ESPN's Heather Dinich Knocks Oregon in New Playoff Ranking Projection

Longtime ESPN college football reporter Heather Dinich unveiled a projection of the college football playoff rankings as if they were released today on Tuesday. 

Dinich's projections included solely the top-12, and while Oregon was included at No. 10, she had more negatives to touch on regarding the Ducks -- who escaped with a win over Idaho last week -- than any other team.

"The selection committee doesn't care about preseason rankings," Dinich wrote in her article on ESPN+. "Their top 25 is based on what teams have done -- not what they're expected to do. And after one game against Idaho of the FCS, the Ducks haven't done much to deserve the top-five ranking with which they entered the season in the Associated Press preseason poll."

From there, Dinich further criticized the Ducks, comparing their week one performance against lesser competition to those of some other top-10 programs.

"The pedestrian performance came on a day when other teams such as Alabama and Ole Miss were running up the score on similar competition," Dinich wrote. "This was Oregon's closest margin of victory against an FCS opponent in the past 20 seasons."

In her projected rankings, Dinich listed Georgia at No. 1, Texas at No. 2, Ohio State at No. 3, Notre Dame at No. 4 and USC at No. 5. Penn State, Miami, Ole Miss, Alabama, Oregon, Missouri and Utah rounded out the top-12.

Under each team, Dinich broke down her writeups into three pieces: Why they could be here, why they could be higher, and need to know.

Under the "why they could be higher" section for Oregon, Dinich was lost for words.

"It's hard to make a case for the Ducks," she wrote. "Idaho is now 1-10 against FBS opponents since moving back to FCS in 2018."

The Ducks will get their first chance to prove the early-season doubters as they host Boise State this Saturday. Kickoff is set for 7:00 p.m. PST.