History is on the side of Oregon in its opener against Georgia
Georgia is the higher-ranked team. Georgia is the favorite. Heck, Georgia is the home team in this “neutral site” clash.
And, yet, history might be on the side of the… Ducks?
ESPN’s betting extraordinaire Chris “The Bear” Fallica blasted out a Twitter thread on Tuesday with a ton of bet-centric nuggets about the Week 1 slate of college football games, and Oregon fans will probably appreciate the note about the Oregon-Georgia game.
Five of the seven won the game. Two of the three which faced a ranked SEC game won – 2003 USC at Auburn and 2001 UCLA at Alabama. 2006 Cal lost at Tennessee…
— Chris Fallica (@chrisfallica) August 30, 2022
It’s a little loose because Oregon and Georgia is technically termed a neutral site game, and the Pac-12 had played the SEC a few more times at neutral sites, but the Ducks figure to be in a road environment.
The seven games Fallica referenced:
- 2001 UCLA at Alabama: 20-17 win
- 2003 USC at Auburn: 23-0
- 2006 Cal at Tennessee: 35-16 loss
- 2006 USC at Arkansas: 50-14
- 2010 Oregon at Tennessee: 48-13 win
- 2016 UCLA at Texas A&M: 31-24 loss
- 2019 Cal at Ole Miss: 28-20 win
And, in fact, Oregon has faced the SEC in the regular season six times since the start of the 2000 season. Four of those games have ended in wins. The Ducks beat Mississippi State in a home-and-home series in 2002 (36-13 at home) and 2003 (42-34 on the road). They won at Tennessee in 2010, as mentioned above. They played LSU on a neutral field in 2011 to open the season, losing 40-27. They played Tennessee again in 2013, blasting the Vols 59-14. Then there was the Auburn game in 2019.
The Ducks lost that game at the end courtesy of a true freshman Bo Nix. So, do the Ducks get partial credit for that one now considering Nix will lead the team into Atlanta on Saturday?
The game kicks off at 12:30 p.m. PT on ABC.