What is the measure of greatness?
Oregon won the Big Ten Championship in their first year in the league with a 13-1 record, ranked No. 1 for seven weeks and the top seed in the College Football Playoff. That's a successful season but an incomplete one.
They didn't capture that first elusive national championship.
Dan Lanning wants to be an elite team and a look at the numbers, even the traditional numbers, show where Oregon fell short of the playoff finalists.
1. The offensive line lacked consistency
In 2024 the Oregon offensive line gave up 21 sacks, 1.5 a game, ranking 45th in the country. In 2022 and 2023, five each year.
The Standard: In 16 games, Ohio State gave up 16
2. The running game lacked explosiveness
Oregon had just three runs of 30 yards or more in 2024, tied for 116th in the nation. The Ducks had 68 runs of 10 yards or more, 51st.
The Standard: Playoff finalist Notre Dame had running plays of 30+ yards 18 times, 83 runs of 10 yards or more, 4th.
Of the Ducks' three explosive runs, one was by Dillon Gabriel on a keeper, another was edge rusher Jordan Burch on a fake punt.
3. The defense was not elite.
Oregon's defensive ranks, compared to playoff finalists
Scoring defense 19.4 16th Ohio State 12.9 1st
Yards per game 315.9 36th OSU 254.6 1st
Yards per play 5.14 15th OSU 4.19 1st
Rushing YPC 4.14 66th OSU 2.65 2nd
Passing YPG 185.9 25th OSU 185.9 3rd
Opponent passer rating 113.84 17th Notre Dame 104.4 1st
With early-round draft picks Derrick Harmon and Jordan Burch the Oregon defense produced 40 sacks in 2024, good for 14th in the country. The Buckeyes destroyed opponents in this area, racking up 53, include eight in the Rose Bowl.
Oregon's defense had particularly bad days in big games and against top opponents. At the Big Ten Championship game, they surrendered 523 yards and 37 points in a 45-37 victory. In the Rose Bowl, the Buckeyes rolled up 41 points, 34 by halftime, outgaining the Ducks 500-276.
4. Scoring is down, compared to Oregon's most explosive teams
In 2024 Oregon went to a more deliberate pace, partly to aid the defense. They don't run tempo the way the national championship finalist teams did in 2010 or 2014:
Oregon offensive points per game:
2010 47.4
2014 45.4
2024 34.9
2019 LSU, national champions: 48.4
2020 Alabama, national champions: 48.5
It is a different era with rule changes designed to shorten games (when all they would have to do is eliminate commercial-kickoff-commercial) but the Ducks are less explosive and less exciting than they were in the days of LaMichael James and Marcus Mariota.
It could be that Moore-to-Moore, Moore-to-Stewart and Makhi Hughes to the house can put some of the lightning back in the Quack Attack, at least to a degree. The 2023 Bo Nix team cranked out 44.2 points a game, a touchdown better than last season.