Duck Hunting: Previewing the Penn State-Oregon Whiteout

Welcome to the Whiteout!

In two days, the Penn State Nittany Lions will welcome the Oregon Ducks to Beaver Stadium following Oregon's 2,400-mile cross-country trip to play a regular season college football game. Now there's a lot to unpack from that sentence, but we're going to focus our efforts on the football players and coaching staffs taking part in the game.

We'll start with the Ducks. They're awesome. This is no surprise to anybody that follows college football at all. While they're sort of starting a first-timer at QB, there are two massive caveats to this. First, Dante Moore did make five starts at UCLA in 2023, so even though he only attempted eight passes with the Ducks in 2024, he threw 219 balls for the Bruins in 2023. Second, Moore is a superstar prospect. He trailed only Arch Manning and Alabama DE Keon Keeley in the On3 composite recruiting rankings, coming in just ahead of WR Zachariah Branch and S Caleb Downs. Moore has size, pedigree, experience, a huge arm, and loads of production thus far in 2025. He moves around in the pocket with comfort and ease. He's been extremely productive against overmatched competition this year, completing 74.7% of his throws and averaging 10.1 yards per attempt. Sure, it's crummy competition, but that's what you're supposed to do against bad teams.

Although Moore doesn't have WR Evan Stewart available to him this year, there's still more than enough talent at the skill position spots. WR Dakorien Moore, the #1 WR in the 2025 class, is already a star. TE Kenyon Sadiq is a star, too. There's more than enough depth behind those two to field an elite pass-catching unit. The offensive line lost OTs Josh Conerly Jr. and Ajani Cornelius to the NFL, but three new transfer starters mean that the OL is strong and deep.

The defense lacks the same big-name star power as the offense, but there's incredible depth with big-time collegiate production. LB Bryce Boettcher is a tackling machine, but the three names of most renown here are a pair of DBs and an edge. The DBs, CB Brandon Finney and S Dillon Thieneman, should be familiar to Penn State fans. Finney was an elite recruit from McDonogh in Baltimore, long thought to be a Penn State lean before surprisingly locking in with the Ducks and immediately forcing his way onto the field as a true freshman, amassing 101 snaps over his first four college games. Thieneman has had a solid start to 2024, but he is best known for his starring role at Purdue over the two prior seasons. The scary edge, Matayo Uiagalelei, was largely held in check by the Nittany OL in last year's Big Ten Championship Game, but he looks noticeably improved. The Oregon defense has allowed just 37 points in four games thus far in 2025.

Add it all up and we have the nation's #1 team by SP+. Oregon boasts the nation's #2 offense and #5 defense per Bill Connelly's metric. This is a confident, loaded team -- coach Dan Lanning has signed a top-seven recruiting class in three consecutive cycles with another on the way. Lanning's squad has just two losses in their last 26 games. *Gulp*

But Penn State is no slouch, at least not on paper.

Entering the 2025 season, the Penn State rushing offense looked awesome! And, so far, they've been...fine. The offensive line is incredibly talented with a top-notch two deep. They struggled a bit against Nevada in the opener, but the rushing attack picked up in a big way against FIU and Villanova. The OT situation remains remarkable. LT Drew Shelton is in his second year as a full-time starter, but he has over 1,900 career snaps at LT. RT Nolan Rucci underwhelmed at Wisconsin before transferring and struggled to make an impact early at Penn State, but by the end of 2024, he was the team's best offensive lineman. RG Anthony Donkah was starring at RT before suffering an injury last year, but he's too good to back up Rucci, so he's now playing the role of brick wall on the interior. C Nick Dawkins has nearly 1,400 collegiate snaps. And LG Vega Ioane, in his third year as a starter, has been consistently the best member of the group.

Seniors Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton have looked quite different thus far in 2025 -- Allen looks very impressive whereas Singleton looks a bit sluggish -- there's elite talent here. The TE room is led by emerging star Luke Reynolds. Senior Khalil Dinkins has disappointed a bit, but Andrew Rappleyea is back from injury, so the room remains strong. 

Of course, you cannot discuss the Penn State offense without discussing the wide receivers. They've been good enough. USC transfer Kyron Hudson has flashed some top-end skills. Troy transfer Devonte Ross was injured in camp and appears less explosive than expected. And Syracuse transfer Trebor Pena looks like the reliable, solid citizen he was expected to be. There's no real star power here, but there is competence...so far. This trio wasn't brought in to face Nevada, FIU, or Villanova.

The offense has been extremely underwhelming thus far. There's been a lot of discussion that the PSU offense has been "working on things" in the first few weeks of the season. That's fine...but the things that they're working on aren't working. And they're primarily working on having Drew Allar push the ball down the field.

I remain extremely confident in the Penn State rushing attack to gobble up yards against the Oregon defense. But I have no confidence at this point that Allar will make plays that help win the game.

History makes it hard to be too hopeful. Allar hasn't lacked for opportunity against quality competition. In his career, he has started 10 games against AP Poll-ranked opponents. The results have been underwhelming, to put it mildly.

Those results aren't pretty. But they hide just how ugly Allar's production has been against teams with similar talent levels. Back in the summer, I took a deep dive on the "Blue Chip Ratio" of Penn State's rosters under James Franklin and looked at Franklin's results against BCR peers; the results are ugly. Updating the chart above, the BCR peers would cause us to remove Iowa, Illinois, SMU, and Boise State as teams where Penn State's roster absolutely dwarfed the talent of the opposition.

Hey, the yards per game increased -- that's good! Unfortunately, everything else looks decidedly worse with his putrid completion percentage dipping below 50%, his TD/game rate dropping, and his INT/game increasing.

I don't need to explain to anyone whether the 2025 Oregon roster aligns them with Iowa, Illinois, SMU, and Boise State...or Ohio State, Michigan, Mississippi, Notre Dame, and 2024 Oregon. 2025 Oregon is absurdly talented. Allar will need to find a way to produce a career-best game against the Ducks, right?

Maybe...but maybe not.

It's plenty conceivable that Penn State has two completely distinct paths to victory. One of them involves a shootout akin to last year's matchup in Indianapolis but with Oregon producing less with Moore at the helm than they did when Dillon Gabriel was in charge. Even though that shootout featured 82 points, the Penn State WRs totaled just six grabs for 81 yards. The rushing attack absolutely gashed the Ducks, gobbling up 297 yards on just 34 attempts. If the Penn State offense moves the ball like that on the ground again, they could outscore a potent Ducks attack. After all, Penn State features SP+'s 9th ranked offense in spite of Allar's struggles.

But it'll probably be easier to just slow Oregon down.

The Penn State defense remains loaded in ways both unexpected and surprising. The secondary has been wonderful. No surprise there. Star CB AJ Harris hasn't made an impact primarily because nobody has thrown the ball in his general direction. There's still star power in there. Across from him and in the slot, Zion Tracy, Elliot Washington, and Audavion Collins have all produced in returning roles, but the group has gotten a big boost from newcomers Jahmir Joseph and especially Daryus Dixson; I suspect we won't see any of Joseph or Dixson on Saturday, but they may have forced their way into roles. The safety rotation will likely tighten, too, but led by Zakee Wheatley and King Mack, that's OK. I'll be interested to see how much Antoine Belgrave-Shorter plays after winning a starting job in camp, then scuffling a bit.

The linebacker group lacks depth, but thankfully, both Tony Rojas and North Carolina transfer Amare Campbell have starred thus far. Dom DeLuca would be a terrible mismatch against Sadiq and neither Keon Wylie or Anthony Speca has produced enough to force their way into big reps on Saturday. If Rojas or Campbell goes down, it could be a big problem for the Nittany Lions. But so far, so good.

The DTs have struggled, largely because Zane Durant hasn't made an impact yet. Alonzo Ford has played plenty coming back from injury, Owen Wafle has contributed, and Xavier Gilliam has shown the promise Penn State saw in camp. I'm most interested to see whether Texas A&M transfer Enai White gets run in an obvious pass rush situation this week. Regardless, Durant will determine whether this group thrives or struggles on Saturday.

Or maybe the DEs will dictate the game. After spending 2024 largely in Abdul Carter's shadow, massive DE Dani Dennis-Sutton has played at an All-American level thus far in 2025. He's playing the role of game-wrecker in the PSU defense. The spot across from him appeared problematic in August, but so far, so good for two unexpected reasons. First, super senior Zuriah Fisher has stayed healthy enough to contribute. He's not playing a lot, but if he manages even 30 snaps on Saturday, the group will get a huge boost. But now we get to Chaz Coleman. Coleman was a huge scouting win as an Ohio recruit who committed to PSU just before Ohio State offered him a scholarship. He stayed with his commitment and finds himself playing starter-level reps as a true freshman. Like Finney at Oregon, Coleman looks the part and has been incredibly impressive. In previewing the season, I lamented the loss of Max Granville to injury in the offseason, hoping that either Jaylen Harvey or Mylachi Williams would step up. Neither has, but Coleman has more than made up for that.

Could the Penn State defense stifle the Oregon offense? Sure! But "stifle" is a relative term. I think that holding Oregon to anything less than 27 points would be a huge win. Something will likely have to give in a matchup of the #2 offense and the #4 defense.

I mentioned Lanning above. I can't finish this piece without addressing James Franklin's performance against elite opposition. Personally, I don't think it's fair to tag Franklin with results from the 2014 and 2015 seasons. He was playing with somebody else's players and subject to somebody else's sanctions. So, starting in 2016 seems fair...but the results against top-10 opponents are still putrid. First, the wins:

• 2016: 24-21 v. #2 Ohio State
• 2016: 38-31 v. #6 Wisconsin
• 2022: 35-21 v. #8 Utah
• 2024: 38-10 v. #10 SMU
• 2024: 31-14 v. #8 Boise State

And now, the losses:

• 2016: 10-49 @ #4 Michigan
• 2016: 49-52 @ #9 USC
• 2017: 38-39 @ #6 Ohio State
• 2018: 26-27 v. #4 Ohio State
• 2018: 7-42 @ #5 Michigan
• 2019: 17-28 @ #2 Ohio State
• 2021: 20-23 @ #3 Iowa
• 2021: 24-33 @ #5 Ohio State
• 2021: 17-21 v. #6 Michigan
• 2022: 17-41 @ #5 Michigan
• 2022: 31-44 @ #2 Ohio State
• 2023: 12-20 @ #3 Ohio State
• 2023: 15-24 v. #2 Michigan
• 2024: 13-20 v. #4 Ohio State
• 2024: 37-45 v. #1 Oregon
• 2024: 24-27 v. #3 Notre Dame

Woof. 5-16 is not good. But five wins against top-10 teams might be kinda good? Maybe. But that's not the point. It's impossible to look at these results and miss the elephant in the room: four of the five wins are against teams with considerably less roster talent than the Nittany Lions. No disrespect to Wisconsin, Utah, SMU, or Boise State -- they all had wonderful seasons in the years in question! -- but they are not talent peers. Conversely, 15 of the 16 losses came to talent-level peers with only 2021 Iowa -- the game where Taquan Roberson infamously couldn't get off a snap -- sticking out. Franklin only gets blown out by Michigan at the Big House, but he also has one win against a top-10 talent peer in the last nine-plus seasons.

The 2025 Penn State roster is loaded with seniors that came back for a championship run. Add that to the above and it's clear: Nittany is desperate. They have to win this game. The fans know it. The players know it. And, almost certainly, the Ducks know it, too.

Oregon? Not so much. This game is gravy for the Ducks. They'll make the Playoff as long as they get two wins among their four most challenging contests -- Saturday night, October 11th v. Indiana, November 22nd v. USC, and November 29th @ Washington -- as they'll be massive favorites in their other four remaining contests. They're not expected to win this cross-country trip. They have nothing to lose.

I expect to see a very tight Penn State team welcome a loose, carefree Oregon squad. Yikes.

Penn State has a superb defense. Penn State has an elite rushing offense that has played well against every opponent for years. Penn State has an emerging star TE in Luke Reynolds and enough talent at WR to be relevant.

But they also have Drew Allar and his dreadful record in big spots. And Oregon brings their star-studded roster featuring a plus QB in Moore and a TE who is already a star in Sadiq.

I do not like this matchup. Prior to the season, I figured that Penn State would be favored by about 7 but lose 20-27. All of the movement since then has been toward the Ducks. I'm very surprised that Penn State remains favored by 3.5 in this game, but I do think that Vegas is factoring in roughly a 3-point adjustment for the Whiteout as it should've been a pick 'em. Even factoring in the Whiteout, this looks like a double-digit Nittany loss to me. I think that the defense will hold up well enough. But you have to feature a plus passing offense to be a serious team in 2025.

Oregon 31

Penn State 20

Thankfully, this is college football. Players are allowed to get better; it happens every year! Players are allowed to surprise us with their performances. That also happens every year. If Drew Allar surprises (in a good way, of course) on Saturday, Penn State should win this game.

We Are!

Meet the New Bears...Same as the Old Bears?

Well, that stunk.

The NFL scheduling formula didn't do the Bears any favors. How bad is it? Here are the road games that the Bears will enjoy in 2025, coming off of a last-place finish in 2024:

1. @ Detroit (yikes!)
2. @ Las Vegas (1,500-mile flight against what should be a much more competent team)
3. @ Washington (yikes!)
4. @ Baltimore (YIKES!)
5. @ Cincinnati (tough)
6. @ Minnesota (yikes!)
7. @ Philadelphia (YIKES!)
8. @ Green Bay (YIKES!)
9. @ San Francisco (who knows?)

The Bears will struggle to win any of those games. It's basically impossible to envision these Bears having a chance against Detroit, Washington, Baltimore, Minnesota, Philadelphia, or Green Bay, so their peak is probably 2-7 in road games. That means they need to go 7-1 or better at home to have a chance at a winning season.

This wasn't going to be the easiest game on the home slate, but it was probably the fourth or fifth easiest game on the schedule as a whole. The Bears win expectancy peaked at 94.2% late in the third quarter. And they needed a late score to trim a multi-score deficit down to a one-score hole.

Ugh.

To have a realistic chance at playing meaningful football in January, the Bears probably have to start 4-2 or 5-1. That was a tall task before this disaster; now it's practically impossible.

As I attempt to process this, I'm struck by the following downsides:

1. Pre-Snap Penalties and Sloppiness. This wasn't some minor issue. The Bears had four false starts in the first half alone. On an early run to the left side, multiple teammates were explaining the play to Colston Loveland at the snap, who ran a pass route on a running play where his man made a TFL. The Bears burned two first half timeouts to avoid delay of game penalties. So sloppy.
2. Jonah Jackson was Dreadful. Jackson reminded me of Lucas Patrick, looking overmatched on every snap. I understood that with Patrick given his relative size limitations. With Jackson, it appears that he is bad. It seemed that the vast majority of the pressure in Caleb Williams' face came in the A gap between new center Drew Dalman, who looked alright, and Jackson, who looked terrible.
3. GM Ryan Poles Pretended that Cairo Santos Has an NFL Leg; Ben Johnson Pretended, too. I don't get it. I just don't get it. Santos is accurate on short and medium kicks, which is great. But Santos doesn't have an NFL leg. You can't just pretend that he does. The missed 50-yard field goal wasn't a surprise to anyone that has watched Santos. But Johnson deciding to have Santos kick the final kickoff deep was the nail in the coffin. Santos cannot kick the ball through the endzone. Pretending that he could cost the Bears the two-minute warning and 40 precious seconds. I don't blame Santos; he has the leg that he has. But I do blame Poles for keeping an inadequate leg and Johnson for coaching like he has a kicker that he simply doesn't have. Johnson said "the intent was for the ball to go out of the endzone." That's pretending.
4. Fake Aggressiveness. This was my least favorite part of the Matt Nagy experience. "Be You." Spare me. Nagy was aggressive...except when he was extremely cautious. Similarly, Johnson elected to go for it on 4th and 3 at the MIN 24; the play was there but Williams missed an open D.J. Moore. Bummer. But later, at the end of the first half, the Bears were facing 1st and 10 at the MIN 32 with 1:55 left...and Johnson ran the ball twice, bleeding clock before a third and long instead of pushing to reach the endzone. Kevin O'Connell took a timeout, J.J. McCarthy completed one pass, and the Bears and Vikings merely traded 3s to end the half.
5. Brutal Zebras. Just brutal. A phantom holding call on Darnell Wright turned a red zone drive into Santos' missed 50-yard field goal, flipping the game. Dayo Odeyingbo was called for roughing the passer for hitting McCarthy in the head...when he didn't hit McCarthy in the head. Odeyingbo also got called for illegal use of hands to the face of Vikings RT Brian O'Neill...when he didn't put his hands on O'Neill's face. Tyrique Stevenson got called for pass interference...because Jalen Nailor fell down. Stevenson certainly could've been called for illegal contact for early grabbing, but that wasn't the call and the call was bad.
6. Terrible Running Game. D'Andre Swift had some nice carries. I liked what he brought, on the whole. Kyle Monongai made a nice catch. But the running lanes for Jordan Mason never materialized for Swift. When the offensive line doesn't create space, the running game will stink. Football is simple that way. Williams ended the game as the team's leading rusher.
7. Inexplicable GM Extensions. I don't blame Ryan Poles for taking an extension from the McCaskey family. I do blame the McCaskey family for giving Poles a multi-year extension when his teams have always stunk. This is just like the Cubs extending GM Jed Hoyer with a losing record and no playoff appearances.
8. Missing Draft Picks. 5th rounder CB Zah Frazier has something going on off the field, so he wasn't expected to contribute in this game. 2nd rounder Ozzy Trapilo plays OT, and while its eyebrow-raising that undrafted 2024 rookie Theo Benedet was the 6th OL, Trapilo can be forgiven. 2nd rounder WR Luther Burden got one touch on offense on a blown-up screen pass. 1st rounder TE Colston Loveland had two touches on checkdowns. 2nd rounder DT Shemar Turner was inactive. This team doesn't have so many studs that these players shouldn't be pushing for roles.

It wasn't all bad. There were a few bright spots that I'll be clinging to as the Bears prepare to get walloped in Detroit on a short week.

1. The Returners. Devin Duvernay brought some juice, though fair catching the final punt was inexplicable. Burden's return at the end of the first half showed off his athleticism.
2. Caleb Williams Making Plays with his Feet. Surely Ben Johnson wants Williams to stand in the pocket and deliver the ball. Unfortunately, he couldn't with the way the OL played tonight. So, kudos to Williams for extending plays to make things happen for a team in desperate need of help.
3. The OTs. RT Wright and LT Braxton Jones held up very well against a pair to top DEs. Nice!
4. The Non-Jonah Jackson Interior Offensive Line. Every time I watched Joe Thuney, he was mesmerizing. He was helping out, moving quickly, and I never once saw him get beat. Drew Dalman's snaps were clean and the only times I saw him get beat were when he was helping out Jackson, save for one missed stunt in the second quarter.
5. Dayo Odeyingbo and Gervon Dexter. Odeyingbo was a menace, making a few highlight plays against the run and a couple of nice pass rushes. Dexter put some pressure on the Minnesota iOL, though never fully collapsed it.
6. Safeties. Kevin Byard had a solid game. Jaquan Brisker was a force and it appeared that McCarthy wanted nothing to do with Brisker. And Jonathan Owens made a stellar play to shut down a Minnesota two-point conversion attempt.
7. Nahshon Wright. Wright had a few plays where it appeared that he didn't know what he was doing. That's bad. He got beat by Justin Jefferson a few times. That's understandable. But Wright undercut a terrible throw from McCarthy for a 74-yard pick-six, making the single best play of the night for the Bears. That's worth calling out.
8. Jaquan Brisker. He appeared to get through the game healthy and is awesome when he's on the field.
9. Remembering 2024. In last year's opener, the Bears played terribly for the first three quarters against Tennessee, then rallied for a stirring comeback en route to a 4-2 start...followed immediately by a 10-game losing streak. Football seasons are long. Devastating losses only count as one loss. Blowout losses only count as one loss. There are lots of games left.

The Bears have a seven-game stretch from late-October through early-December that consists of the following:

• @ Baltimore
• @ Cincinnati
• v. New York Giants
• @ Minnesota
• v. Pittsburgh
• @ Philadelphia
• @ Green Bay

It's brutal. The schedule is unforgiving which requires capitalizing on opportunities now. The Bears whiffed by playing sloppy football and blowing a game in which they had a 94.2% win expectancy with 16 minutes to go so badly that they needed a late score to avoid a multi-score home loss.

Or, put much more simply:

Meet the new Bears: same as the old Bears, until proven otherwise.