Even with a heavy dose of roster turnover (sound familiar), Montana State is ranked 2nd in the FCS preseason top 25 poll.

Last season, Idaho was ranked 4th in the FCS preseason poll and ...

FCS Football Rankings - Stats Perform FCS Top 25 | NCAA.com

I get what you're saying Jon, I really do, but this should still be a blowout. I don't think we'll suffer the same sort of problems on the offensive line, namely we won't have a walk on playing center of all positions. If we come out flat and have a difficult time, that's completely on the coaches not having the players ready for the season.

I would not be surprised to see a one possession lead at the halftime, but I'll be very disappointed if this isn't at least a 3 touchdown win.

We generally are deeper, bigger, and faster than teams at this level.

I will say that the Autzen crowd is generally somewhat reserved for these types of games. It won’t be nearly as intense at Autzen for this game, when compared to when SUC comes to Eugene, later in the season.

I think our defense will be excited to hit someone other than their own teammates, and keep the bobcat offense in check. Which gives our offense some solid reps against a decent team.

Should be a good opening test for the team.

If this team has playoff ambitions then it should be a 21 point win at least. The calibar of athlete is just night and sh between the two.

Montana State will be well coached which will also give Lanning an opportunity to out coach his opponent and not just brute force the game with superior players.

Ohio State and Ryan Day typically just brute force their way to victories with better players which is why they lost in Autzen to Oregon. Though they did come prepared to play and coach in the Rose Bowl and the results were different.

But Lanning needs to continue to work on all aspects of the game. Offense, defense, special teams and coaching. Montata State has good coaches and will give him and his staff and opportunity to improve as well.

I think the offensive line will be better to open the season for one reasons.

Depth! Last season due to injuries to Bedford and Iuli absolutely killed the depth before the season started. Oregon has more depth and I'm sure is preparing better. This season I'm sure the coaches are going to know every line up and backup line up for the offensive line.

Oregon also has probably 7 or 8 linemen who will play in the rotation this year. Sure they had some holes and some depth problems at the end of last season which is why they went into the portal and if you're going portal shopping you're going to buy the best players possible. Which is why they got the best linemen out of the portal when I think they probably had a starting squad on the team pre-portal but no depth.

Lanning always treats the portal as a way to upgrade the team and not just fill with bodies.

Always find it interesting how the western states dominate the FCS polls year in and year out.

The 2025 coaches poll top ten has one each from Rhode Island and Illinois, two from Texas, and the rest from out west. Not too many P5s willing to chance a first game struggle against a highly motivated lower division top ten opponent.

Aside from Oregon, I found only the Huskies and Oklahoma having scheduled first games from that group.

Edited Saturday at 07:12 PM2 days by Washington Waddler
extra word

2 hours ago, Drake said:

Autzen crowd is generally somewhat reserved for these types of games.

Plus school is not in session yet.

Begs the question if it's better to start vs somebody you should beat easily or if you should start off with a banger to test your mettle quickly. In the old days an early loss would bury, but as Notre Dame proved, you can lose to a lower level squad at home and still make the playoff.

Montana St. is no guaranteed win.

We start a new qb, new wr's, and a young unproven bunch of linebackers, not to mention a new safety.

Sure, these guys are all studs but still have much to learn at game speed.

The Bobcats are very well coached.

Football is a team sport.

A missed read, a missed tackle or a missed block, could lead to this game being much closer then we would like.

Btw, do we even know for sure who is starting qb?

1 hour ago, DanLduck said:

Montana St. is no guaranteed win.

Never underestimate an opponent. DL and his assistants are top notch coaches as well.

However, If games are won in the trenches, then just glance at the MS roster. They have 5 players at 300 lbs, or more…Oregon has 22.

Oregon has never had this many bigs this size, along with NFL bound DE’s. I also trust Tez Johnson’s assessment of Dante Moore, and the receivers that are up next. ( not sure why this is so huge…lol)

This will not be a push over opponent. Last year, we were not prepared for our first game vs Idaho. We squeaked by and then we squeaked by Boise State. I hate to remember how we finished last season. New QB, new offensive line, will need time to gel and this is not necessarily the best potential opener for our DUCKS. However DUCKS favored by 25.5 points.

Sagarin last year rated the top FCS teams at:

#37 South Dakota State

#45 Montana State

#68 South Dakota

#91 UC Davis

#112 Montana

#117 Idaho

Do I see this as maybe a bit high, especially if they had to play a full FBS schedule? Possibly.

However, the top FCS programs somewhere between maybe 50 to 80? I certainly would listen to an argument. If Montana State ends up a top 4 FCS team this year, arguably they rate as an opponent competitive with the likes of the 2024 versions of: Oklahoma State, Michigan State, Mississippi State, West Virginia, Cal, Syracuse, etc.

Certainly show up and play poorly, they likely will hang around. Hang around long enough and catch a few breaks, possibly a real problem.

It should be fine, I don't think Oregon has ever lost to an FCS opponent at Autzen, even in the down years. However, if one wanted to pull up the 2004 loss opening the season at Autzen to 3-8 Indiana? That was a Duck squad with some dudes: Haloti Ngata, Devan Long, Anthony Trucks, Kellen Clemens, Demetrius Williams, Tim Day, Adam Snyder, Enoka Lucas, Terrence Whitehead, and others. That Indiana team didn't have a single NFL draft pick that year (and had one, a WR in the third round, the next year).

20 hours ago, Washington Waddler said:

Always find it interesting how the western states dominate the FCS polls year in and year out.

The 2025 coaches poll top ten has one each from Rhode Island and Illinois, two from Texas, and the rest from out west. Not too many P5s willing to chance a first game struggle against a highly motivated lower division top ten opponent.

Aside from Oregon, I found only the Huskies and Oklahoma having scheduled first games from that group.

I've thought about this, and I think there are a few reasons:

1. There are no big cities and a lot of people went to smaller schools, and therefore prefer the smaller college atmosphere. I went to a small 1A high school and Oregon Tech at 2500 students was WAY more appealing to me than OSU with 10000 students for my engineering degree.

2. For the Dakotas and Montana schools, they are the highest level schools in the state. If you want to play higher than FCS you have to leave your home state, and the scholarship may not even cover the out of state tuition increase.

3. There is little national recruiting going on in these states where the talent density is so low due to the small populations, so G6 type of talent can be missed.

Long story short these schools simply have higher talent levels than other FCS schools that only get leftovers from G6 and even P5 programs out of high school.

'Don't worry about Montana State - the time to do so is coming.' Dan Lanning

Yardbarker

Oregon Ducks' Dan Lanning Reveals Who Won Scrimmage in Fa...

The Oregon Ducks had their second scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday, and Oregon coach Dan Lanning gave a rather positive update on both the offense and the defense when speaking to the media afterwar