Results are results, but one of the most difficult aspects of creating a reliable power rating is trying to figure out what led to the results and what those results truly mean. Many times this is a fairly simple process. Team A did this a lot better than Team B, which Team A was expected to do, and Team A wiped the floor with Team B.
But then there are cases like what happened with Oregon on Saturday. There is no getting around the fact that Oregon's 2026 season is a disaster at this point. The Ducks were looked at as one of the preseason favorites to win the national title, and now it's not even mid-October, and they're 3-2 with an injured quarterback.
As of right now, it's more likely the Ducks will miss the College Football Playoff than make it, let alone win the whole damn thing. But Saturday's result could also be misleading. Take the unexpected nature of it away and look at it from a 10,000-foot view.
Oregon, with its backup QB starting, turned the ball over seven times. The backup performed so poorly that the team went to its third-string QB. So, the Ducks didn't have their starting QB, turned to their third-string QB, and turned the ball over seven times.
Take your average college football team and imagine it were in the same position with the same results. How many times do you think they're only losing that game by two points? The fact that Oregon even had a chance to win that game late, despite how horrible it had played, is a testament to the talent on the team and what it's capable of when it plays well.
When I sit down to do my ratings, I need to figure out how to adjust my ratings for Oregon, and one thing I need to consider is that Dante Moore could be back for this week's game against Nebraska, and if Dante Moore is at QB, it's a much better football team than the one we saw against UCLA, even if it's not as good as the team we expected it to be. So, yeah, Oregon fell in my ratings this week, but not nearly as far as you might've thought. Three teams in last week's top 12 are gone, and Oregon isn't one of them.
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