Oregon football has nation's 5th-toughest schedule in 2024, per ESPN

If you haven't noticed by now, college football is back. Florida State and Georgia Tech kicked off the 2024 season in Dublin, Ireland, on Saturday afternoon and it's safe to say everyone is excited.

Oregon fans were actually treated to some surprise hype during ESPN College GameDay before the season-opening contest as Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard picked the Ducks to win the national title this season and Nick Saban even said that they were one of the two best teams in the nation along with Georgia.

There was another mention of Oregon in the actual game broadcast as ESPN posted the "toughest schedules" in college football for the 2024 season and the Ducks were sitting at No. 5.

With the fifth-toughest schedule in the nation, experts like Herbstreit and Howard still believe that the Ducks will win the national title this season and Saban, too, is high on this team to make the playoff and content for a championship.

It's fair to say that this team has one of the nation's five toughest schedules if you look at the Big Ten slate along with Texas Tech and Boise State in non-conference play.

When non-conference play wraps up, the Ducks will face UCLA on the road to start BigTen play before hosting Michigan State and Ohio State and then getting a tricky matchup at Purdue. Road games against Michigan and Wisconsin also remain on the schedule and Oregon will host Maryland, Illinois, and Washington.

This schedule, while tough, is going to be more than manageable for the Ducks and if they can take care of the home games and win a big one at Michigan, I think they'll be headed for a Big Ten title game appearance.

The schedule is tough, but these Ducks are built for it.