Tradition Crystal Ball: Predicting every Oregon football game in 2024

Editor’s note: Saturday Tradition’s annual Crystal Ball series continues with Oregon. We’ll go in alphabetical order through the 18-team B1G.

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In 2 seasons under Dan Lanning, Oregon is 22-5. The Ducks have been ranked as high as No. 5 in the AP poll, they’ve played for a conference championship, and they’ve won 2 bowl games, including a New Year’s 6 demolition of Liberty in last year’s Fiesta Bowl. Lanning has recruited consecutive top-10 classes to Eugene, coached a Heisman Trophy finalist at quarterback, and seemingly set up this football program for immediate success in its new home.

Year 3 for Lanning marks Year 1 in the Big Ten for the Ducks. Coming off a 12-2 season that saw Oregon play for a Pac-12 title but come up 3 points short, the ceiling is quite high for these 2024 Ducks. They’ll open the season No. 3 in the AP poll, the highest preseason ranking for the program since 2014.

That year, Oregon won a program-record 13 games and advanced to the College Football Playoff National Championship. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but that’s the end goal for this year’s team. And it seems a fairly reasonable goal to have. Oregon is No. 2 in ESPN’s preseason Football Power Index (FPI) ratings and has the second-best odds of any team in the country to make the national title game (24.4%, per FPI). FPI gives the Ducks a 12.8% chance to win the title this year, again second only to Georgia

ESPN’s own sportsbook — ESPN Bet — has the Ducks priced at +700 to claim the natty. That’s almost identical to FPI, with an implied probability of 12.5%.

We expect these Ducks to be great. And Oregon has historically done pretty well when it entered a season with big expectations. The aforementioned 2014 squad lived up to the hype. They won their conference and their quarterback — Marcus Mariota — lifted the Heisman Trophy.

(The parallels go further. Dillon Gabriel, the preseason Heisman favorite, was born in Hawaii just like Mariota. And he’ll wear the same No. 8 jersey as Mariota.)

Oregon has been a preseason top-5 team 4 other times in its program history. Three of those 4 seasons ended with Oregon inside the final AP top 5.

Can these Ducks live up to expectations? Here are my game-by-game predictions for the 2024 regular season.

Game-by-game predictions

Week 1: vs. Idaho (W)

Oregon opened its 2023 season against an FCS opponent at home and won 81-7. It marked the 19th consecutive victory in a home opener and the 31st consecutive nonconference home win for the Ducks. Portland State only had 8 first downs and totaled a measly 53 yards of offense in the second half. The talent gap was pronounced. It will be again. While the Ducks might not score 81 points, I expect a similarly unyielding defensive performance.

Week 2: vs. Boise State (W)

This new-look front 7 from Oregon will be immediately tested, with Boise State likely to lean on its do-everything tailback, Ashton Jeanty. Last season, Jeanty finished 11th nationally in rushing and he was 1 of only 7 players in the country who had at least 200 carries and a per-run average north of 6 yards. (Thirty players cleared 200 rushing attempts.) After a breeze in Week 1, Autzen Stadium will be uncomfortable for most of the afternoon in Week 2, but I think Oregon puts distance between it and Boise as the game wears on and the Broncos have to get more aggressive to stay in it.

Week 3: at Oregon State (W)

Oregon will win, but the Ducks will take any win they can get in what figures to be an incredibly hostile environment. Oregon blasted Oregon State last year, but the Beavs never really put up a fight with rumors swirling about their head coach already having a foot out the door. The Ducks are more talented. The Beavers got absolutely hammered by the portal after Jonathan Smith bolted for Michigan State. But the home crowd is worth something in the recently-renovated Reser Stadium.

Week 4: BYE

Week 5: at UCLA (W)

Preseason SP+ numbers suggest Oregon would be a 17-point favorite at the Rose Bowl. (I’m giving 2.5 for homefield advantage.) I think this could open north of 20. UCLA is in for a rough season with a first-year head coach. So much of what made UCLA formidable last year was its defensive ability to win on the edge and generate negative plays. All of the key pieces are gone from that group. Four of 5 starters are gone in the secondary. Oregon’s offense uses this game to get into a groove and the Ducks roll.

Week 6: vs. Michigan State (W)

The Spartans come into this game after hosting Ohio State the week prior. It’ll be the sixth game in 6 weeks to open the season for Michigan State. Jonathan Smith has to rebuild the run game and fix a defense that, last season, looked like a far cry from the “No Fly Zone” defenses of the Mark D’Antonio era. Considering who comes to Autzen Stadium the following week, Oregon might get caught looking ahead. But I don’t think Michigan State has the pieces along the defensive line to ultimately make the Ducks pay. A real storyline we’ll see develop over the course of the first 6 weeks is how dominant Oregon is at the point of attack on both sides of the football.

Week 7: vs. Ohio State (W)

One of the most anticipated games of the season arrives with Oregon sitting at 5-0 and Ohio State sitting at 5-0. With both programs opening the season in the AP top 3, this will be one of the biggest games in Autzen Stadium history. Given the expanded Playoff, the stakes might not be do-or-die, but Oregon will certainly want to send a message to its new conference peers that “The Team Out West” can walk the walk. With 2.5 points for homefield advantage, SP+ would have this game as Oregon -0.6. That’s about where I am. If this game was in Columbus, Ohio State would win. Being in Eugene, I’ll take the Ducks in the first of 2 meetings.

Week 8: at Purdue (W)

West Lafayette had developed a bit of a mystique during the Jeff Brohm era. In 2021, Michigan State visited as a top-5 team and lost to an unranked Purdue by 11 points. In 2018, Ohio State visited Ross-Ade Stadium ranked No. 2 and lost to an unranked Purdue team by 29 points. With Brohm in town, Purdue went 4-1 against ranked teams at home — all while sitting on the outside of the AP poll. That aura sort of dissipated last fall, when No. 3 Ohio State obliterated Purdue at home 41-7. The Boilers averaged just 23.9 points a game in their first season under Ryan Walters. With Oregon coming to town, we’ll likely hear about the Boilers’ recent history as a home underdog against a top-5 team. But it won’t matter. The Ducks will do what the Buckeyes did a year prior — roll.

Week 9: vs. Illinois (W)

Once again, Oregon will face a bottom-half team at home a week after getting beat up by another conference elite. Illinois faces Michigan the week before it heads to Eugene. The Illini were a fairly decent defensive unit last season, but they were very conservative. This fall, they have to replace huge pieces along the defensive front. They’ll have to be more aggressive to make up for it, and I wonder if they have the pieces in the secondary to make it work. Oregon’s pass game tests the Illini and wins.

Week 10: at Michigan (L)

SP+ would make Oregon a 0.8-point favorite on the road. This will be the Ducks’ first true road test. They’ve been to the Rose Bowl before. Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana, pales in comparison to the Big House. Michigan has so much to replace, it’s true, but this game falling in November helps the home team. The Wolverines should know everything they need to know about their quarterback situation at this point. The new pieces should be settled in. Michigan’s strength on the defensive line should keep the Wolverines in the game until the very end. I don’t believe a team goes unbeaten in the Big Ten, and I think Oregon drops its first game in a reasonable place to lose a game.

Week 11: vs. Maryland (W)

The Ducks bounce back from a road defeat with a strong showing in front of the home crowd. Maryland gets to make the cross-country trip after a bye week, so the Terps should be as close to full-strength as a team can feasibly be in November, but the talent gap is deep. Maryland has been quietly capable on defense recently — 22.5 points allowed in 2023, 23.2 in ’22 — but in games against Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State (0-6) over the past 2 years, the defense has been hit for 37.7 points a game. Oregon’s defense controls the game against an offense that has had to completely retool this offseason.

Week 12: at Wisconsin (W)

Madison is a fun place to visit. “Jump Around” inside Camp Randall is an awesome college football experience. But nothing about this trip should be intimidating to the Ducks. This isn’t the Wisconsin we’ve known. After establishing a ground-and-pound identity under Bret Bielema and Paul Chryst, Luke Fickell’s first year saw the offense flip from run-heavy to pass-happy and Wisconsin’s efficiency suffered. The Badgers averaged 5.4 yards a play — the worst mark in a full season since 2015. The quarterback and running back positions change over as Phil Longo tries to get his principles in place. I don’t think this will be the 17.5-point game SP+ projects, but I don’t believe Wisconsin’s offense can put enough points on the board to hand the Ducks another loss.

Week 13: BYE

Week 14: vs. Washington (W)

So many things are working against the Huskies in this matchup. Oregon has lost 3 straight to UW, making Dan Lanning the program’s first coach since Rich Brooks to lose each of his first 3 games to the Huskies. The game this season will be in Eugene. While so many key pieces of last year’s defeat return for Oregon, so many major players for the Huskies needed to be replaced. And is anyone convinced that Jedd Fisch will have both feet firmly planted in Seattle by the time this game comes around if Florida does what most expect Florida to do? Oregon’s the better team. Oregon is likely the more motivated team.

2024 Projection: 11-1 (8-1 Big Ten)

The Ducks are poised for a special season in 2024. That would have been true whether they were playing in the Pac-12 or competing in the Big Ten. This team is loaded, and Lanning answered key questions with splashy portal acquisitions. Key pieces of last year’s team return. And the Ducks get most of their big matchups at home.