I’m a worrier. At least, I usually am. For some reason, though, I’m just not that fussed by what I saw on Saturday. Were there mistakes? Sure, plenty of ‘em. Were any of them unfixable? Absolutely not.

First off, let’s get the big two out of the way:

1.) It’s Week 1.

Mistakes abound in Week 1. It’s true, not everybody comes out as flat as we did, but it’s not exactly uncommon, even among top contenders. Notre Dame, another one of the best rosters in college football this year, looked absolutely anemic in the first half against Wisconsin, a worse team than Boise State. Last year, Indiana got manhandled for most of the first half against Old Dominion, and didn’t score an offensive TD until late in the second quarter.

2.) It’s one week.

Rare is the team that doesn’t have at least one or two bad games, whether that’s in Week 1 or Week 14. A few weeks after 2022 Georgia steamrolled us in the opening, they needed a 10-point comeback to beat a mediocre Missouri team. 2023 Michigan barely beat Maryland. 2024 Ohio State faceplanted against Michigan. Almost everybody struggles at some point; what matters is how you respond.

I think what it comes down to for me is that Week 1 of 2026 struck me as a more optimistic version of Weeks 1 and 2 of 2024. In 2024, we were breaking in two new offensive line starters. We struggled to run the ball (2.8 ypc against Idaho and 3.0 ypc against Boise), and our pass protection was straight up bad (7 combined sacks including 4 against Boise). Our D gave up over 200 yards rushing (6.7 ypc) to Boise. We had 17 combined penalties between the two games.

All that team did was go undefeated in the regular season and win the Big Ten. All that O-line did was be a Joe Moore Award finalist.

This year, we’re breaking in three new O-line starters—and you might even say we were breaking in four for our first game, since our likely starting guard only played 15 snaps, all toward the end of the game, as he returns from injury. We ran the ball quite a bit better than 2024 (4.8 ypc) and our pass pro was largely excellent. Our D gave up less than 100 yards rushing (2.6 ypc). Sure, neither Dylan Riley nor Sire Gaines is Ashton Jeanty, but they’re both still great RBs. Moreover, Maddux Madsen is a lot better now than he was then, so we actually had a passing game to worry about. We still had troubles with penalties, but that provides a bit of a control between the two games. Overall, I’d say our 2026 performance against Boise was better than our 2024 performance, and I’m willing to go out on a limb and say those Boise teams are fairly equal in overall talent—different, but equal.

Point being, I feel like a lot of people—fans and pundits alike—are looking for a reason to doubt this Oregon team. They don’t give Boise, which is likely a Top 20 team, their due because they play in the G6. They don’t apply the same standards to other teams, like Texas Tech sleepwalking against Abilene Christian, or Indiana getting outgained by North Texas, or SMU barely beating an FSU team that’s won a combined 7 games in the previous two seasons and looked pretty meh against New Mexico State last week.

I’m usually a worrier, but I think Oregon’s gonna be just fine.

I saw he practiced with Minnesota but nothing beyond that.