LAS VEGAS \u2014 In 16 weeks, Oregon will be hosting Minnesota for the first time ever and that isn\u2019t the only unusual aspect of the Big Ten matchup. The Ducks play at Iowa the week before hosting the Friday night game against the Golden Gophers, who have a bye before coming to Eugene.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s unique,\u201d Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. \u201cIf you\u2019re aware of it, you communicate it and don\u2019t make the moment bigger than the moment \u2014 go play the game not the occasion, we\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of three Friday night games at West coast Big Ten teams in 2025 in which the home team is coming off a road trip and the visitor is coming off a bye \u2014 Washington hosts Rutgers and USC hosts Northwestern under those same circumstances.<\/p>\n
Minnesota, which went 8-5 last season, ended the 2024 regular season with a Friday day game at Wisconsin. It has also played several Friday night games and taken multiple West coast trips during P.J. Fleck\u2019s tenure, including to Oregon State in 2017.<\/p>\n
Fleck said his experience from Western Michigan playing midweek games in the MAC will be useful when preparing to come to Autzen Stadium late in the fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to keep everybody on Central time and keep it pretty standard,\u201d Fleck said. \u201cI don\u2019t like to get out somewhere 2-3 days early. I\u2019ve never been that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ducks played two Friday night games last season; at home against Michigan State and at Purdue.<\/p>\n
Unlike Fleck, former Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith said he\u2019d prefer to get to a West coast site two days before the game in the future, but that was \u201cnot feasible\u201d last year with the Spartans coming off playing Ohio State before facing Oregon. The Ducks faced the same issue when traveling to West Lafayette.<\/p>\n
At least entering the season, Fleck\u2019s plan is to arrive the day before Minnesota\u2019s two West coast games \u2014 the Gophers play at Cal on Sept. 13.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take all the information and data from the National Football League when they travel internationally and when they\u2019re going so many time zones over,\u201d Fleck said. \u201cWe have certain routines we use on the plane; what we do on the plane, before we get on the plane, when we get off the plane.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s all these little 1% advantages you\u2019re trying to grab because you\u2019re doing a huge trip and a lot of people are going to set the narrative of talking about (it) and create a distraction. … It\u2019s all about presentation. I think presentation is a big key of it. How do you present that to your football team.\u201d<\/p>\n
— James Crepea<\/a> covers the Oregon Ducks<\/a> and Big Ten. <\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 In 16 weeks, Oregon will be hosting Minnesota for the first time ever and that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[3715,331,1379,7,575,1382],"class_list":{"0":"post-237253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-big-ten-football","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-ducks-football","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-oregon-ducks","13":"tag-oregon-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114918776533380842","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}