It’s hard to make a bigger statement in a single game than the Oregon Ducks did in Week 9. Going on the road into a tough environment, Dan Lanning and the No. 6 Ducks took the fight to the No. 18 Utah Utes, winning 35-6 in a game that was largely over by the time the second quarter started.
It was a masterclass on offense and a demolition on defense. While Bo Nix will get much of the shine as he continues to vault up the odds board for the Heisman Trophy, there is a ton of credit to go around to the rest of the team.
After the victory, the Ducks moved up two spots in the Associated Press Top 25, and now sit just one place behind the Washington Huskies, who handed them their only loss of the season.
While the AP poll has Oregon behind Washington, there are numerous other rankings around the nation that see the Ducks as the better team between the two. One of those rankings is ESPN’s Football Power Index, where the Ducks catapulted themselves into the top 4 teams in the nation with the big win, and are now considered the heavy favorites to win the Pac-12 Championship.
Every week, ESPN’s FPI updates the odds for every game remaining on the schedule, and gives a probability for season-long outlooks. Here’s how the view Oregon after Week 9: