After several weeks of wins, Oregon Football finally made a move into the AP Top Ten and into a more important conversation.
The Oregon Ducks showed on Saturday night why they deserve to be where they are with win over Washington State in the final minute of the game. Despite Justin Herbert not having his best game, the Senior QB did what he needed to do in the waning moments of the fourth quarter to help the team to a win.
The victory over Washington State helped Oregon move up four spots in the latest Associated Press poll, their largest jump this season. Of course, there were some top ten losses last week as well including Auburn, who beat the Ducks to open the season as well as Oklahoma. The Tigers fell two spots to 11th and now have to losses on the season.
The top five shifted slightly. LSU is now number one followed by Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, and Penn State. The Nittany Lions and Buckeyes will faceoff before the season concludes, but more importantly, the top ten ranking puts Oregon Football into a larger conversation.
Oregon is joined by Florida, Georgia, Utah, and Oklahoma as one-loss team that have their own respective reasons to why they belong, but the Ducks lead the group entering this week and as I have said all season, they just need to win and the Pac-12 North is still the goal. Everything else will take care of itself.
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If Oregon and Utah are both in the top ten at the end of the season and both play in the Pac-12 Championship, the committee will have a decision to make. In my mind, the winner of a top ten matchup would be worthy of a spot in the College Football Playoff, but of course, we’re not there yet and I do not sit on the College Football Playoff Committee.
Utah is also ranked in the AP Top Ten this week at number 9. The rest of the Pac-12 is not ranked, but USC had 11 votes this week in the poll and would place 31st. Washington would be 29th.
Oregon must continue to take care of business and heads to USC this week to take on the Trojans. (5 pm Pacific Time, FOX)