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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/jimbobbypaul on 2023-08-07 19:59:48.
Main hub thread with the full 131 rankings
7,986,024,233 uniform combinations, 0 national ch- I’M KIDDING. I’M KIDDING. I know this is sacrilegious to say as a USC fan, but I’ve always been kind of a fan of Oregon. I LOVE their color scheme, and all the different uniforms are fun. Plus, when I visited Eugene in 2017 for the total solar eclipse, people there were super nice, maybe because they didn’t know I was a USC fan.
Oregon comes in as the best team on this list to never win a national title, which is fitting, as most people peg them as the next team to win their first. They’re the 2nd ranked team in the Pac-12 (6th in the new Big Ten?) behind USC and #18 overall, and would be even higher if the cutoff was less than 40 years. Last 30 years? #11. Last 20 years? #8. Last 10 years? #9. Make no mistake about it, I’m not sure if they can call themselves a modern day blue blood or not, but they are certainly one of the 10-15 best programs in the country at this point, with staying power. Rich Brooks laid the foundation, Mike Bellotti built the program, Chip Kelly turned them into a national power, and Phil Knight is God.
Best Seasons and Highlights
1. 2014: 2. Oregon: 13-2 (52.484) 2. 2012: 2. Oregon: 12-1 (50.887) 3. 2010: 5. Oregon: 12-1 (44.929) 4. 2001: 4. Oregon: 11-1 (40.705) 5. 2019: 6. Oregon: 12-2 (40.352) 6. 2011: 4. Oregon: 12-2 (40.344) 7. 2013: 9. Oregon: 11-2 (37.359) 8. 2009: 11. Oregon: 10-3 (30.942) 9. 2000: 10. Oregon: 10-2 (30.535) 10. 2007: 11. Oregon: 9-4 (28.124) 11. 2022: 13. Oregon: 10-3 (27.601) 12. 2008: 12. Oregon: 10-3 (27.528) 13. 2005: 13. Oregon: 10-2 (24.663) 14. 1999: 15. Oregon: 9-3 (18.630) 15. 2015: 28. Oregon: 9-4 (18.483) 16. 2021: 25. Oregon: 10-4 (16.446) 17. 1995: 22. Oregon: 9-3 (16.089) 18. 1994: 19. Oregon: 9-4 (14.670) 19. 1998: 28. Oregon: 8-4 (13.399) 20. 2018: 32. Oregon: 9-4 (11.228) 21. 1989: 27. Oregon: 8-4 (10.136) 22. 2020: 31. Oregon: 4-3 (8.903) 23. 1990: 33. Oregon: 8-4 (7.917) 24. 1997: 31. Oregon: 7-5 (6.305) 25. 2003: 42. Oregon: 8-5 (5.405) 26. 1987: 38. Oregon: 6-5 (-0.340) 27. 2006: 47. Oregon: 7-6 (-0.997) 28. 1992: 39. Oregon: 6-6 (-1.073) 29. 1996: 41. Oregon: 6-5 (-2.826) 30. 2017: 54. Oregon: 7-6 (-2.899) 31. 2002: 59. Oregon: 7-6 (-7.148) 32. 1988: 53. Oregon: 6-6 (-7.540) 33. 1984: 59. Oregon: 6-5 (-8.285) 34. 1993: 52. Oregon: 5-6 (-10.246) 35. 1986: 57. Oregon: 5-6 (-11.254) 36. 2004: 64. Oregon: 5-6 (-13.220) 37. 1983: 56. Oregon: 4-6-1 (-13.339) 38. 1985: 57. Oregon: 5-6 (-16.058) 39. 2016: 84. Oregon: 4-8 (-20.848) 40. 1991: 79. Oregon: 3-8 (-29.085) Overall Score: 35694 (18th)
- 322-166-1 record
- 9 conference titles
- 14-16 bowl record
- 8 consensus All-Americans
- 121 NFL players drafted
We are truly in the “this team has some really fucking good seasons” part of the list. Oregon has 6 top 200 seasons since 1983, with their 6th best season (2011) ranking 166th. As a fun fact, Oregon had the best 9-4 team ever in 2007, the year they got up to #2 with Heisman contender Dennis Dixon, having beat 8-5 Houston, 9-4 Michigan, 9-4 Fresno State, #9 USC, #6 Arizona State, and #21 South Florida, winning their other 3 games against Pac-10 opponents by an average of 30 points. With all due respect to Pete Carroll and USC, Oregon has been the class of the Pac-12 in the 21st century, winning 8 conference titles since 2000. It’s not even their highs over the last 40 years that make Oregon so impressive, it’s that they’ve…never really sucked. They only have 2 finishes in my rankings lower than 65th, so Oregon’s been in the top half of the FBS virtually every year. The consensus All-American list is shorter than you’d expect, with DT Haloti Ngata (2005) who was the Pac-12 Defensive POTY and a borderline NFL Hall of Famer, RB LaMichael James (2010), AP Cliff Harris (2010), RB Kenjon Barner (2012), QB Marcus Mariota (2014), CB Ifo Ekpre-Olomu (2014), OL Penei Sewell (2019), and DE Kayvon Thibodeaux (2021) who was the former #1 recruit. Top NFL players include DT Haloti Ngata, OT Gary Zimmerman, QB Justin Herbert, OT Penei Sewell, RB Jonathan Stewart, C Max Unger, RB LeGarrette Blount, DT DeForest Buckner, QB Marcus Mariota, S Patrick Chung, DT Arik Armstead, S Jairus Byrd, S TJ Ward, LB Kiko Alonso, QB Chris Miller, OG Kyle Long, and OG Richie Incognito if you count the week he spent on Oregon before getting kicked off the team.
Top 5 Seasons
Worst Season: 1991 (3-8 overall, 1-7 Pac-10)
Coach Rich Brooks was in his 15th year with the Ducks! I usually think of Mike Bellotti as THE Oregon coach, but Brooks lasted longer at 18 years to Bellotti’s 14. 5 different QBs would see significant time in 1991, including legendary QB Bill Musgrave’s brother Doug Musgrave (who’s also the father of Green Bay Packers TE Luke Musgrave). But it was freshman Danny O’Neil that’d establish himself as the best of a bad bunch. O’Neil played for Mater Dei in high school, the same school that produced Bryce Young, Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley, Colt Brennan, and more, but was just 6’0 165 lbs coming out of high school. At his recruiting visit to Oregon he wore high-top shoes and a coat, hiding his physique so Oregon wouldn’t turn him away. In his first year, O’Neil threw for 713 yards with 7 TD 3 INT, while the other Oregon QBs combined for 5 TD 13 INT. Oregon had some decent wins like 40-14 over Washington State and 28-13 over Texas Tech, and kept 5 of their losses to within 11 points or less. 3-7 Oregon hosted 0-10 Oregon State for the annual Civil War, but OSU won 14-3 in Autzen, cementing this as definitively the worst year. O’Neil ended up as one of the best in a long line of great Oregon QBs, leaving as Oregon’s 2nd all-time leading passer with 8301 yards 62 TD 37 INT, and led Oregon to a Pac-10 title in 1994, the same year as Kenny Wheaton’s “The Pick”. Brooks eventually left to coach in the NFL after winning National Coach of the Year in 1994.
5. 2019 (12-2 overall, 8-1 Pac-12)
2019 Oregon edges out 2011 Oregon for the 5th spot by literally maybe a random FG or TD that was scored during the season. Eugene native Justin Herbert was an obviously talented QB, with some projecting him as the #1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, but Oregon hadn’t utilized him to his full potential yet. 2011 Oregon started with their highest preseason rank in 4 years at #11, predicted to be neck-and-neck with Washington for the Pac-12 North. Choking a 21-6 lead against #16 Auburn in the opener put Oregon into an 0-1 hole early, but that’d be the last game they’d lose for a while as they proved they were serious Pac-12 contenders. As the wins kept pouring in, their rank improved…#16 to #13 at 4-1…up to #11 after a huge 35-31 win over #25 Washington…USC got owned 56-24, and after a 34-6 beating of Arizona, Oregon was now 9-1 and #6 overall, serious Playoff contenders. In Tempe, Arizona State WR Brandon Aiyuk popped off for 7 catches and 161 yards in a 31-28 upset win, erasing Oregon’s national title hopes. The Ducks still won the Civil War, completely dominated the line of scrimmage in a 37-15 win over #5 Utah in the Pac-12 Championship Game, and won the Rose Bowl 28-27 over #8 Wisconsin thanks to a gutsy performance from Herbert.
Oregon finished the year #5, as Pac-12 and Rose Bowl champions. Herbert, the 6th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, threw for 3471 yards with 32 TD to just 6 INT, finishing his career as Oregon’s 2nd all-time leading passer with 10,541 yards 95 TD 23 INT. CJ Verdell was a first down machine with 1220 rushing yards and 8 TD on 6.2 YPC. It helped both Herbert and Verdell to have consensus All-American OT Penei Sewell, 2nd Team All-American OG Shane Lemieux, and 3rd Team All-American OT Calvin Throckmorton blocking. True freshman DE Kayvon Thibodeaux, the #1 recruit in the class of 2019, provided a huge boon to a top 10 scoring defense, winning Pac-12 Freshman Defensive POTY with 35 tackles, 9 sacks, and 5 TFL. Mario Cristobal was the Pac-12 Coach of the Year, and while Duck fans don’t really miss him, I’m sure they appreciate the 2019 season.
2019 Oregon is my 165th best team since 1983.
4. 2001 (11-1 overall, 7-1 Pac-10)
How about some love for the original great Oregon team? When Joey Harrington was born, Oregon’s coach at the time, Len Casanova, wrote a letter to father Harrington saying he was interested in signing Joey. …For added context, Joey’s dad was a former Oregon QB and knew Casanova, so it wasn’t weird. #7 Oregon started off the season with a 31-28 win over #22 Wisconsin, and a 6-0 start included a 3-0 Pac-10 record, moving Oregon up to #5 as a national title contender. Up 42-28 on Stanford, the Ducks would collapse in the 4th quarter, losing 42-49 at home to a Cardinal team that would actually end up being pretty good, beating #4 UCLA the following week. It was also just another one of the great Stanford-Oregon implicit rivalry games. Oregon fell to #13, out of the national title picture, but were still in Pac-10 contention and had tough opponents ahead. A 24-17 win over #10 Washington put a 5-way tie for 1st place in the Pac-10 with Oregon, Wazzu, Stanford, Washington, and USC. As Oregon kept winning, teams in the Pac-10 cannibalized each other, and teams ahead of them in the Top 25 kept losing, moving them up to #4 for the Civil War vs Oregon State. A 17-14 win had the Ducks dreaming ab…
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