Oregon Ducks Preview

Pac-10 teams aren’t known for getting much respect, and the Oregon Ducks have been the victim of this for the past couple years. Despite consecutive 10-1 seasons and top 8 finishes in the BCS, Oregon continues to be left out of the BCS picture. It seems as if the only way the Ducks can actually earn a BCS berth is to actually go undefeated, and overcoming the hurdle of USC alone makes that an extremely difficult task each year.

Oregon will face an uphill battle all year if they want to finally make that BCS achievement. They lost a lot of talent last year, especially their highly touted defensive lineman Haloti Ngata, and that major loss alone is enough to set Oregon back quite a bit. Oregon returns 6 players on offense and 5 on defense, and this experience is going to be heavily relied upon to help the younger players get situated and to get the team clicking before entering a surprisingly tough Pac-10 in 2006.

Oregon’s biggest hope of being successful in 2006 is to rely on the big boys in the trenches along the offensive front, since they return all of their offensive linemen. These five will be relied upon to bust open some big holes for talented running back Jonathan Stewart and give some time in the pocket to Dennis Dixon, a quarterback who must fill the big shoes left behind my Kellen Clemens.

As has been said, the trip is going to be hard fought and an uphill battle all year long for the Ducks. They face tough opponents in Cal, UCLA, Arizona State, Fresno State, and, of course, the Trojans of USC. That, along with any other possible upstart Pac-10 teams, such as Arizona, make it so that Oregon will be in a tougher boat than they are used to as they try to fight for a Pac-10 title, or at least second place.