1. College Football News Preview 2020: Oregon Ducks Win Total Prediction, What Will Happen
CFN in 60 Video: Oregon Ducks Preview
[jwplayer lEDBLOLS]
Four players.
There were several key losses on both sides of the ball – mostly on the offensive line – but QB Justin Herbert, LB Troy Dye, and O linemen Shane Lemieux and Jake Hanson were the only Ducks selected in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Head coach Mario Cristobal picked up where Willie Taggart left off and took the recruiting to a whole other level, and now Oregon legitimately has the talent, explosion, and rising depth to not just get to the College Football Playoff, but to make some noise.
But first, Oregon has to avoid Oregoning.
Clemsoning used to be the term when the Clemson Tigers would be good enough to come up with a huge win, but would suffer one crippling brain cramp to screw it all up.
It wasn’t actually a real thing – there weren’t any horrible losses to earn the term, and it all went away after Dabo took things to another level – but the perception was there.
Oregoning, though, is starting to become a bit of a problem.
Like not showing up until it was way too late in a late-season loss at Arizona State that ended any national title hopes.
Like getting rolled 44-15 by an Arizona team that didn’t go bowling in 2018.
Like getting rocked by a mediocre UCLA team 31-14 in 2017, and then coming back to blowout Utah.
This year’s Oregon team is good enough to beat everyone on the schedule, with the lone exception possibly being Ohio State. But the team can’t whiff on the road against an Arizona, or a Washington State, or a Colorado.
This is a young team, and even more than in any other season, keeping focus and executing the entire way is going to be vital.
Set The Oregon Ducks Regular Season Win Total At … 10.5
Bet at BetMGM Win Total Line: 9.5
The schedule works.
There’s no Utah, and the dates against Ohio State, USC, and Washington are all in Eugene.
There can’t be a loss in the dangerous opener against defending FCS champion North Dakota State, and five of the Pac-12 games are on the road, but three of those are against teams that didn’t go bowling.
Allow for a possible loss to Ohio State and/or one other misfire along the way. Beat Ohio State, and then Oregoning won’t be a concern – the team will be good enough to win 11 games and be in the CFP mix.
Lose to the Buckeyes, and it’ll win ten games and be out again.
But with the talent Mario Cristobal is piling up, and with the arrow for the program pointing way, way up, Oregon might just become the new Clemson, and then no one will care about the missed opportunities of the last few years.
– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Key Players, Games, Stats
– Schedule Analysis
[protected-iframe id=”361699434b6d70baf15f631ed2408ac1-97672683-92922408″ info=”https://www.googletagservices.com/tag/js/gpt.js” ]