Washington State Football: 5 Reasons Cougars will take down Oregon

2. Oregon is (probably) overrated 

There’s a big disparity right now between where the human polls see the Ducks and where the computer rankings have them. Oregon currently ranks 12th in the AP Poll, but sits just 34th overall in both Sagarin and S&P+. The advanced metrics think the Ducks have outplayed their projections so far.

In truth, Oregon was probably a bit fortunate to come away with the overtime win over Washington last week. The Ducks took advantage of a couple of critical second-half errors by the Huskies in order to eek out the win. Washington fumbled on a fourth-and-one deep in Oregon territory in the second half, and then Peyton Henry missed a 37-yard field goal at the end of regulation that would have won the game.

To be fair to Oregon, they probably did get a little unlucky in the loss to Stanford a few weeks back, but they did a lot of that damage to themselves. More on that later.

The Ducks are the new trendy pick to win the PAC-12 and make it to the Rose Bowl, but it still seems likely that they are closer to an eight-win or nine-win squad than a 10-win or 11-win one. Their shortcomings on the defensive side of the ball are a big reason as to why.