Why Oregon could cry ‘Wolfe’ and claim a national title, too

Should Oregon claim a share of the 2024 national championship after Ohio State won the College Football Playoff? While that might sound crazy at face value, it’s a legitimate question based on the controversial way college football has crowned national champions. 

Technically speaking, the Oregon Ducks could claim the program’s first national football title and it would be far from the most bizarre championship claim in the sport’s history. 

On Tuesday morning, a system known as the “Wolfe Ratings,” which is deemed to be among the NCAA’s major selectors, released its final rankings. And, in an interesting twist, it has Oregon at No. 1. Without diving too deeply into the weeds, the “Wolfe Ratings” uses a mathematical equation to rank every college football team from every level annually.  

Based on its math, Oregon won the 2024-25 season with a 9.598 rating after postseason play, placing it slightly above No. 2 Ohio State’s 9.330.  

In addition to that math, Oregon could point to its overall body of work to make a title claim. The Ducks went 13-1 overall and won the Big Ten title.  

Oregon’s only loss was a 41-21 shellacking against Ohio State in the CFP. But body-of-work wise, Oregon owns a 32-31 victory at home over the Buckeyes on Oct. 12. And in comparing Oregon head coach Dan Lanning’s team to Ryan Day’s, Ohio State finished with two losses, one to Oregon and the other to an average Michigan team.  

For historical context beyond the widely recognized Associated Press poll (especially since the Division I level didn’t have a playoff of any kind until 2014), this scenario is pretty common. Most recently, Central Florida claimed a share of the 2017 national title thanks to receiving a No. 1 ranking via the “Colley Matrix” despite Alabama winning the CFP. But Central Florida went undefeated that season against a much weaker schedule than Alabama’s, thus throwing cold water on its claim.  

Adding more contrivers, Central Florida is the only school to claim a title strictly from the “Colley Matrix” and nothing else. A notable example of a school rejecting a similar opportunity is Notre Dame. The Irish were placed No. 1 in the “Colley Matrix,” ahead of Alabama, in the final 2012 rankings despite losing to the Tide 42-14 in the BCS national title game.   

Meanwhile, Pitt claims nine national championships although the NCAA only legitimizes five of them. In the most confusing of its claims, Pitt designates the 1934 season as a national championship year even though the Panthers lost to Minnesota, which went undefeated and ended the season ranked No. 1 by every major selector. 

Decades later, Alabama said it shared the 1973 national title with Notre Dame even though the Irish beat the Tide in the Sugar Bowl to cap off that season. 

In all reality, nearly everyone will refer to Ohio State as the one true champion for the 2024 season. But if Oregon wants to join in on the title-claiming fun, the Ducks can hop into that pool. Since the inception of the Oregon football program in 1894, the Ducks have played in a national title game twice (2010, 2014), but they lost both of those. They also have 16 conference football titles dating to their first in 1895. 

Thus far, Oregon has not claimed a share of the 2024 national championship. Give it some time.