The Oregon Ducks have been able to take care of business throughout their non-conference schedule thus far in 2023. Of course, the level of competition has not been elite — Texas Tech will likely be viewed as a solid win at the end of the year, but neither Hawaii nor Portland State will be seen as great victories. Regardless of who they’ve played, it’s been clear that the Ducks are starting to garner some respect nationally with the commencement of the Pac-12 conference schedule beginning this week.
With that conference play getting underway, we wanted to take a second and look at things from a national point of view. While we often focus on the Pac-12 and judge things based on rankings out west, today we want to look at some national rankings, particularly where the top teams stand in terms of the likelihood that they get into the College Football Playoff at the end of the year.
Using ESPN’s Football Power Index, something that we do each week of the season, we can see which schools in the nation are garnering the most respect right now when it comes to season-long outlooks.
While you might expect these odds to directly reflect the top 25 rankings, it actually looks quite a bit different. ESPN takes into account the path to the conference title games, and the likelihood that a team can be one of the top four at the end of the year, rather than just giving the best teams the best odds.
Here’s where the Ducks rank among the top teams in the nation when it comes to CFP probability.