Oregon Magazine: Football Forecasters Show Unusual Unanimity

Here is the link.

 

By Fred Delkin

We’ve perused the pre-season college gridiron published punditry and find the current seers in rare agreement on Pac10 team rankings. The Oregon Ducks are third strongest, behind USC and the California Bears, while Oregon State rates only eighth place...according to a summary of the opinions expressed in Phil Steele, Athlon, Street & Smith and Sporting News...the longest lived group of crystal ballers.

Each of these forecasting collections places the Ducks among the top 25 nationally, while the Beavers are relegated to no better than 60th among the 119 NCAA Division I schools. Last season Oregon went 7-1 in the Pac 10, 10-2 overall and ranked fifth in the nation. OSU was 3-5, 5-6. This time around, the Ducks will field another squad of national note, but face a tougher schedule...let’s look at it:

<snip>

“10/7 at California–Bears lost in overtime at Autzen in ‘05, return a powerhouse expected to finish in national top 10 and coach Jeff Tedford should exact a payback on his former boss.”