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Early Look: Oregon vs Idaho

by:Linden Hile•06/12/24
Oregon vs Idaho
Dec 2, 2023; Moscow, ID, USA; Idaho Vandals head coach Jason Eck (first from left) leads his team onto he field before a game against the Southern Illinois Salukis at Kibble Dome. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-USA TODAY Sports

With the 2024 college football season starting in fewer than 90 days, let’s go game-by-game and predict Oregon Football’s matchups for the upcoming year. 

Oregon opens the season on August 31st with a home matchup against the Big Sky Conference’s Idaho Vandals. Coach Jason Eck has done a good job in two seasons with Idaho, racking up a 16-9 record for a program that’s historically struggled to field competitive teams.

The Vandals are no stranger to prominent West Coast opponents as they’ve played both Oregon and Oregon State a number of times in recent years.

For this year’s matchup, fans can safely expect a win for Oregon in their season opener. Despite Idaho having had a strong last couple of years, the talent discrepancy in this game is going to be pretty apparent. 

Coming off a 9-4 2023 season, Idaho fans are likely pretty optimistic about what their team can accomplish in the upcoming year, but the Oregon matchup figures to be too much for them to handle. 

Given the difference in talent and quality of coaching staff, I’d expect Oregon to run the ball frequently and effectively in this game with primarily very basic concepts that don’t give away much film to future opponents.

Transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel should have a pretty easy task in front of him in this one as I don’t expect him to need to pull off any heroics like he may against big-time conference and playoff opponents.

This game should give Oregon fans a chance to see the depths of this roster as I’d be surprised if starters were in much beyond halftime.

With that in mind, expect quarterback Dante Moore and running backs Jay Harris and Noah Whittington to get significantly more touches than they typically would. Oregon will most likely field a lot of freshman and depth players as they treat this as something of a warm-up game.

This may not be the most exciting or close matchup of the year, but the season opener against Idaho should give Oregon fans a taste of the potential this roster has.

I expect Oregon to come hot out of the gate and have this game mostly decided by halftime.

Prediction: Oregon wins 56-3

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