Sports Illustrated Best Games of 2014: Oregon Ducks Featured Twice
The 2014 College Football Season is a few short weeks away and with it being the first year of an official College Football Playoff teams will jostle throughout the season for position. Among those teams looking for a coveted place in the first College Football Playoff are the Oregon Ducks with Heisman Trophy Candidate Quarterback Marcus Mariota. The folks over at Sports Illustrated took a look at the Top games for the upcoming season and Oregon was listed in two of the matchups(three if you count the ‘others to watch’ category). The team listed there is a bit of a surprise to me, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
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The first game is, of course, the most anticipated non-conference matchup of the year with Oregon hosting Michigan State on Saturday, September 6th(3:30pm PT FOX). The defensive minded Spartans enter Eugene looking to slow down one of the top(and fastest) offenses in the country. The second matchup is between two powerhouses for the 2014 season with the UCLA Bruins. Both Oregon and UCLA boast Quarterbacks looking to compete for a spot in the College Football Playoffs. The third matchup, that at the moment, appears to be a second tier game surprisingly involves the Stanford Cardinal.
After a battle that went down to the wire last season and almost saw an Oregon Ducks comeback on the farm for a victory, these two teams have had battles the last several years and the one on November 2nd in Eugene will be no different. When the calendar turns to November this game will get all the attention it deserves.
For now the focus for the Oregon Ducks is South Dakota. The season starts on Saturday, August 30th when the Ducks host the Coyotes at 7:30 pm Pacific Time on Pac-12 Networks.