Three Oregon Duck teams ranked among best in CFP era
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The College Football Playoff is the pinnacle of the sport, with the nation’s best teams congregating in a (as of 2024) 12-team field to decide the national champion. From 2014-2023, the nation’s four best teams were selected to be in the playoff field.
The Oregon Ducks have been one of the most successful programs in terms of making the CFP, with their three appearances tying for the fifth-most. But none of the Ducks teams that made it crack the top 20 of all teams to make the CFP, according to ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s ranking of every CFP participant.
The 2025 edition of Oregon comes in right in the middle, at No. 32 of out 64 total teams.
“Oregon’s 2025 outfit combines the offensive upside we’re used to seeing from the Ducks — especially from a run game featuring Noah Whittington, Jordon Davison and Dierre Hill Jr. — with a Big Ten-level defense capable of driving rock-fight wins,” Connelly wrote. “Dan Lanning‘s team fell only to Indiana in the regular season, but of the teams that didn’t receive a first-round bye this year, the Ducks are the most likely to make a big run.”
Their first opponent will be the No. 12-ranked James Madison Dukes, who are all the way down at No. 60 on the list. Connelly notes that, as the Sun Belt champion and the fifth-highest ranked conference champion, the Dukes earned their spot — despite their low chance of upsetting Oregon.
Eight spots ahead of the 2025 Ducks are the Marcus Mariota-led 2014 Ducks at No. 24, who defeated Florida State in the first ever CFP game before falling to Ohio State in the national championship.
The 2024 Ducks were next at No. 23, as they went 13-0, won the big Ten title and claimed the No. 1 seed in the first year of the expanded playoff.
“In their first Big Ten season, the Ducks won their first 13 games behind Dillon Gabriel‘s ruthlessly efficient passing, a 1,200-yard season from Jordan James and one of the best pass defenses in the country,” Connelly wrote. “They beat Ohio State and Penn State and earned the No. 1 seed in the CFP, but luck of the draw was not on their side: They were swarmed by a revenge-minded Buckeyes team in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal.”
The draw simply wasn’t kind to the Ducks, as their season came to a close relatively quickly after a first half blowout at the hands of Ohio State.
And though the 2025 Ducks are ranked lower than each of the other two times the program has been in the CFP, they may have the best chance of winning it all. Their path — if they win and advance — is set to be James Madison, Texas Tech, Indiana and the winner of the other side of the bracket, which may very well be the Buckeyes.
Texas Tech is the Big 12 champion and earned their bye, but it presents as a very winnable game for the Ducks that they may even be favored in. Then, a matchup with the Hoosiers, whom they lost to in the regular season and could avenge just like Ohio State did with Oregon a season ago. From there, it would be the national title, where anything can happen.
With a nucleus of quarterback Dante Moore and talented playmakers on both offense and defense plus dominance in the trenches, this year’s Ducks have a chance to prove Connelly wrong and establish themselves as the best Oregon team in over a decade.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Where the 2025 Ducks land amongst all participants in CFP history
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