Oregon’s preseason hardware haul keeps growing, and CBS Sports made sure the Ducks were front and center in its 2026 honors release.
Quarterback Dante Moore, defensive tackle A'Mauri Washington and defensive back Koi Perich were all named First-Team Preseason All-Americans, while defensive back Brandon Finney Jr. landed on the second team. That gave Oregon four total selections, tying LSU and Miami for the second-most overall behind Texas. The Ducks’ three first-team picks were also tied for the second-most by any program, with Texas the only school ahead of them after placing five players on the first team.
The spotlight didn’t stop there. CBS Sports also tabbed Moore as its 2026 Preseason Player of the Year and Oregon head coach Dan Lanning as its 2026 Preseason Coach of the Year.
For a program already sitting at No. 2 in the preseason AP Top 25, it’s another sign that Oregon enters 2026 as one of the sport’s headline acts.
Moore’s rise has been fast and loud. In his first season as Oregon’s starter in 2025, he completed 71.8 percent of his passes, threw 30 touchdowns and posted a passer rating of 163.72. Those numbers put him in the nation’s top 10 in all three categories and helped carry the Ducks back to the CFP semifinals before a 56-22 loss to eventual national champion Indiana ended the season.
He could have taken the NFL route, and CBS Sports noted he may have gone in the first five picks of the draft. Instead, he came back to Eugene, instantly becoming one of the defining names of the 2026 season.
Moore now gets to work with an Oregon offense that brings back three of its top five pass catchers from last year and adds veteran wide receiver Evan Stewart, who missed the entire 2025 season with a knee injury. There’s also a new play-caller after Will Stein left to become Kentucky’s head coach, but Drew Mehringer arrives with continuity, having been on Lanning’s staff since the program’s first season under him.
CBS Sports also pointed to Oregon’s quarterback pipeline when making the case for Moore as a Heisman Trophy contender. Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel both reached New York as finalists in their final seasons with the Ducks, and Moore enters his second year as a starter with that same kind of path in front of him.
The defensive recognition was just as telling. Washington is back on the first team for the second straight preseason, making him one of the few players CBS Sports selected to its preseason first team in both 2025 and 2026. He’s expected to be a centerpiece of an Oregon defensive front that the Ducks believe can rank among the nation’s best.
Perich, in his first season at Oregon, arrives with major expectations and immediately joins Finney in giving the Ducks two preseason All-Americans in the secondary.
Taken together, Oregon’s four selections put it near the top of the national leaderboard. The SEC led all conferences with 25 total selections, including 15 on the first team, while the Big Ten finished second with 13 total picks and six first-team honors. Oregon accounted for half of the Big Ten’s first-team selections.
Lanning’s coach of the year recognition fits the larger picture around the program. He’s heading into his fifth season in Eugene, and since taking over in 2022, Oregon has built one of the strongest records in the country. CBS Sports noted that the Ducks are tied with Ohio State for the second-best mark nationally over that span, with only Georgia ahead of them.
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