Good Luck Ducks, Week 1: Greater Oregon

New season, new conference. 

 

There's a, um, movement -- if you want to call it that -- where certain residents of the Pacific Northwest want the state of Idaho to annex a portion of eastern Oregon. They call it Greater Idaho. I bet you can guess what I think of that whole thing, a sort of far-fetched idea from a far flung outpost of the country. (Honestly, if you love Idaho so much, maybe consider moving there?)

It's the end of August, and that means the Oregon Ducks are back on the field. It's their first year in the Big Ten conference, but they have the usual three non-conference games to get through before they get their first taste of action against the primarily midwestern opponents. Idaho is up first, an FCS team from the Big Sky conference. While the Vandals aren't necessarily trying to steal precious resources and territory from The Beaver State, they would love to take the preseason number three ranked Ducks down a peg or five.

So much has changed for Oregon this season, with wholesale changes at nearly all of the skill positions. I can't remember Oregon ever being ranked this high before the season, and those expectations seem even more questionable considering that they've moved on to what is by most accounts a tougher conference with so many new players at important positions. Dillon Gabriel will start at QB for the Ducks, entering his sixth season after playing for UCF and Oklahoma. Gone are Bo Nix and Troy Franklin to the Denver Broncos, but there is still an extremely talented and versatile corps of receivers standing by. Jordan James takes his first crack at RB1 after primarily being a second option last season and a short yardage/goal line specialist early in his career. Also, there's a dude named Kobe Savage on the team now? Cool name, for sure.

Notes and such:

• I'm not going to talk about the uniforms every week, but suffice it to say that I've liked what I've seen previewed so far. It looks like they're really leaning into a throwback-inspired look more than ever this year, along with the latest experimental Nike technology, of course.
• Do they have any history at all? Oregon has the, uh, slight edge, with a 52-3-4 record over the Vandals. They used to play every year up until 1970, but their last meeting was in 2004.
• Ducks Ranking This Week: 3 (AP). It's meaningless until we hit at least the halfway point in the season, or basically whenever the actual CFP rankings come out. By the way, perhaps even a bigger deal in the long run than all the conference changing shenanigans is the expanded playoff format this year. I like it, but I wish it didn't take such a huge chunk of my lifetime to get there.
• ???? Heisman Watch: Despite the lofty expectations thrust upon this team, I am not sure they have any sort of Heisman candidacy going at this point. Sure, Gabriel has a lot of buzz right now because he's coming off a nice season with Oklahoma, but it's tough to know what to think at this point. It's The Duck (mascot) at this point who is doing all the legwork to get noticed. Could we get him on the ballot?!
• Game time is 4:30 PM PDT on the B1G Network in Eugene. Go Ducks!