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Dan Lanning has done the job he was hired to do, roster-wise, aggressively upgrading the overall talent base in short order. Oregon’s traditional recruiting classes and transfer portal hauls have both ranked in the top 10 nationally in each of the past 2 cycles, per 247Sports’ composite rating, yielding the Big Ten’s deepest roster outside of Columbus, Ohio, and the most serious championship aspirations in Eugene in a decade.
Those hopes are in the well-traveled hands of QB Dillon Gabriel, a 6th-year vet with prior stops at UCF and Oklahoma who has started more games, taken more snaps and accounted for more yards and touchdowns at the FBS level than any other returning quarterback in the country. If his Bo Nix-like profile translates into a decent approximation of Nix’s hyper-efficient output, the Ducks have every reason to expect to contend in their new confines and be playing well into January.
Ducks at a Glance …
2023 Recap: 12-2 (8-2 Pac-12; Won Fiesta Bowl; T-6th AP)
Best Player: QB Dillon Gabriel
Best Pro Prospect: WR Evan Stewart
Best Additions: Gabriel (Oklahoma), Stewart (Texas A&M), and CB Jabbar Muhammad (Washington)
Best Name: K Atticus Sappington
Tenured Vet: OL Matthew Bedford (6th year; 39 career starts at Indiana)
Emerging Dude: Junior RB Jordan James
Biggest strength: A fully equipped passing attack assembled largely via the portal. The headliners, Dillon Gabriel and Evan Stewart, are dead ringers for the departed combo of Bo Nix and Troy Franklin. The holdovers include textbook examples of both a shifty slot type (Tez Johnson, originally at Troy) and a chain-moving tight end (Terrance Ferguson); a pair of blue-chip vets, Traeshon Holden and Gary Bryant Jr., who began their careers at Alabama and USC, respectively; and a pair of future pros at the tackles (Josh Conerly Jr. and Ajani Cornelius, a transfer from the FCS ranks) who allowed a single sack between them in 2023. Further down the depth chart, you’ll find a couple of 5-star sophomores, QB Dante Moore (via UCLA) and WR Jurrion Dickey, who are unlikely to see much meaningful time barring injury. When guys like that are waiting in the wings in Year 2, that’s when you know a program has arrived.
Nagging concern: An inconsistent pass rush. More than half of Oregon’s 34 sacks last year came in 3 games against Pac-12 bottom-dwellers Colorado, Stanford and Washington State, and the most productive member of the rotation, Brandon Dorlus, left for the draft. Sophomore edge Matayo Uiagalelei (yes, his older brother is FSU QB DJ) is on breakout watch; otherwise, turning up the heat is likely to be a committee effort.
Looming question: Can the rebuilt secondary pick up where it left off? The Ducks lost 3 starters from a unit that led the Pac-12 in pass efficiency defense, but experience on the back end is the least of their concerns: 4 potential starters enrolled in January as part of the transfer haul, 3 of whom — Jabbar Muhammad (Washington), Kam Alexander (UT-San Antonio) and Kobe Savage (Kansas State) — earned all-conference nods at their previous stops. Factor in a significantly less accomplished lineup of opposing QBs, and there’s no excuse for a drop-off.
The schedule: There are a handful of interesting road trips (at Oregon State, at UCLA, at Michigan, at Wisconsin), but the defining date is a midseason visit from Ohio State. Beat the Buckeyes, and the margin for error in the CFP race eases considerably.
RELATED: Predicting every Oregon football game in 2024
The upshot
Four of Oregon’s 5 losses under Lanning have come in games the Ducks led in the 4th quarter, including a pair down-to-the-wire heartbreakers against Washington in 2023 that kept them out of the Playoff. One small step toward closing out those games in ’24 could result in a giant leap come the postseason.