Week 7 Preview: Oregon

Prepare for Indiana's Week 7 matchup against the Oregon Ducks with a comprehensive BSB Preview!

The last Big Ten team to travel to Eugene and win was Indiana in 2004. If you missed this week’s episode of Big Red Carpet, Rhett Lewis had some cool stories about that game (listen here). Galen Clavio of CrimsonCast also posted the broadcast from that game (watch the first half here, second half here).

This matchup is perhaps the most legitimate faceoff between two of the top powers in college football — the No. 3 and No. 7 teams, both undefeated, both top-5 in ESPN FPI, both top-3 in SP+, both highly balanced with two Heisman candidates at QB. And in BSB’s adjusted EPA/play, they’re both right there as well:

Both of these teams have also been tested — Oregon by SP+ No. 18 Penn State; Indiana by three top-50 SP+ teams (Illinois, Iowa, and Old Dominion). With both teams coming off byes, this game should produce fireworks.

In this preview:

• Opponent Overview

• Indiana SP+ Progress

• Advanced Stat Preview

• QB Profiles

• Oregon OL Preview

• Oregon Key Contributors

• EPA Distribution by Scenario

• What BSB is Watching For

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Opponent Overview

The story of Dan Lanning is an improbable one, as he was the LB coach at Memphis as recently as 2017 and jumped around four programs — Pitt, Arizona State, Sam Houston State, and Alabama — as a GA or recruiting coordinator just from 2011-15 to get his career off the ground. There’s a real chance that, if former Pitt and Arizona State HC Todd Graham didn’t give him a shot in 2011, we’d have never heard of Dan Lanning. Now, he is leading Oregon and college football into a new age as one of the sport’s visionaries. His CEO-like approach to serving as his program’s head coach is very similar to Curt Cignetti’s at Indiana.

One of the key factors for this Oregon team is the continuity at the top. Lanning became HC at Oregon in 2022 and hired DC Tosh Lupoi — a defensive analyst at Alabama in 2015 when Lanning was a GA — out of the NFL, after Lupoi served as Alabama’s DC for a couple years in 2017-18. Lupoi, at 44 years old, is still in Eugene. At OC, Lanning got even younger, with Louisville-native Will Stein. Stein was the OC of Lake Travis HS as recently as 2019, but after a solid stint at UTSA, he was hired by Lanning in 2023 and has, at 39 years old, quickly become regarded as one of the leading offensive minds in college football. This is the third season that trio has coached together at Oregon, something that is becoming more rare by the year.

Largely, Lanning has become known as an elite recruiter, as he’s stacked more talent each season he’s headed the program — 23rd, 9th, 2nd, and 5th-ranked transfer classes from 2022 to 2025; 9th, 3rd, 5th, and 7th-ranked high school signing classes from 2023 to 2026 (in progress). That’s why, when Oregon was ranked 104th with just 43% of 2024 production returning, the Ducks look just as strong in 2025. That’s a tough thing to achieve in 2025’s college football.

Indiana SP+ Progress

Note: Each week indicates Indiana’s ranking after the week’s game. For example, Indiana is in the 73rd percentile after its game versus Old Dominion in Week 1.

Observations:

• 11 wins is now the most likely win total for Indiana in 2025.

• The Hoosiers have a greater chance of going undefeated (15.5%) than of falling short of double-digit wins (6.8%).

• Indiana’s probability to beat Penn State has now risen to 66%. This win probability model suggests that this weekend’s game is the most likely game to trip up the Hoosiers on their way to 12-0.

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Advanced Stat Preview

Some Observations: