Oregon Football: Setting Expectations for Game One

Our Oregon football season is finally here, folks. All the hype, speculation, and roster adaptations will culminate in 60 minutes or more of Oregon Duck football at 1:00 pm PST this Saturday. Montana State comes to Eugene to battle the 7th-ranked Ducks, and Dan Lanning gets a premier opportunity to kick this team’s gear into championship overdrive.

Now it’d be easy to say, “Let’s hang 70 on these guys!” and call it a day, but I want to really analyze what setting a bar properly means for this team in 2025, especially at home in week one. Just like fans chasing the best crypto casinos with bonus expect extra value on top of the core experience, Oregon needs to show more than just a scoreboard blowout. They must demonstrate efficiency, depth, and composure.

Last year’s home-opener didn’t start the season off as expected… – Photo Via Steven Chan

Setting Expectations for Game One of the Oregon Ducks’ Football Season

Offensive Line: Last season, Oregon opened up the season flat-footed. That’s extremely rare for a Lanning-led Oregon team. The offensive line entered week one injured, though their play overall was still weak. Dillon Gabriel took a lot more time to get comfortable than I and many others anticipated, and that’s largely because of poor offensive line play. I expect a much more efficient performance from this 2025 offensive unit. Dante Moore should be able to lean heavily on the run game and slowly start to incorporate this young star-studded receiving core into the game plan.

Redzone Threat: Jordan James and Terrance Ferguson dominated their share of touches in the redzone, and that started in week one last year. I expect us to see a new redzone threat emerge early and replace these two superstars, becoming an eminently featured piece of the offense the rest of the season. Maybe this is where we see Kenyon Sadiq turn it up a notch?

Zero Turnovers: Prepared teams don’t often turn the ball over. If Moore ends up throwing 49 times this weekend like Gabriel did week one last year, I’d expect an interception or fumble to pop up on the stat sheet. Let’s take care of business early and ensure it never comes to that.

Special Teams Creativity: One massive bright spot for last year’s team was special teams. Punt returns from Tez, fakes with Jordan Burch, momentum-changing onside kicks, there was a lot to love from Lanning’s staff all season. Putting more creativity on tape is a huge plus this year. Making preparation that much harder for opponents is a spot where elite teams separate, and this is a low-risk matchup where having these plays executed well on tape can offer a major advantage for Oregon in January.

Mantra: “Win the Day” was my favorite Oregon mantra in the past, and “Rooted in Substance” is a close second. Lanning seems to have an adaptive mantra week to week that is beautifully highlighted in each Ducks vs Them episode, and I can’t wait to see what they have for this opener. I think it’s a huge part of why 2024’s team never took a game lightly. Building up every game to be the end-all of the season (which in CFB, it really is), Lanning found a creative way to extract more and more out of every player week by week.

Kenyon Sadiq is poised to breakout this season, let’s see him have a great Saturday in Eugene – Photo via Steven Chan

Bottom Line: No Slow Start, No Sloppy Execution

Overall, penalties & temper tantrums should be nowhere near the Autzen field. This isn’t a business-as-usual game, but the potential home opener to Oregon’s first ever championship season. As we look ahead to the weekend, let’s collectively set our expectations for the new and familiar faces on this roster. What are we looking to see in game one? Who’s going to shine? What defines success for this offense against an inferiorly recruited roster? Let us know in the FishDuck Forum with decorum.

Go Ducks!

Alex Heining
Los Angeles, California
Top Photo By: Steven Chan

Alex Heining

Alex Heining is an Oregon alumni from the graduate class of 2021. After studying sports business and media studies, he has moved into the field of digital marketing as a copywriter and content manager in the Los Angeles area. Still, he loves his Ducks and goes to local high school games all over the Los Angeles and Orange County area to check out new recruits of the future (and a SoFi game or two with the pros). On any given Saturday, expect to find him doing martial arts, playing the guitar, or screaming at the tv over a missed holding penalty.