College Football Playoff Predictions: Oregon Ducks to Face Utah Utes, LSU Tigers?

Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach of ESPN dropped their updated playoff and bowl projections. Each had the Ducks making the playoff in their preseason projections. They have not strayed from that initial projection after Week One. 

Bonagura has Oregon earning the No. 5 ranking and playing their opening round College Football Playoff game against the Tulane Green Wave. 

Schlabach has Oregon finishing as the No. 6 ranked team and playing their first round playoff matchup against the Utah Utes. 

The first round of the College Football Playoff is played at campus sites, meaning that for the first time ever, the Ducks would be hosting a playoff game at Autzen Stadium. 

Autzen Stadium has hosted big games before, but nothing like this. 2024 was the first college football season where playoff games were played on campus sites for the higher seeded teams that didn’t receive one of the four first-round byes. This was due to the expansion of the playoff from four teams to 12. 

In 2024, the Ducks were the No. 1 ranked team in the final College Football Playoff rankings after going undefeated in the regular season and winning the Big Ten championship. They earned a first round bye and didn’t play until the quarterfinals. In this game, they lost to the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes. 

New College Football Playoff Format

Both Bonagura and Schlabach have Oregon winning their first round game but then falling in the quarterfinals. Bonagura has Oregon losing to the No. 4 LSU Tigers and Schlabach has them losing to the No. 3 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions. 

The playoff format this season while still being 12-teams, is different than it was a season ago. In 2024, the top four byes were awarded to the four highest ranked conference champions, regardless of what their actual ranking was. This meant that the Boise State Broncos and Arizona State Sun Devils had two of the byes even though they were ranked lower than some teams that didn’t get one. 

That will not be the case in 2025. The top four byes will now be given to the top four ranked team regardless of if they won their conference title or not. The top five ranked conference champions will still receive the auto-bid to the playoff, but it’s very likely they wind up as the No. 11 and No. 12 ranked teams in the final bracket.