EUGENE - Oregon’s College Football Playoff case is built on something more than ranking movement and a glossy record. Dan Lanning is selling the Ducks as a team nobody wants to see right now, and he’s not shy about saying it out loud.
Before Tuesday night’s CFP rankings were released, Lanning made the argument on the Pat McAfee Show that Oregon’s recent form should matter more than the messiness of its season.
“Based on what we show we’re capable of and how we’re playing right now, I’m sure a lot of teams don’t want us in those 12 teams, especially coming down the stretch. And if it’s about having the best teams in the end, we’ve got to see who’s playing the best football at the end. And we get an opportunity to go out here Saturday and show that,” Lanning said on the Pat McAfee Show.
The rankings gave Oregon a boost to match that confidence. After the Ducks knocked off Ohio State 41-28 in Columbus, they jumped seven spots from No. 23 to No. 16, the biggest climb of any team in the latest release. That made Oregon the highest-ranked three-loss team in the CFP rankings.
The Ducks are 6-3 overall and 4-2 in the Big Ten, and they’ve now appeared in 33 straight CFP rankings releases. For a team that opened the year at No. 2, lost starting quarterback Dante Moore to injury and moved on from offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer midway through the season, the path back into the conversation has been anything but tidy. Still, Oregon remains alive for a playoff bid for the third straight season.
Lanning didn’t stop at talking up his own team. He also took aim at how the conference is viewed.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that our conference probably doesn’t get the respect it deserves, especially when you see week in and week out what’s accomplished in this conference. So the results kind of speak for themselves. I don’t get to sit in those meetings,” Lanning said.
“We haven’t necessarily sustained success all season, but ultimately - We’re playing really good football. If we can keep that trend running, this conference can keep that trend running, then they should certainly consider teams like ourselves, and certainly these other Big Ten teams that we’ve played to be in that hunt,” Lanning continued.
He also brought up Miami, which barely squeezed into last year’s CFP field before going on to play for the national championship.
Oregon’s resume has some real weight to it. The Ducks and No.
3 Alabama are the only teams in the country with multiple double-digit road wins over ranked opponents. Oregon beat then-No.
12 USC 41-27 in Los Angeles, then followed that with 38 unanswered points in a 41-28 win over then-No. 12 Ohio State at the Horseshoe.
The Ducks also handled then-No. 20 Northwestern at home, giving them three wins over teams that were ranked at the time of the game. Only Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss have matched or topped that total.
The losses are the part of the argument that complicates things. Two of Oregon’s three defeats came against teams still in the top 25, No.
4 UCLA and No. 25 Oklahoma State.
The one that hurts most is the loss to unranked Illinois, a game that came while Oregon was adjusting to Dylan Raiola at quarterback and before Jay Johnson took over as play-caller. Since that change, the Ducks have averaged 37.5 points in two games.
If Oregon keeps winning, the path gets clearer. A 9-3 finish would leave the Ducks 7-2 in the Big Ten and in position for an at-large berth, depending on how the teams ahead of them shake out in the final rankings. Win the Big Ten Championship Game, though, and the playoff spot is locked in.
There’s even a scenario that sends Oregon to Indianapolis to face UCLA. If Oregon, Indiana and Ohio State all finish 7-2, the Ducks would win the tiebreaker based on record against common conference opponents.
Lanning says the team has leaned on the words of Nick Saban during a season full of twists.
“I think one thing that I’ve kind of really helped myself with is what you hear coach (Nick) Saban say all the time is like, we don’t control outcomes, but we can influence outcomes,” Lanning said. “And we got a bunch of players in that room that don’t want to quit.”
“We’ve experienced a lot of adversity, a lot of things that look different than what we anticipated when the year started. And I’ve always told our team, you want to be playing your best ball in November,” Lanning said.
ESPN’s College Football Playoff Predictor gives Oregon a 32 percent chance if it finishes 3-0 in the regular season but doesn’t get into the Big Ten title game. That number drops to 18 percent if the Ducks make the conference championship game but don’t win it.
For now, the next step is simple: keep the run going at Autzen. Oregon hosts Michigan, 5-4 overall and 2-4 in the Big Ten, on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 12:30 p.m. PT on FS1.
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