It's often easy to discern between the haves and have nots in college football. Every year, you can count on two hands the programs capable of reaching the Playoff, and perhaps even less the amount of teams with enough firepower to win the national championship.

That hierarchy of power isn't expected to change in 2020, though there might be a couple coaches blessed with impressive rosters anticipating football's equivalent to Selection Sunday down the stretch vying for their title shot against familiar titans.

One of those programs on an elevator of ascension is Oregon, whose 2019 finish coupled with a head-turning recruiting class makes the Ducks one of the sexy darkhorse picks to emerge out West and continue their rise to prominence as torchbearers in the Pac-12.

Mario Cristobal's defense should be one of the nation's best and recently adding former Mississippi State coach Joe Moorhead to take over as OC will soften the blow of Justin Herbert's exit at quarterback and force opposing teams to re-examine how they defend the Ducks.

USA Today's way-too-early Top 25 rankings have a few more outliers than most, including one consensus Top 10 team outside of the national title picture and much respect for the Big Ten coming off the league's first Playoff appearance in several seasons: