The trap game on the Oregon schedule

They're all trap games.

Every single time a college football game takes the field, especially a team that has had as much success as the Ducks, defending conference champions, ranked in the Top 25 in each of the last four years, 7,253 uniform combinations, rich, cool and funded by Nike and Phil Knight, a team is always a target.

Oregon is both envied and hated around the Northwest and the Big Ten. The Ucks. The University of Zero. Nike U. The jealousy and resentment runs deep, partly because Oregon just has more fun than everybody else, more style, and the best mascot in sports.

A 45-10 record over the last four years doesn't endear them either. When Oregon is rolling, the final score is 42-6. Or 49-14. Or they sack UW's "darkhorse Heisman Trophy candidate" ten times. Excellence engenders bitterness. We like it that way.

Oregon is the kind of school that makes the NCAA rewrite the rules, because they keep finding ways to push them. Now the referee stands over the football before the snap of the ball. Now the time is adjusted if a coach puts too many men on the field. Oregon did that. They are always doing something.

For years now the Ducks have been cooler, smarter and faster than any of their traditional rivals. It brings more juice to those games than anyone outside the locker room can imagine. Teams want to beat their opponents. Against the Ducks, it gets personal. Water bottles are thrown. Legs get twisted in the pileups.

Every team that enters Autzen Stadium wants to reduce it to silence and despair. Few succeed.

Even so, there are some pinch points on the schedule this season that present an extra challenge. In Week 5 Dan Lanning flies with his team to State College, Pennsylvania to take on conference favorite Penn State, a prime time game with 106,000 fans screaming "We ARE...Penn State" dressed in white.

The Nittany Lions, with a loaded senior backfield and a talented defense, are coming off a bye. They open the season with Nevada, Florida International, and Villanova. They'll be 3-0 and quarterback Drew Allar will no doubt be a Heisman candidate.

James Franklin's best team ever is currently favored by 4.5 at FanDuel. He has a new defensive coordinator in Jim Knowles, stolen from Ohio State over the winter. The last time Knowles schemed for the Oregon offense, he demolished it, cruising to a 34-0 lead before Oregon put together two first downs.

While the clash with PSU doesn't qualify for the traditional definition of a trap game, an UNEXPECTED or underestimated challenge, it presents many pitfalls. Most fans have already penciled this in as the Ducks one likely loss.

A strong Indiana team coming into Autzen two weeks later (after a two-week layoff, the first bye of the year) isn't a gimme. New quarterback Fernando Mendoza (3,000 yards and 16 touchdowns at Cal last year) should cook in Curt Cignetti's RPO offense.

After that, the Ducks have the longest road trip of the year, to Rutgers.

Later in the year in November Oregon plays Iowa on November 8 at Kinnick Stadium in what could be a night game. The TV windows haven't been sorted out and won't be until closer to game time.

If they survive that, a sneaky-tough game follows, because on FRIDAY night November 14, the Ducks host Minnesota who is coming off a bye after playing Michigan State at home on November 1. A bye versus a short week in a 6 p.m. PT start on national TV: That's a setup for an upset.

The Gophers were 8-5 last season under P.J. Fleck, 44, now in his 9th year in Minneapolis. He's reached 9-4 twice and 11-2 in 2019, so his teams regularly overachieve. They've won all six bowl games during his tenure.

Fleck is known for fiery pregame oratory and a strong running game. Tailback Darius Taylor ran for 986 yards and 10 touchdowns last season.

They have an impact player on the other side in edge rusher Jaxon Howard, 6-4, 245, a transfer last year from LSU. Last season the Gopher defense ranked No. 4 in the Big Ten at 16.9 points per game and 4.76 yards per play.

This game is especially tricky because it's sandwiched between Iowa and USC in November when the weather is colder and a team is tired and beat up. The stretch drive of Iowa, Minnesota, USC and Washington is the grind of the season, though Lanning and the Ducks have their bye on November 1 to get ready for it.

But they're all trap games. The only sound way to approach the schedule is to be like Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars, suspecting a trap behind every image of the radar screen.

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