One of the more trivial things that we do in the business of covering college football is making early predictions based on very little information.
For instance, you can guarantee that the morning after the national championship game each year, there will be a litany of “Way-Too-Early Top-25 Rankings” fresh in your news feed. It’s like clockwork.
What are those rankings based on? Largely returning production and very loose expectations. At that point in time, we had no idea how most rosters were going to shape up, who was going to transfer where, which team would have the top recruiting classes, or even where all of the top head coaches in the game will ultimately be.
It’s a bit early to make legitimate predictions, but we do it nonetheless.
In May after the spring football season has come and gone, another batch of rankings comes out. That seems like a much better evaluation period, doesn’t it?
The transfer portal is closed, recruiting classes are signed, and we’ve seen a ton of spring practices and spring games. It feels like we have a much better grasp of how good the top teams in the nation are.
So how do they stack up, and more importantly, where do the Oregon Ducks rank? Let’s take a look, according to the ESPN Post-Spring Power Rankings