Winning a national championship is the peak of college football.
That’s it — straight up. It’s the ultimate achievement. One team, every year, gets to claim that they did what no one else could. They reached the mountaintop.
Except, that’s not the most difficult task in the sport.
No — the most difficult thing to do is find continuity. Just one team (Georgia) has successfully defended its title in the College Football Playoff era. Only eight National Football League teams have ever gone back-to-back.
That stems from an insatiable desire for instant success; one that will see the successful teams poached for staff and players in an effort to grab a slice of their glory. A rolling conveyor belt of players prevents the six or seven-year mega contracts that stabilize professional teams.
How does Oregon — a historically successful team, but one without sustained success in the College Football Playoff era — continue to challenge for a title without losing that ability to consistently contend?
Ducks head coach Dan Lanning explained.
“It’s a new team,” Lanning said after April’s Spring Game. “Anything that happened last year has nothing to do with next year other than the continuity of the coaching staff.”
It’s easy to assume that this year’s edition of Oregon’s men in green is just a recast version of last year’s success story. Transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel could be pinned as a like-for-like Bo Nix replacement. Former Texas A&M University receiver Evan Stewart fits into the mold of speedy, slight receivers that Oregon receivers coach Junior Adams favors.
It can’t just be that.
The Ducks’ offense has more tape on it than ever before. It’s one of the biggest reasons that consistency is so hard to come by in sport: once one team starts to figure out how to attack your weaknesses, it’s out there for everyone to see. The system has to adapt and evolve. Change is demanded.
That doesn’t mean that last year was a wash — instead, Lanning said after the Spring Game, “You want to see growth, you want to see them keep developing…raising their own standard of play. You know what winning football is to them. I think we have a group that’ll embrace that.”
What the Ducks did exceptionally well in the offseason was develop a roster that will maintain those key tenets of their philosophy — a dynamic, fast-paced offense that prioritizes a passing attack in order to enable a revamped running game. They retained 100-carry back Jordan James alongside a returning Noah Whittington to anchor the backfield.
This is a curious year. Ignore everything coming out of the Oregon camp; the transition to the Big Ten conference will be a change. It’s one that the Ducks are fit for, yes, but no longer will they be able to rely on their ability to put up (a 2023 average) 41.4 points per game.
“It’s not rocket science,” Ducks offensive coordinator Will Stein said after a fall practice. “Everybody wants air yards and all this BS crap. Let’s score touchdowns. How do you score touchdowns? Get it to your playmakers fast. That’s it…When our quarterbacks figure that out, like Bo [Nix] did last year, you throw for 45 touchdowns and 4500 yards and you score a ton of points.”
But the team that did that had flaws. Teams knew how to beat the 2023 Oregon Ducks — the Washington Huskies did it twice last year. What they don’t yet know is how to pick apart the 2024 edition.
The Ducks’ goal is a national title. Don’t get it confused. What lies in the (possibly very near) future, though, is a level of notoriety and respect that only the constant contenders demand.