Nationally college football fans and the college football media will have big, extreme reactions to the game Saturday night between No. 6 Oregon at No. 3 Penn State, 4:30 p.m. PT on NBC.
One team will be labeled the conference frontrunner and the other will be dismissed as a soft squad that can't win big games.
For Oregon this is one game and it doesn't have to define them. Win or lose, all their goals remain intact at the end, reaching the college football playoff, returning to the Big Ten Championship, even winning a national title.
This is a young team, and they will grow. Whatever errors they make tonight remain a step in their development. Dante Moore facing a hostile environment in his first competitive road game becomes something he can use the next time he faces one.
There's no disgrace in losing (if that happens) to a No. 3 team in their iconic atmosphere. Most of the pressure that exists falls on the Nittany Lions. They're supposed to win. James Franklin is the coach that's gone 4-20 in Top Ten matchups.
Except for Desmond Howard, the entire ESPN College GameDay panel picked Penn State to win tonight. Pat McAfee even took his shirt off for the PSU crowd. No one wants to see that.
Now the Ducks can play the disrespect card. Dan Lanning can tell them, "No one thinks we have a chance."
As Lanning says, pressure is a privilege. The Ducks have an opportunity to prove the ESPN panel wrong, to leap ahead in their progress. A loss doesn't have to end that progress. While there are no moral victories, they remain on schedule as long as they play sound football and compete.
There's always presssure. #GoDucks pic.twitter.com/rthHu9VTw9
— GoDucks (@GoDucks) September 27, 2025
The White Out is a tremendous college football tradition and Penn State is a good team. It's important to respect the opponent and their achievements as well as their considerable talent, there's nothing to be afraid of.
The Ducks are free to let it rip. As long as they do so, their goals will remain intact. The key thing for them is to maintain their focus on football and executing.