Dante Moore Returns As Ducks Open Preseason At No. 2
Dante Moore skipped the NFL draft for one more shot at a title, Oregon opens preseason at No. 2, and the Ducks kick off the season against Boise State's first game in the Pac-12.
Moore came back to finish what last year's semifinal didn't
Dante Moore had every reason to leave for the NFL after last season and instead chose to run it back at Oregon, and the preseason polls have rewarded the decision: the Ducks open at No. 2 in the AP Top 25, trailing only Ohio State, with 14 first-place votes to the Buckeyes' 40, per CFBKings' breakdown of the ballot. AP_Top25 called it just the second time ever the Big Ten has held the top two spots in a preseason poll. Not everyone is buying Oregon all the way, though — Chris Vannini put Notre Dame over Oregon as his pick for the national title game, noting it wasn't the popular call on his own staff.
The more interesting story inside the building is who is holding a clipboard behind Moore. Dylan Raiola transferred in from Nebraska already knowing he'd sit behind Moore for a season, and he's called learning under him "something special," according to FishDuck's fall camp coverage — a notably patient stance for a quarterback who threw for 2,000 yards and 18 touchdowns before a season-ending injury cut short his Nebraska career. Dan Lanning has sounded like a coach enjoying the depth: "Good first day of practice, I think this is one of my favorite parts of the year," he said as camp opened, per On3. Oregon hasn't played a snap yet this season, but the quarterback room alone is why the Ducks are being talked about as a real threat to Ohio State's spot at the top.
Last season ended in the semifinal, and that's the whole point of this year
Oregon's last game was a beatdown in the wrong direction: a 56-22 loss to Indiana on January 10 that ended last season in the College Football Playoff semifinal. It capped a run that had looked unstoppable up to that point — a 42-27 win over USC, a 26-14 road win at Washington, a 51-34 blowout of James Madison and a 23-0 shutout of Texas Tech all came before the Hoosiers ended it. Four wins by an average of better than 20 points, then a loss by 34 — that swing is the whole reason this fall camp exists.
It's also the reason Moore is still in Eugene instead of a draft green room. Lanning has talked openly about camp being one of his favorite stretches of the year, and this year it comes loaded with the kind of two-deep talent — Moore, Raiola, a defense retooling after the semifinal loss — that a team builds specifically to finish a season differently than the last one did. Last season is the backdrop for August; it is not this year's form, and Oregon still opens 2026 at 0-0.
Oregon won one recruiting fight this month and lost another
Brayton Feister, a 4-star, 6-foot-3, 245-pound linebacker and the top uncommitted recruit left in the 2027 class, committed to Oregon on August 14 over Georgia, Ohio State and Cal, Rivals' Hayes Fawcett reported. Landing the best defensive prospect still on the board — and beating Ohio State for him directly, a program the Ducks will be measured against all season — is the kind of quiet win that says as much about the program's pull right now as the preseason ranking does.
The class of 2028 went the other way. Christopher Vargas, a 5-star quarterback ranked the No. 1 passer in that class after leading St. John's Prep to a Massachusetts Division 1 Super Bowl appearance, picked Ohio State over a list that included Oregon, LSU, Penn State and Alabama, per CFBHome. Both prospects are years from campus, but recruiting fights with Ohio State specifically are the ones Oregon fans are watching closest this month, win or lose.
Oregon opens as a big favorite over a Boise State team crashing the Pac-12
The season finally kicks off September 5 at Autzen Stadium, when Boise State arrives for its first-ever game as a Pac-12 member against a College Football Playoff contender — about as tough a welcome as the conference could have scheduled, per SI's Boise State preview. It isn't unfamiliar territory for either side: two years ago the Broncos gave Oregon a real scare in Eugene before the Ducks pulled out a 37-34 win on their way to an undefeated regular season, so this isn't just a name on the schedule. Boise State enters at 0-0 with its last result on record a 10-38 loss at Washington last season, and Oregon will be down running back J. Davison, who is out with a collarbone injury and has no firm timetable to return, per Covers' injury log.
Oregon opened as a 24.5-point favorite, with the total set at 52.5 — a middling number for a team that scored the way Oregon did last year, which says more about respect for Boise State's defense than any doubt about the Ducks covering. Get the fall camp storylines out of your system this week, because by Saturday afternoon Autzen will finally have a scoreboard to talk about instead.