How Do Latest Rankings Impact the Oregon Ducks?

After a fairly entertaining and unpredictable bout of week zero games, how are the top 25 team rankings impacted and what does that mean for the Oregon Ducks?

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning talks with running back Jordan James during practice with the Oregon Ducks Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024 at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex in Eugene, Ore. / Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK

The first official weekend of college football’s return sure packed a lot of drama.

From No. 10 ranked Florida State traveling over five thousand miles to Ireland only to lose by a field goal to unranked Georgia Tech, SMU narrowly beating out Nevada on the Wolf Pack’s home turf, and the heavily “memed” but appreciated “Sickos Committee game” of Hawaii taking down Delaware State on the islands; there was a lot of deranged football fodder for fans to consume.

And after such an eventful weekend, many are clamoring for the official updated AP Poll launching this Tuesday. In anticipation for the mid-week release, ESPN did their own revision on their 134-team ranked list.

Before we get into the exact rankings and how these changes will affect the Oregon Ducks football program, let’s go over how the computer delineated these rankings. The College Football Power Index is the name of the computer program in charge of ranking each team. The program does so by going over 20,000 different game simulations and calculating the margin of points scored against an average ranked team in a neutral location. The system takes into account a teams’ performance versus previous opponents, rest days acquired, and travel to a game as factors to calculate the final team ranking. 

Unlike the NFL, college football power index rankings are heavily impacted by previous seasons’ performances. The last four seasons count for each team, especially the prior, and factors like returning starters, returning coaches, and strength of recruiting class.

Oregon long snapper Luke Basso during practice with the Oregon Ducks Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024 at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex in Eugene, Ore. / Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK

With that out of the way, let’s check how ESPN  reconfigured their 134 team ranking by looking at their top 25.

ESPN’s Top 25 After Week Zero:

1. Georgia
2. Oregon
3. Texas
4. Ohio State
5. Alabama
6. Penn State
7. Notre Dame
8. Oklahoma
9. Tennessee
10. Missouri
11. Michigan
12. LSU
13. Texas A&M
14. Clemson
15. Ole Miss
16. Florida State
17. Kansas
18. USC
19. Auburn
20. Florida
21. Louisville
22. Kansas State
23. Miami
24. Arizona
25. Oklahoma State

For Duck fans, they’ll probably be able to notice that Oregon hasn’t moved from their No. 2 original ranking. The teams that have shifted since the week zero games are Florida State, as they fell six spots since losing to Georgia Tech. Speaking of Georgia Tech, they received an upgrade to the 37th national spot, with an over 70% chance of landing in a bowl game this year. SMU also fell five spots to No. 30 as they were predicted to have a wider point margin after playing Nevada, but only beat the Wolf Pack by five points.

In short, Oregon isn't impacted by these changes. Oregon was categorized as part of the “Fantastic Four” by ESPN contributor David Hale, who broke the top 34 teams into seven different categories.

Right now, Oregon has a win versus loss ratio calculated at 10.8 to 1.8. This is an interesting comparison to first slot Georgia, as they have a win to loss ratio of 10.3 to 2.2.

According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, Oregon had a 37% chance to win the Big Ten Conference Championship, a 76% chance to make the playoffs, a 24% chance to make the National Championship, and a 13% chance to win it all.

Of course, calculations from a computer prior to a season doesn’t exactly predict the caliber of play we’ll see on the field this year, but it’s interesting to see how even a week zero game can impact the shifts of the top 25 team rankings. All Duck fans can hope is that these predictions only seem brighter, once Oregon finally kicks off in Autzen Stadium versus Idaho on Saturday, Aug. 31.

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