It wasn’t until this past week that the nation started to take Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks seriously in 2023. While they had been impressive through the first eight weeks of the season, a slew of non-competitive opponents and a loss to the best team that they had faced left people wanting to see a little bit more, and understandably so.
So when the No. 8 Ducks went on the road to a hostile environment in Salt Lake City, a place where visiting teams rarely win, and completely annihilated the No. 13 Utah Utes, people started to take notice.
Since then, we’ve seen the narrative around the Ducks start to change. No longer are they considered just a flashy team out west that can put up points in bunches, but now are being talked about as one of the most physical and complete teams in the nation, capable of squaring off with the Georgias, Ohio States, Michigans, and Alabamas of the world in College Football.
Their national championship odds improved drastically, and the Ducks now have the fifth-best number in the nation to win the whole thing.
This past week, I had Oregon legend Joey Harrington on the Sco-ing Long Podcast, and I asked him about those championship dreams. I posed a hypothetical for him: given $1,000 to keep for something useful around the house, or bet on the Ducks (+1400) to win the national championship, what would he do?
In a hypothetical world, you're given $1,000 to either spend on something useful around the house or put it on Oregon +1400 to win the 2023 national championship. @joey3harrington knows exactly what he's doing with that money. pic.twitter.com/2E33Rlm1sc
— Zachary Neel (@zacharycneel) November 2, 2023
That’s a strong statement from Harrington, who has seen some of the best Oregon teams to ever play. A part of the podcast that didn’t make the social media video is Harrington describing why it’s the defense that impresses him the most with this iteration of the Ducks:
“I think you have to give a lot of that credit to Tosh Lupoi and Dan Lanning for how they’ve shaped this defense,” Harrington said. “Because Oregon has always been able to score points, they’ve always been able to compete offensively. What they’re doing on the defensive side of the ball, with talent and scheme, is pretty tremendous. And the way that they are starting to build this Oregon defense into those SEC-style defenses — the defenses that truly can compete at the end of November, December, and January — that makes me think that this is a good year to put that money down.”
While there is still a lot of football left to be played in the month of November before any major conversations about the Ducks and a College Football Playoff spot can be held, this team is on a trajectory that makes it so fans can at least consider those possibilities in the near future.
“While they may not be the flashiest team that Oregon has ever had, come the end of November, if things play out right I think you can potentially be making the argument that this is one of the best teams in the history of Oregon football, and that’s saying something.”
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