohio State ran them out of the Rose Bowl in the 2024-2025 CFP quarterfinals.
Any memorable and or absurd moments?
Biff: I'll leave football moments to others; I went to the Minnesota game at Autzen last season and all I got was a cowboy hat with the interlocking OU on it that I now prominently display in the background of my conference call view at work. We got worked but Eugene was a lot of fun, we enjoyed the tailgate, and it was great to check Autzen off the list.
Kind of...: The Penn State win felt really memorable at the time. Winning in Kinnick is still an impressive achievement. And thoroughly manhandling Texas Tech made clear that, Indiana games notwithstanding, the Duck are a top echelon program right now (and that Texas Tech isn't, yet).
Transient Buckeye: There were a couple of memorable moments, though to the extent they were absurd, the absurdity reflected more on the Ducks' opponents than it did on Oregon. The Penn State game, particularly the overtimes, felt like a living cliché of everything that had ever been said about the James Franklin Experience against Top Ten teams. And Oregon came thisclose to falling victim to the Iowa home-field juju that has claimed the scalps of a lot of highly-ranked teams over the years, though in that case, the Ducks did manage to avoid quacking up under the pressure.
