Oregon 5th in first committee rankings

[GoDucksIn09]

I am ok with where Oregon is. Ifffffffff we win out we will be in the playoffs. Not sure we would be the best 1 loss team out there due to our highly suspect defense but the fact remains if we win out we will be there regardless. I do not even mind the number of SEC teams they have. One has to remember that this is up to week 9. Wait a few weeks when the SEC starts cannibalizing itself and can practically guaranty that the way it looks right now will not be the way it looks in a few weeks.

Speaking of the SEC... who's schedule is the least daunting. Auburn I think has the toughest one. There will only be 1 SEC team at the end that has 1 loss... at best. It could easily be 2 losses with the schedules the teams have to play in the next month. I do not know if Miss State will be able to go undefeated. I highly doubt it. In the end... one might have to ask if a 2 loss SEC team would get in if they are the SEC champion.

[Bud Lee]

Bama has an easy route with Mississippi State and AU at home, they will have to get by us in Tiger Stadium though.

State has it hard, they have to play @ bama and @ ole miss.

In my opinion AU has the most daunting task. They are @ ole miss this week, and will have to travel to Georgia and finish the season against Bama. So even if they win out they will have to likely play the toughest team in the East twice. To make it even more difficult, the NCAA said that Gurley just has to sit another two games, so he will be back in time for the AU game.

[UOducksTK1]

I wonder if they all realize Ole Miss just lost...I have no problem with the current rankings, win and we're in, but we have a comparable best win with Ole Miss and a better loss, no doubt they got it wrong puting Ole Miss ahead of Oregon.

I would honestly say the duck's lost is not better than Ole Miss'.

The ducks lost at home , to an unranked team by a touchdown.

Ole miss lost on the road against a ranked team that two losses were to two current top 5 teams

Honestly what it boils down to is I believe we could beat Arizona easily so I am admitally completely bias here

LSU was basically unranked when Ole Miss lost to them too btw..

Oregon has beat the #8 and #22 teams. Lost to the #12 team.
Ole Miss has beat the #6 team. Lost to the #19 team.

And Arizona is a pretty good team. I think on a Neutral field (Canada), I would actually go with Arizona. Any other year, it'd be LSU, but I'm not sold on LSU. Death Valley really helped the Tigers defense ramp up against Ole Miss. But against an Arizona offense without home field advantage, I actually don't see it happening. But maybe I'm biased..

[chapelhillduck]

I guarantee there won't be three SEC teams in at the end simply because of the weight of conf championships

[Bud Lee]

I guarantee there won't be three SEC teams in at the end simply because of the weight of conf championships

not even that, at least two of the top three SEC teams will have 2 or three loses at the end of the year. the current top 10 can look very different by the time this season is done.

[chapelhillduck]

I guarantee there won't be three SEC teams in at the end simply because of the weight of conf championships

not even that, at least two of the top three SEC teams will have 2 or three loses at the end of the year. the current top 10 can look very different by the time this season is done.

Yep, that too!

[Autzenoise]

I really hope we can win out, obviously. It will likely end up being us, FSU and two sec teams in the playoffs. That means that if we win the National Championship we will have beaten 2 sec teams (I dont think they would match the sec in the first round, and I think FSU has NO chance of beating any top five teams at the end of the year). That would go a long ways in turning our perception vs the sec.

[lukeyrid13]

One thing I have found interesting, is that everyone is saying how amazing Miss St's defense is and how much tougher they are than Oregon's. Don't get me wrong, I am not defending our defense at all because they have been very weak but Miss St has not been good either.

They have given up:
34 to UAB
29 to bad offense LSU
31 to aTm
23 to Auburn
31 to Kentucky

I would say those numbers are pretty comparable to how our defense has fared.

[lukeyrid13]

I also heard an ESPN reporter say that Oregon's soft non-conference schedule could hurt them because we played Wyoming and South Dakota.

Using Miss St again as an example.....
UT-Martin
Southern Miss
South Alabama
UAB

or Ole Miss
Presbyterian
Memphis
La Lafayette


How are those close to being good compared to our non-conference? Let alone the fact that we play an extra league game.

[dthomas=ddixon]

The SEC is totally overranked this year. I don't necessarily think the SEC is overrated -- those teams are still good -- but they're definitely overranked. It's at the point now where if one beats another, they'll just flip spots but stay highly ranked. It's so arbitrary and weird.

Not to sound like an ESPN talking head but that's the kind of "bias" you get when your conference has won 8 of the last 9 national championships or whatever the number is. Do I think the conference as a whole is overrated...yes. But I do think Miss State and Auburn deserve to be in the top 4. I would have never voted Ole Miss in though, I just don't think they are that good. They have a good defense but their offense makes Stanford look like TCU/Baylor. If it was me voting, I would have said Miss State, FSU, Auburn and Alabama, based solely off of their last couple of weeks. I would have Oregon 5, TCU 6 and probably Mich State 7.

Bingo. The whole country can solve the SEC bias problem pretty easily: just beat 'em. That's happened so rarely in the last decade though that I mostly roll my eyes at the complaints.

The problem is teams like South Carolina, Georgia, Ole miss, Miss St. etc, are all getting credit every year for Bama and LSU's NC wins. When USC was dominant the pac12 teams didn't get an ounce credit when they beat them. USC got killed for losing one game. Same with Oregon and Furd when Chip and Harbaugh were coaching. One loss and they were done. In the SEC it's the opposite narrative. Bama is coming off a "down" year by their standards, including getting smashed in their bowl game, but Miss St beats them and their completely legitimized in one game. Nevermind them having to put together even ONE good season before they're crowned. In the SEC all you have to do is beat LSU or Bama and you're immediately handed a NC berth.

[DAT_man_again]

I also heard an ESPN reporter say that Oregon's soft non-conference schedule could hurt them because we played Wyoming and South Dakota.

Using Miss St again as an example.....
UT-Martin
Southern Miss
South Alabama
UAB

or Ole Miss
Presbyterian
Memphis
La Lafayette


How are those close to being good compared to our non-conference? Let alone the fact that we play an extra league game.

Which reporter was it? They are on meth. We have the best non conference win out of anyone in the country.

[lukeyrid13]

^ Holly Rowe on Duck insider last night.

I wonder how many P5 teams have a tougher non-conference slate than we did. Most everyone schedules at least two to three patsies(4 in SEC).

[Duck07]

I know that next year Georgia should be taken to task by pollsters/committee for backing out of our game to play ULM, Southern, and Georgia Southern all at home.

Also, prior to getting MSU, weren't we having to replace another team for this years schedule that had cancelled a few years back as well?

These things should get brought up as well by the committee. UGA didn't cancel with us because they were afraid they wouldn't be any good at the time. They cancelled because we no longer looked like a pushover to them and a Home and Away series might blemish their image.

[lukeyrid13]

^ K-State cancelled their series with us.

[SuperDuck]

I know that next year Georgia should be taken to task by pollsters/committee for backing out of our game to play ULM, Southern, and Georgia Southern all at home.

Also, prior to getting MSU, weren't we having to replace another team for this years schedule that had cancelled a few years back as well?

These things should get brought up as well by the committee. UGA didn't cancel with us because they were afraid they wouldn't be any good at the time. They cancelled because we no longer looked like a pushover to them and a Home and Away series might blemish their image.

I'd almost bet money (which I won't ) that SEC Commissioner, Mike Slive, has something to do with Georgia and Texas A&M canceling their home & home series with the Ducks. The fact that Oregon has been elite the past few years and Autzen is a difficult place to play almost certainly are a factor. Still, a loss at Autzen would be acceptable in most circles because of Oregon's recent success.

On the other hand, what if the Ducks went to Georgia and Texas A&M and WON one or both of those games? This wouldn't be like a neutral site game. It would be Oregon going down "between the hedges" and at the home of the "12th man" and laying the wood.

Slive couldn't take that chance. It would potentially tarnish the image of the conference and have many fans and media questioning whether the SEC really is the best conference in the country. They can take all of the weak schedule arguments and throw their championship rings at us. But if we won home and home series (or even split them) against their best teams they'd look mortal, and Slive couldn't allow that.

Things may change in the next couple years as Mike Slive is retiring and the Big-10 and ACC are going to be playing a 9 game schedule like us and the Big-12. Hopefully we'll start getting some of these matchups that the fans want to see so much. If they took away some of those FCS opponents and made them play a full conference schedule with no FCS teams to lean on, they might just look mortal after all.