Dan Lanning and his players performed so well to start this season that Oregon fans forgot this was a young team in a rebuilding/reloading year, a team that had sent 13 guys to the NFL. Expectations ratcheted up quickly after five decisive wins and the double overtime gut check at Penn State.
It became easy to forget that this team needed to grow, that it had question marks. A great Indiana team laid those flaws bare. The offensive line, quarterback and young running backs have to learn as a group how to recognize and respond to pressure and simulated pressure.
The secondary has to bring its level of play up to the level of their marvelous freshman corner Brandon Finney. A lead running back has to emerge. Journeyman linebackers have to get every ounce out of their ability.
Fans forgot, understandably, that 5-1 was the reasonable expectation for the Ducks start this year. That's easy to do starting 5-0. The test just came in a different week than folks expected.
Like many teams in college football, Oregon has a gauntlet ahead of them. No. 5 Ole Miss has to travel to No. 9 Georgia this Saturday, for example. The Ducks have to bounce back from a painful loss and travel 2,500 miles to Rutgers, a middling team with a rifle-arm passer and two good receivers.
They had better pay attention. After that they host Wisconsin, which might play like cornered alley cats with their coach in jeopardy, or with a new sense of abandon if he's fired before then.
If their playoff/national championship dreams survive those minor trials, they have to go 5-1 in the second half of the season with a road game at Iowa, a Friday night game on short rest against Minnesota, then finish with a couple of potent offenses and troublesome matchups home versus USC and at Washington.
The Trojans and Huskies would like nothing better than to knock "That Team Out West" out of the playoffs.
If they handle all that, this is what could await them in the College Football Playoff:
💀 Goodnight https://t.co/A6MiUgnftg
— Hightop Oregon (@HightopOregon) October 13, 2025
This mock bracket from Andy Staples of On3 Sports puts it in stark relief. If they survive the tests that await them over the rest of this Big Ten season, Oregon could face Georgia, Ohio State and Miami in the playoff, the current No. 9, No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country.
That's what a national championship requires of a team in the current era.
After all the resilience, speed and character the Ducks showed in their opening five wins, the Oregon fan family (this writer included) got all over their skis about how good this team could be, what a fantastic season might unfold in 2025.
That's still all true. As Dan Lanning said after the 30-20 loss to the Hoosiers, all of the goals they had in the beginning are still in front of them.
It's just important to know how big those goals are, and what it will require of them.
This might not be the year when all of this happens. But it's certain that Dan Lanning is the coach to make it happen.