Oregon head coach Dan Lanning's words immediately came back to bite him in awful loss to UCLA

This was supposed to be the year.

The Oregon Ducks started the 2026 college football season as a consensus top-five team under head coach Dan Lanning. They brought back Dante Moore and added Dylan Raiola, a former starter at Nebraska, as a backup quarterback. They had a highly-paid roster full of former top recruits, along with impactful transfer portal additions. They were coming off back-to-back College Football Playoff appearances with a combined 26-3 record across the regular and postseason in 2024-2025.