College Football Playoff 2019: Top 5 Week 1 games with biggest implications

1. Oregon vs. Auburn (Saturday, Aug. 31)

This is the big one. The game that with the most buzz around it all offseason, the game with two teams with legitimate hopes of making the College Football Playoff, and the only game with two ranked participants this weekend. The Tigers are slight favorites in the neutral setting in Arlington, Texas.

Auburn will try to make it a clean sweep of its Pac-12 opponents as the Tigers beat the Washington Huskies last season on opening weekend. That game wasn’t pretty, but Auburn got the job done.

Oregon has a bit more firepower and much more dynamic quarterback in Justin Herbert that Auburn will have to deal with.

Oregon also isn’t the same old Ducks that we have known from the last decade or so. These Ducks don’t spread you out and beat you with speed. In other years, I would chalk up the ‘W’ for Auburn simply for the advantage in the trenches, but if there’s ever a time for Oregon to shed its former identity, it’s now. Mario Cristobal and his team are much more physical and will be ready for Auburn’s elite defensive front.

If I had to pick this game I would lean towards the team with the more established quarterback. But if I did that last year I would have made the wrong pick then too. Auburn’s culture is far more established than Oregon’s and that alone could be the difference.

In case you haven’t realized, the Pac-12’s hopes for a playoff spot could pretty much end with an Oregon loss here. Washington would be the only preseason Pac-12 pick with a shot at the playoff but without a strong Utah or Oregon on the schedule that shot might be too long.

Auburn has the fortune, or misfortunate depending how you look at it, of playing in the SEC where it’ll have multiple opportunities to regain playoff momentum with a loss this weekend. A win is absolutely more desirable. It’s just not season-ending like it would be for Oregon, Utah and essentially the Pac-12 as a whole.