Early Look: Oregon vs Boise State
With the college football season starting in fewer than 70 days, let’s go game-by-game and predict Oregon Football’s matchups for the upcoming year.
Oregon’s second game of the season comes against the Mountain West Conference’s Boise State Broncos on September 7th at 7:00 P.M.
Coach Spencer Danielson took over midway through the 2023 season for former Oregon Defensive Coordinator Andy Avalos and went 3-1 with the Broncos to close out the year, culminating in a loss to UCLA in the LA Bowl.
The Broncos are no stranger to prominent West Coast opponents as they’ve rotated between playing Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and others over the last decade or so.
For this year’s matchup, Boise State does not appear to present much of a threat to Oregon but does have some interesting elements to their team.
Running back Ashton Jeanty is the most dangerous player on Boise State’s roster, racking up 1,347 rushing yards on 220 carries in 2023, good for 6.1 yards per carry.
This represents an elite combination of volume and efficiency and Jeanty is a likely NFL talent after college.
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New full-time head coach Spencer Danielson may also be an upgrade from Andy Avalos for the Broncos as he went 3-1 as the interim coach in 2023 after Avalos started the year 5-5.
A full offseason to prepare should give Danielson the ability to refresh Boise State’s approach on both sides of the ball and there won’t be much film for Dan Lanning & Co. to review in advance of this matchup.
The only way I can see Oregon losing this game is if the offense truly sputters and allows Boise State to feed Jeanty the way they’d like to. A road matchup against Boise State may have been significantly more dangerous but a night game at Autzen Stadium is not exactly fertile grounds for an upset.
In short, I expect Boise State to break off a few uncomfortably long runs early in the game before Oregon’s offense builds a lead that prevents the Broncos from doing what they do best.
This strikes me as a pull-away game that may be close for a quarter but will eventually find Oregon in a commanding lead down the stretch.
Prediction: Oregon wins 42-10
