Where does Oregon football fall in the way-too-early 2024 Big Ten rankings?

Oregon fans, the time has come, we are moving over to the Big Ten. Finally. The Ducks get to host Ohio State at Autzen Stadium and travel to the Big House in Ann Arbor – the moral of the story is, it’ll be a fun 2024. 

Oh, and the team still gets to play little brother Oregon State, don’t worry.

Following a preview of a big conference matchup in the National Championship game, Michigan and Washington will be good next year but they won’t be top dogs.

But where will the Ducks land amid talented rosters and competitive schedules?

The bottom 8 of the Big Ten:

18. Northwestern Wildcats

17. Purdue Boilermakers

16. Indiana Hoosiers

15. Minnesota Golden Gophers

14. Illinois Fighting Illinis

13. Michigan State Spartans

12. Rutgers Scarlet Knights

11. Maryland Terrapins

Chip Kelly’s Bruins haven’t been… great. Or good. And now they’ve lost their 5-star prospect quarterback, Dante Moore.

Kelly has some major rebuilding, and maybe rethinking, to do heading into the 2024 season but I think that with his coaching resume and the Bruins’ hunger to bounce back from a disastrous 2023, UCLA will do just fine in the Big Ten.

UCLA will more likely than not see a few freshmen fill in at starting positions. 

Two quarterbacks, Henry Hasselbeck and Karson Gordon will be vying for the starting spot while their O-Line will be filled with a few freshmen peers. Marquis Thorpe-Taylor, Jensen Somerville, and Mark Schroller will all look to start on the offensive line.

Hasselbeck and Gordon will also likely be joined by freshman running back Cameron Jones, a 3-star recruit out of California.

The Bruins can easily push their way into a top-10 position in the conference.

With a class ranked 24th nationally but 7th in the Big Ten, I see Wisconsin having a surprisingly good season in 2024. Consisting of eight 4-star and fourteen 3-star recruits, head coach Luke Fickel will have a strong freshman class to coach up.

The Badgers capped off their 2023 season with a close loss to #12 LSU to finish with a record of 7-6. The performance highlighted the offensive skills the team had but Wisconsin will have to replace quarterback Tanner Mordecai and running back Braelon Allen.

Mordecai and Allen accounted for 25 touchdowns out of the team's 32 total finishes in the endzone. 

These will be big gaps to fill but the Badgers have redshirt senior Tyler Van Dyke at quarterback as well as a sixth-year senior in Chez Mellusi at running back.

Luckily Van Dyka will have three strong receivers as targets with redshirt junior Will Pauling, junior Vinny Anthony, and senior Bryson Green likely being the starters.

USC is another in the long list of Big Ten schools who will be losing their starting quarterback. Caleb Williams declared for the NFL ahead of the Trojans’ bowl game versus Louisville. 

Head coach Lincoln Riley is no stranger to rebuilding though, with only two years under his belt with the program. Following his success at Oklahoma, Riley was named the USC head coach with the hopes that he would push the Trojans to the next level.

With a 7-5 season in 2023, the team seems far from glory though.

Riley has been able to earn a couple of wins from the transfer portal in defensive linemen Anthony Lucas from Texas A&M and Bear Alexander from Georgia as well as linebacker Mason Cobb out of Oklahoma State.

These additions will hopefully help rebuild the defense that after starting 6-0 in this past season, allowed massive underdogs to almost pull off upsets over the Trojans.

The Cornhuskers have picked up two big transfers from the portal that were fairly underrated on their previous rosters.

Wideout Isaiah Neyor, coming from Texas and previously Wyoming, will be joining the receiving core. Neyor will be joined on the offense by former Oregon running back Dante Dowdell.

Dowdell didn’t get the opportunity to see many snaps for the Ducks as he rode the bench behind Bucky Irving, Noah Whittington, Jordan James, and Jayden Limar. However, the transfer should add quickness to the Hawkeye offense that struggled to land any high school talent for the fullback position.

Neyor built up his resume at Wyoming in 2021, bringing in 44 receptions for 878 yards and 12 touchdowns that season. He only had one reception with the Horns in 2023 for 14 yards. His skillset should be valuable to a thinned-out Hawkeye offense.

The team that punted the ball more than anyone else in 2023 will be back with a vengeance in 2024.

The defensive strength will return and most likely be better than the year before. With linebacker Nick Jackson and safety Quinn Schulte returning, the defense has clear leaders on that front. The special teams unit should be just fine despite losing NCAA record-setting punter Tory Taylor.

The part that needs to be reshaped, but I don’t think needs to be entirely rebuilt, is the Hawkeye offense.

Offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz’s contract ended after the 2023 season and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more assistants leaving the program before the start of next year.

The good news is that the starting quarterback Cade McNamara will be back and with more experience under his belt, McNamara should be a good leader. Iowa will also have senior leadership from running back Leshon Williams.

The receiving core will still be fairly fresh but tight end Luke Lachey is here to stay and “leave a legacy.”

Yes, I have the Huskies at number 5 even after the trouncing they experienced in the National Championship, and here’s why:

UW’s toughest games in the conference will mostly be at home and they get a huge home-field advantage up in Seattle (i.e. the team’s regular season win over the Ducks in 2023).

Playing host to both Michigan and USC at home will help them level out the playing field and, more likely than not, lead to them beating those two powerhouses.

On the road, the Huskies will have to face Penn State and Oregon – two locations that also boast massive support for their home teams. 

Much like Michigan, Washington will be in a rebuilding era after losing quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and its receiving core.

The good news for the Dubs is that they will have their nearly-impossible-to-beat head coach Kalen DeBoer, who is 104-12 all-time as an HC.

Penn State brought in a fairly impressive recruiting class, ranked 16th nationally, with one 5-star recruit and eight 4-stars. Not to mention, starting quarterback Drew Allar will be back for his senior year with the Lions.

Head coach James Franklin will have most of his starting lineup back as the team was relatively young in the 2023 season. 

The best news for Penn State is that they have a fairly easy away schedule. Facing USC, Wisconsin, Purdue, and Minnesota on the road.

However, the Lions do have to host Ohio State and Washington back-to-back. Luckily they’ll have the massive home-field advantage that is always prevalent at Beaver Stadium.

Franklin, who is 112-54 overall as a head coach, has yet to find his footing in the conference. The Nittany Lions are 88-39 under Franklin, 56-32 in the Big Ten.

The Buckeyes were dominant in 2023, that is until they faced the Wolverines. OSU had gone undefeated, absolutely demolishing most of their competition until they had to play in the Big House and folded.

Michigan was able to hand them a 30-24 loss, Ohio State’s third loss in a row to their rival.

Following the loss to the Wolverines, the transfer portal opened and opt-outs declared for the draft. And in the team’s bowl game against Missouri, Ohio State may have given us a preview of their 2024 season.

Losing 14-3 in a barn burner, Ohio State failed to put any offensive points on the board. Starting quarterback Devin Brown had to ride the bench for most of the game after tweaking his ankle in the first quarter so the team was led by freshman Lincoln Kienholz.

The Buckeyes’ defense still looked strong in the Cotton Bowl however as they forced eight punts including four three-and-outs.

Head coach Ryan Day, whose position was already in the gossip column after the loss to UMich, continued his bowl game struggles.

Day is now 2-4 in bowl appearances with the Buckeyes.

You can only knock a defending national champion so far down the totem pole. And honestly, I’m giving them the second spot in the conference as long as Jim Harbaugh stays.

If the long-time Michigan head coach decides to take his leave and head back to the NFL, I do not believe that the Wolverines will be able to reproduce anywhere near the 15-0 season that they had in 2023.

With J.J. McCarthy and Blake Corum heading to the NFL, Michigan will have to reshape their offensive play which is never easy without a top-10 recruiting class.

In fact, Harbaugh was only able to bring in the 20th-best recruiting class in the nation according to 247Sports.

Without his tried-and-true starters, Harbaugh will have to look elsewhere to put together a championship-winning team again – if he stays in Ann Arbor.

Non-believers can argue with me all they want but I think with the players who head coach Dan Lanning has returning, the top recruiting class in the conference, and the transfer addition of Dillon Gabriel at quarterback, the Ducks will be sitting pretty in 2024.

The team gets a soft launch into the Big Ten as their first conference opponent is a familiar foe, UCLA. While the Ducks will have to flock to Los Angeles for the game, the Bruins aren’t looking strong heading into next season.

The first “big” game for Oregon will be when the team hosts Ohio State at home. 

The Buckeyes will be looking to make a statement following a disappointing 2023 season and after the Ducks defeated them in 2021.

Lanning has both offensive and defensive leaders coming back to play their senior seasons. Patrick Herbert and Terrence Ferguson will fill the starting spots for the tight end position while linebacker Jeffrey Bassa and defensive end Jordan Burch will hold it down in defense.

If he wants to dip into his freshman class: Lanning has the best recruiting group coming into the Big Ten and the class is ranked 4th nationally.

The Ducks do have to travel to Ann Arbor to play against the national champion Michigan Wolverines. However, Michigan won’t look the same without McCarthy or Corum in the offensive lineup.

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