I'll go with a bye into the quarters. One more week to get healthy, one less chance of a loss, less chance of injury (in theory!), rely upon last year's lessons in regard to a long layoff.

We seem to get dinged up in practices as much as games. That's a tough call for me.

Depends. If you're the 5th or 6th seed then I'd take the playoff game. You still get around 3 weeks of rest and your first opponent is either a G6 representative or the lowest P4 team that qualifies.

I would want a playoff game at Autzen, the players & fans deserve it, imo. I think it helps a team get tuned up more and better prepared for the quarter finals.

If we could move up eventually to a number three seed, then I would take the bye. I just don’t want to face Ohio State until the finals…

Have to agree with Charles... Hopefully it would allow Oregon to resurrect a couple of currently unavailable players from injured reserve status.

If not, #5-6 is probably OBD best option.

It could potentially give an opportunity for the reserves to shine.

It would have to do with which bracket path puts us in the most advantageous position. Tend to agree with FD that no Buckeyes until the last game would be best.

First round game at Autzen. Get those injured guys back on the field and warmed up for a good run.

A month off with a bye is a LONG time and for someone like Dak who has missed all of November his last game would have been 2 months ago at that point and now it's against a team that had a warm up game.

Let's have the warm up. Especially if we are the no. 5 seed and will probably need to go throw Ohio State to reach the championship game.

Depends on the year. For THIS season it would be best if the Ducks can back their way into a bye (which they could easily do if either Georgia or Texas Tech lose their conference championship games). They have lots of injuries (Dakorian Moore, GB Jr, Stewart, multiple OL, etc), that I'd take as many days off as possible. It would be great this year because they would potentially be getting a bye WITHOUT having to play the B1G championship game.

But last season the Bye was stupid, because it wasn't a real bye week. When you have to play in the conference championship game, then you'd not actually getting any additional time off, because you had to play an additional game ahead of the playoffs.

2 hours ago, Charles Fischer said:

I just don’t want to face Ohio State until the final

I'm not giving them the W against Indy just yet.

What ultimately matters is the opponent you’re matched up with. As we learned last year, even if you’re perfect, you have no control and could land in a bad matchup with a hot team.

I don’t think a home playoff game at Autzen in late December weather conditions is going to be nearly as sexy as everyone thinks. However, pummeling the ACC or American conference champion is a great use of energy.

Without understanding the full extent of the injury situation, it’s purely speculation on what the doctor is asking for.

On facing Ohio St, I’d rather take them on in a semi-final. If you’re going to catch them with their guard down, that’s the time to do it.

Edited yesterday at 12:33 AM1 day by mikethehiker

No play and knock the rust off. I was at the first PAC 12 Championship Game, not sure anything can get colder.

HOME PO game!

One of Ohio State/Indiana will host the Rose Bowl, with the other hosting the Cotton or Orange Bowl, with the Sugar Bowl reserved for the SEC champ.

Get a win under the belt in Autzen and advance at least one step further in the PO than last season. This is a young football team that will have a tough bowl matchup in the 2nd round in Dallas, Miami, or New Orleans. I want the team to experience at least one PO win.

The semifinal sites this season will be played in the Fiesta and Peach bowls.

Teams from Dixie reap the reward of this so-called PO, a front for a bowl extravaganza.

How times have changed for fans in the last 2 seasons!

As a fan, we used to root for the Ducks to win the PAC and play in the Rose Bowl. Or get an invite to the Fiesta Bowl.

Then the BCS (Or the complete BS vote) and we rooted for the Ducks to make #1 or #2. (Dyer was fricking down)

Then the format expanded so the Top 4 teams were invited. (Destroyed FSU and put Winston on his arse. And then discovered how far we needed to go to compete with tOSU)

In each season we rooted to finish as highly ranked as possible. Angst ruled supreme as others picked the opponents for the beauty contest. And we got left out sometimes.

Then the CFP expands to 12 in 2024. And DL and OBD's deliver a perfect regular season and a BIG Title and reach the #1 seed. Then we learn a valuable lesson as seeds 1-4 lose in the quarter finals. Terrible format, terrible format!

Now this whacked out formula has some of us rooting for OBD's to NOT be ranked in the Top 4.

I have followed CF since 1958 on the radio first, then TV. The only way we could watch the Apple Cup is when the local station covered it. ABC had Michigan vs tOSU first, then UCLA vs USC. No pre-game, no post game! No other football mattered.

Thankfully i moved to Portland in 1984 and was just plain Happy to be a Duck.

In all that time I have rooted for my team to finish first. First........

Until this 2025 season. Strange times. Once we lost to IU that focus changed to just be Top 9. This new 12 team format allows teams and their fans to lose a game or 2 and still have a shot at the CFP. That is plain awesome.

As soon as the CFP cuts back to 8 or expands to 16, then we can eliminate the bye week and get back to rooting for our team to finish as highly ranked as possible. It just seems right!

Sorry for the rant....

GO DUCKS!

12 hours ago, HappyToBeADuck said:

Then we learn a valuable lesson as seeds 1-4 lose in the quarter finals. Terrible format, terrible format!

That’s the problem. The college football playoff format has not been corrected because they are trying to keep the irrelevant bowls alive.

College football should look to the NFL. The top teams get a normal bye week before hosting the next round. Three to four weeks is way too long of a layoff.

Eliminate the conference championship games and go right into the playoffs. Have the higher ranked team host the playoff games. Screw the bowls.

As Joel Klatt says, the college football championship game should be on January 1st at the Rose Bowl every year. I completely agree with him.

In this scenario, Oregon and every other team would be trying their hardest to get a bye. With the current format, I don’t think a bye is adventurous and could be detrimental (just look at the results from last year).

Edited yesterday at 03:04 PM1 day by OregonDucks

From my perspective the Bye is preferable. At #3, Georgia was set up for that. They gain nothing by playing Alabama in the SEC title game (without their all-SEC center no less), and should they lose after having to play this extra game, they could possibly fall far enough to be on the road in the first round of the playoffs. That would be a severe penalty for the "honor" of playing for the SEC Championship IMHO.

Not having to play in the conference championship game, and getting a bye would be a big advantage imo. I think Indiana would have to beat Ohio State, Alabama would have to beat Georgia, and BYU would have to beat Texas Tech for Oregon to get that path.

Georgia has an Alabama problem, so I could see the Tide winning. Indiana is coached well enough to beat Ohio State, I don't like their chances in doing it twice though. Last, and probably the longest shot, is BYU beating Texas Tech. BYU has been playing with fire the last part of their schedule. Being down by two touchdowns to UCF, Cincy, and Iowa State. Sandwiched between getting their doors blown off at home vs Texas Tech.

4 hours ago, GatOrlando said:

Not having to play in the conference championship game, and getting a bye would be a big advantage imo. I think Indiana would have to beat Ohio State, Alabama would have to beat Georgia, and BYU would have to beat Texas Tech for Oregon to get that path.

Georgia has an Alabama problem, so I could see the Tide winning. Indiana is coached well enough to beat Ohio State, I don't like their chances in doing it twice though. Last, and probably the longest shot, is BYU beating Texas Tech. BYU has been playing with fire the last part of their schedule. Being down by two touchdowns to UCF, Cincy, and Iowa State. Sandwiched between getting their doors blown off at home vs Texas Tech.

I would expect Ohio State, Indiana and Georgia to all remain in the the top 4, unless the games are lopsided loses.

If BYU beats Texas Tech (unlikely) then I could see Oregon sneaking into the top 4 in the final college football playoffs rankings (to the chagrin of ESPN and the SEC).

My preference would be to be ranked #5 and host the first round playoff game with only a 3 week layoff.

1 hour ago, OregonDucks said:

I would expect Ohio State, Indiana and Georgia to all remain in the the top 4, unless the games are lopsided loses.

If BYU beats Texas Tech (unlikely) then I could see Oregon sneaking into the top 4 in the final college football playoffs rankings (to the chagrin of ESPN and the SEC).

My preference would be to be ranked #5 and host the first round playoff game with only a 3 week layoff.

I wonder if the loser of the Ohio State vs Indiana game falls to four if Georgia and Texas Tech win. If that happens, and Oregon draws the five, that would pit Oregon vs one of them in the quarters.

NFL-Lite "growing pains".

Problems are unequal/uneven scheduling during regular season (thanks mega conferences). Conference championship games becoming less relevant, and actually becoming more problematic for playoff teams (but gotta crown a conference champion on the field). Long-term (iron-clad?) Bowl contracts that many communities that host them, Depend on annually since the era of college football "pagentry" (making it rather unfair for most teams playing west of the rockies). Traditionalist dedication to 'ole timey college football mentality and Not willing to accelerate the push to full-on NFL-lite (How has that worked out for the NCAA over the past quarter century?). The continued and frustrating "manipulations" from media and conference power brokers in attempting to NOT have a level playing field, by advantaging loopholes and unforeseen missing "guardrails" to further their own agendas over the benefit of the whole.

I could rant go on, as I imagine many of you could easily add to these...observations. But in the current iteration of these growing pains, combined with how very young this team is, I want that One game here, at home, in the weather, in front of us ravenously, delirious, "scream and 'O' till we are hoarse by the time "Shout" echoes out throughout the Willamette Valley" Game!

What a way to "Prime the Pump" and get OBD's juices a flowin' to run through (literally) the final two games to our first "Natty" of our hopes and dreams!

Said it before and will continue to say it again.

🦆🏈🪨's !

Going 4-steps Farther Down the Road - Odds for 25 PO Champ Game Scenarios

Ranking the 25 Most Likely CFB Championship Game Matchups

On 12/1/2025 at 10:01 AM, OregonDucks said:

That’s the problem. The college football playoff format has not been corrected because they are trying to keep the irrelevant bowls alive.

College football should look to the NFL. The top teams get a normal bye week before hosting the next round. Three to four weeks is way too long of a layoff.

Eliminate the conference championship games and go right into the playoffs. Have the higher ranked team host the playoff games. Screw the bowls.

As Joel Klatt says, the college football championship game should be on January 1st at the Rose Bowl every year. I completely agree with him.

In this scenario, Oregon and every other team would be trying their hardest to get a bye. With the current format, I don’t think a bye is adventurous and could be detrimental (just look at the results from last year).

Great post. T-H-E-Y in your first spot on sentence should be spelled E-S-P-N

ESPN has owned the bowl broadcasts since the BCS days. As the exclusive broadcast partner for the BCS, 4-team PO, and the 12-team PO, ESPN is not going to compete against its big-time bowl broadcasts by allowing more than a 1st round home game.

There is a lot wrong with the NCAA, but the NCAA manages college football playoffs far better than ESPN.

The lower division football playoffs are played for the most part on home turf, and there is a single selection show broadcast of the teams playing in and the seeding for the upper-tier FCS playoffs.

There are many reasons I prefer a 1st-round game for OBD in Autzen. The B1Ggest being rewarding students, how about that, and fans who cannot afford jacked-up airfare and hotel prices, with a home game. The players should also have the opportunity to play a game at home that they have earned.

A home game also means $8 to $10M for businesses in Lane County. And the on-campus and communal joy that comes with hosting a significant contest in Eugene and in the State of Oregon. (I believe the only college football playoff games played in Oregon have been Linfield University games.)

The home team controls ticket sales for 1st round games, except for 3500 tickets reserved for the visiting team. So, no interference in this regard from ESPN.

Growing up in Boston, I played in and watched many games in the snow and had a blast. Green Bay Packers fans want to see PO games played at Lambeau Field right up to the Super Bowl game. Suck It Up!

Dan Lanning has an amazing record that is not so amazing after byes and prolonged byes. Give OBD a home game after a reasonable bye.

Knock wood that after a first-round home win, we will see OBD play three more games on a long and winding road.

At the Zoo, predicts OBD's likely 1st opponent.

These are Oregon's three most likely first-round playoff foes

I don't see Bama at OBD happening. The Committee may move Oregon up to the 5-spot tonight. I don't see OBD dropping to the 7th seed. I don't want to see Kalen DeBoer in the 1st round.