David Pollack predicts Oregon to take a step back in 2025

Oregon excelled in its first season of Big Ten play, as it rolled through the conference and downed Penn State in the Big Ten Championship to earn the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. The Ducks however fell to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, casting a disappointing end to what was an incredible regular season

Major players from that team however have departed from the program, including Heisman finalist quarterback Dillon Gabriel, star DT Derrick Harmon, OT Josh Cornerly Jr. and starting running back Jordan James.

Due to this uncertainty, college football analyst David Pollack picked Oregon as the Big Ten program that will suffer a bit of a step back this season on his “See Ball Get Ball with David Pollack” podcast.

“This to me was very easy, but I may be looking at it a different way. But it’s Oregon,” Pollack said. “Oregon goes into the conference and they go undefeated. They look like the best team in the country. They have zero losses in the Big Ten, count ’em. Zero. Like, took care of business and won the league. Walked into the league and was like ‘I thought this was supposed to be difficult? This is pretty easy. This Big Ten thing ain’t really that big of a deal. We’ve been playing good football for a while now, ya’ll just didn’t know about it.”

Oregon‘s schedule last season was no cake walk either, as it won both regular season games against College Football Playoff teams (Boise State and Ohio State) and downed reigning National Champion Michigan, No. 20 Illinois and rival Oregon State in Corvallis. In their 13 wins, the average margin of victory was 18.2 points.

“I think they lose at least two games this year which means that’s a huge step down,” Pollack said. “That’s obviously a big step backwards. Are they still gonna be great? Yes. They’re still going to be a really good football team and be in the mix but they’re gonna go backwards big time.”

With a new quarterback (UCLA transfer Dante Moore) at the helm, the Ducks will face two teams from the 2024 College Football Playoff in the regular season (Indiana and Penn State). Dan Lanning and his team however avoided Ohio State and Michigan, and won’t play either of those teams unless it occurs in the postseason.

The new look Ducks will look to silence the doubters when they open the 2025 season on August 30 against Montana State.