Kickoff: Saturday, September 5 at 2:30 PM CT
Location: Autzen Stadium
TV: CBS
DraftKings line (Aug. 30): ORE -24.5
Over/under: 51.5

The setup

Boise State still leads Oregon 3-1, even after the Ducks finally broke through 37-34 in 2024. The No. 2 team is the favorite; the visitor still owns the series.

Personnel snapshot

• Boise St: Spencer Danielson enters Year 4 as head coach. 13 starters return—7 on offense and 6 on defense. Key offensive linemen back include Roger Carreon, Daylon Metoyer, and Jason Steele. Boise St’s offense averaged 424.0 yards and 29.9 points per game last season.
• Boise St quarterback: Maddux Madsen returns as Boise St’s starting quarterback. Last season, he threw for 2,283 yards, 18 TD and 7 INT.
• Oregon: Dan Lanning enters Year 5 as head coach. 14 starters return—6 on offense and 8 on defense. Key defenders back include Bear Alexander, Jerry Mixon, and Aaron Flowers. Oregon’s defense allowed 273.7 yards and 17.9 points per game last season.
• Oregon quarterback: Dante Moore returns as Oregon’s starting quarterback. Last season, he threw for 2,733 yards, 24 TD and 6 INT.

Three quick analysis points

• The recent trend: Oregon is 48-8 under Dan Lanning, tied for the nation’s second-best winning percentage since 2022, and 26-2 at home. The Ducks have made dominance and Autzen almost interchangeable.
• The history: Oregon has won 15 straight home season openers and 21 straight home openers overall. Boise’s series edge is walking into two larger streaks at once.
• The turnover test: Maddux Madsen is 20-6 as Boise’s starter and 14-1 in conference games, with 50 career touchdown passes against 16 interceptions in 818 attempts. Oregon is facing a quarterback whose mistake rate is only 2.0% across a very large sample.

Prediction

I make final predictions on my TikTok/YouTube/Instagram/Facebook pages @uthinkuknowsports.

Full disclosure: I use AI tools to format my research into an article encompassing all of the information.