Former members of the PAC-12, Oregon joined the Big Ten Conference making some noise.
The Ducks started the season ranked No. 3 in the AP Poll, and for the first few weeks, continued to drop in the ranks. In week two, the Ducks were No. 7, despite winning their first game, and dropped again to No. 9 in week three.
Eventually, other top teams started to drop games, and Oregon remained consistent in its winning ways. As Texas led the board in week seven, the Ducks were back at No. 3, and in week nine, after the Longhorns fell to the Georgia Bulldogs, Oregon rose to the top.
The Ducks have stayed at the top since then and finished the season as the only undefeated team in the top 25. Oregon went on to defeat Penn State for the Big Ten Conference Championship in its first season as a Big Ten member, rising above traditional teams like Ohio State and Michigan.
Unsurprisingly, Oregon was selected as the No. 1 seed in the first 12-team College Football Playoff. As the top seed, the Ducks will have a bye week as the bottom eight teams face each other in the first round for a chance in the quarterfinals.
Being the No. 1 team comes with the good and the bad, and for Oregon, the bad will be having arguably the strongest teams in its path to the championship. The Ducks will face the winner of No. 8-seeded Ohio State and No. 9-seeded Tennessee in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
If the stars align, its semifinal match could be against No. 5-seeded Texas.
The top four seeded teams earned a bye week, Texas was the first one out of this group, having to face Clemson in the first round for a spot in the quarterfinals. The winner of the first round matchup will go on to face Big 12 champion Arizona State, on the same side of the bracket as Oregon.
Texas and Oregon haven’t played each other since 2013. Though the teams have never shared a conference, the Longhorns and the Ducks have faced each other six times since 1941. Texas leads the series 4–2, winning the first four matchups between 1941 and 1971. But the Longhorns have yet to beat Oregon in the 21st century. The two teams have played each other twice this century, in 2000 and 2013 in bowl games, and Oregon came out on top both times.
But Oregon’s quarterback is a familiar face for Texas fans. Dillon Gabriel played at Oklahoma from 2022 to 2023, and was part of the Sooner team that defeated the Longhorns in 2023. Gabriel is one of the finalists for the Heisman Trophy after recording 28 passing touchdowns, 3,558 passing yards and leading the Ducks to the conference title.
If these two top teams face one another again, there will be more at stake than ever before: a spot in the championship game. Texas made its maiden appearance in the playoff last year, falling to Washington in the semifinals. Oregon on the other hand, made it to the championship game in 2015, but fell to the Ohio State Buckeyes.
These are two conference newcomers trying to prove themselves in one of their best seasons to date.