Oregon’s trip to Los Angeles carries more than just a conference-game feel. It’s the kind of matchup that can swing the Ducks’ season in one direction or the other, with Saturday’s meeting against No. 12 USC at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum sitting squarely in the middle of their playoff hopes.
The Ducks are coming off a jarring 39-31 road loss to Oklahoma State, then answered with a runaway 84-0 win over Portland State on Friday night. That blowout gave Oregon its largest margin of victory at Autzen Stadium, matching a record that was also set against Portland State in 2023.
Even with that dominant rebound, the Ducks remain outside the top 15, and another loss on Saturday would knock them out of the AP Top 25. At that point, Oregon would likely need to run the table just to stay in the College Football Playoff discussion.
That’s not where the Ducks expected to be when the season opened at No. 2 in the country with national championship dreams. But the path back is still there, and Saturday’s game is the one that can put Oregon back into the center of the conversation.
ESPN’s latest bowl projections, though, still have the Ducks headed elsewhere. After Week 3, both Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach projected Oregon to face Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl. That would mean a rematch of last season’s CFP Quarterfinal at the Orange Bowl, where Oregon beat the Red Raiders 23-0 before falling 56-22 to the eventual national champions, the Indiana Hoosiers, in the Peach Bowl semifinal.
Texas Tech is pushing to get back to the CFP after earning a first-round bye last season. The Red Raiders are 3-0, ranked No. 11 in the AP Top 25, and coming off a 28-26 win over No.
25 Houston. Even so, ESPN’s projection has No.
9 BYU representing the Big 12 in the playoff picture instead. Texas Tech already beat BYU 34-7 in the Big 12 Championship game to lock up its CFP spot last year.
If Oregon does land in the Alamo Bowl, it would be a familiar stage. The Ducks have played in the game three times and are 1-2 there.
Their only win came in 2013, a 30-7 victory over Texas. The losses came against TCU in 2016 and Oklahoma in 2021, and the 49-41 triple-overtime defeat to the Horned Frogs is one Oregon fans probably still remember too well.
The Ducks led 31-0 at halftime before the game slipped away in the second half.
For now, though, the bigger picture still runs through USC. Oregon’s CFP chances sit at 20.7 percent according to ESPN’s College Football Power Index, just behind the Trojans at 21.4 percent. Saturday matters for both teams, but the pressure feels heavier on the Ducks because the margin for error is so thin.
USC, meanwhile, comes in unbeaten at 4-0 after wins over San Jose State, Fresno State, Louisiana, and Rutgers. The Trojans have won four straight against Oregon dating back to 2019, and Lincoln Riley is still looking for his first win over Dan Lanning and the Ducks. Riley is 0-2 against Oregon in his tenure, with both of those games coming at Autzen Stadium.
The matchup has the makings of a shootout. Both defenses have had issues this season, and the quarterback duel between Oregon’s Dante Moore and USC’s Jayden Maiava could decide everything. Maiava has been one of the nation’s most efficient passers through four games, leading the FBS with 1,173 passing yards, 12 touchdowns, and one interception while completing 75.7 percent of his throws.
Moore is trying to get his own momentum back after the Oklahoma State loss. He responded against Portland State by going 19 of 23 for 280 yards and four touchdowns, and a strong showing in Los Angeles could push him back into the Heisman Trophy conversation.
Early DraftKings Sportsbook odds have Oregon as a three-point favorite, with the over/under set at 62.5. Kickoff is set for 4:30 p.m. PT on NBC.
Other games still loom large for Oregon, too, including a road trip to No. 7 Ohio State on Nov. 7 and a home game against No.
18 Michigan on Nov. 14.
But first comes USC, and for the Ducks, that’s the one that could shape everything that follows.
In Other News...
USC Now Faces A Different Oregon Offense Than Expected
Oregons passing game took an unexpected turn before its meeting with Portland State, when junior wide receiver Jeremiah McClellan broke his foot in warmups and was ruled out indefinitely. The injury forced the Ducks to adjust on the fly, and freshman Messiah Hampton filled some of the opening with 71 receiving yards and two touchdowns, giving Oregon a different look than the one USC likely spent part of the week preparing for.
The matchup now brings another wrinkle for the Trojans, because Oregon is also expected to have tight ends Kendre Harrison and Jamari Johnson available for the upcoming game. With McClellan sidelined and Hampton suddenly in a bigger role, USC has to account for an offense that is already shifting in real time, and the Ducks may keep leaning on personnel groupings and targets that werent central to the original scouting report. [Read more 🡒]
USC Heads Into Oregon Week With A Secondary Problem Fans Feared
USCs secondary is suddenly a point of concern as the Trojans turn the page from their win over Rutgers and into a far bigger test against Oregon. Alex Graham and Jontez Williams both picked up injuries in that game, and Lincoln Riley acknowledged after the fact that each is dealing with an issue while the staff waits to see how they respond in the days ahead.
The timing is less than ideal, given how much the matchup with Oregon asks of a defense on the back end. USC is already sorting through replacement options and monitoring both players closely, with the hope that neither absence becomes a longer-term problem. For now, though, it leaves the Trojans heading into the week with one of the concerns fans were bracing for. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Just Added Pressure To Oregon In The Title Race
Oregon answered its loss to Oklahoma State the only way it could, burying Portland State in a record-setting 84-0 rout that looked more like a stress reliever than a tune-up. Even so, the Ducks did not fully repair the damage in the eyes of the oddsmakers, with multiple sportsbooks trimming their national championship odds as other contenders, including Ole Miss, kept stacking results that reshaped the early title picture.
For USC, the timing matters. The Trojans are set to see Oregon in Week 4, and that matchup now carries a little extra weight as the Ducks try to climb back in the College Football Playoff conversation. A win over a team still trying to steady its title hopes would give USC its own boost in the national discussion, while Oregon will be aiming to show the kind of response that sportsbooks and voters tend to notice. [Read more 🡒]