Oregon has spent the last three seasons making USC look ordinary, and that part is not up for debate. The Ducks have been the better program by a wide margin since 2023, even if USC had the edge in 2022.
But when USA TODAY Sports ranked every Big Ten football program heading into the 2026 season, the bigger surprise wasn’t that Oregon was ahead of USC. It was that neither West Coast transplant cracked the league’s top two.
Indiana landed at No. 2 behind Ohio State, and USA TODAY didn’t pretend that was a routine development. The Hoosiers’ rise was described this way:
"Last year’s unbeaten record and out-of-nowhere national title puts Indiana a hair ahead of Oregon, even if the Ducks’ recent and not-so-recent history is far beyond anything the Hoosiers achieved before 2024. Even with it's lack of long-term history, it's hard to argue with a team that has 27 wins in two seasons and looks poised for another playoff run."
Oregon checked in at No. 3, and the explanation fit what the Ducks have become under Dan Lanning:
"Probably the best program in the Bowl Subdivision without a national championship to its name, Oregon played for a pair during the Bowl Championship Series era and then advanced to last year’s semifinals before losing to Indiana. The Ducks are 46-8 under coach Dan Lanning and have blended into the Big Ten seamlessly with an unbeaten run to the conference title in their first year and an 8-1 record in 2025."
That ranking says plenty about where Oregon stands now. The Ducks are clearly operating at a much higher level than USC, but they’re still not in the Big Ten’s top shelf. They’re close, and they’ve done enough to belong in the conversation, but the league’s current elite club is reserved for the teams that have stacked the most recent titles: Michigan in 2023, Ohio State in 2024, and Indiana in 2025.
There’s also a shared ceiling here for Oregon and USC. Dan Lanning and Lincoln Riley both have zero national championship game appearances as head coaches.
Both have reached the semifinals. Neither has broken through that final wall.
So yes, Oregon is well ahead of USC. That much is obvious. But the Ducks, like the Trojans, still know exactly where they sit on the sport’s highest rung: just short of the very top.
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