College football is a sport in which the rich tend to get richer and programs without a history of success have trouble getting to the top rung. Last year's champion Indiana Hoosiers notwithstanding, it's rare to see a team win its first national championship, but it seems the college football world is ready for it to happen again this season. The Athletic polled 18 coaches to find out who they think will take the title this year, and they think Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks will finish atop the college football world.
Six of the 18 coaches picked Oregon, with no other team getting more than three votes, though one coach abstained, "believing his own team would win it all," wrote The Athletic's Bruce Feldman. Dan Lanning has continued to get better and better, and this is the year he cracks through," an offensive analyst in the ACC told Feldman. A big part of those high expectations is quarterback Dante Moore, who got nine of the 18 votes for favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.
"I’ll say Moore because he’s gonna have a lot of marquee games," said a general manager of a Big 12 team. If Moore lives up to the hype, or at least comes close and is a legitimate contender for the Heisman, Oregon will be once again well positioned to compete for their first title. It seems every year, they're in the national title conversation, but something always goes wrong.
Last year, it was running into the Hoosiers in the College Football Playoff. Moore's pass on the first play of the game was intercepted and returned for a touchdown, and Indiana ran away with a 56-22 win. This season, it sounds like insiders expect Oregon's season to end quite differently.
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