Oregon began its national title hopes in the Big House in 2007. Can it finish the job in 2024?

The last time Oregon visited Michigan Stadium, the Ducks were playing their second game under a new offensive coordinator, a hotshot from New Hampshire named Chip Kelly.

When they arrived at the Big House, the Ducks had to make sure the house was still standing. A week earlier, Michigan suffered one of the biggest upsets in college football history, an earth-shattering loss to an upstart FCS team named Appalachian State.

Mike Bellotti, Oregon's coach, wasn't happy about it. He figured the Wolverines would be seething with anger after such a stunning loss, and Appalachian State ran a version of the spread offense that became Oregon's signature weapon, meaning the Ducks wouldn't have the element of surprise.

“I was very concerned because when a team like Michigan loses to a team like Appalachian State, obviously that's going to upset some people,” Bellotti said. “It will upset them all. They obviously had something to prove and I was worried we would be the target of it.”

What happened that day in 2007 was that the end of one era collapsed into the beginning of another.

The Ducks took over the Big House for their own coming out party, a 39-7 victory that showed the world what Oregon's offense can do against a Big Ten power. Oregon's game plan was a tour de force, complete with a Statue of Liberty game, a fake Statue of Liberty and a highlight reel that catapulted quarterback Dennis Dixon into the Heisman Trophy race. Soon, teams across the country — including Michigan — would be running versions of the fast-paced spread offense that Oregon perfected.

Seventeen years later, Oregon returns to the Big House as the No. 1 team in the polls and the top seed in the Big Ten. The Ducks look different now, although Saturday's jerseys will pay homage to the jerseys worn by Dixon, Jonathan Stewart and other stars of their era. College football looks different too. As teams find their footing in the 12-team College Football Playoff era, no program is off to a better start than Oregon.

In their first season in the Big Ten, the Ducks have a chance to accomplish something that has only happened once in the last decade. The last Big Ten team to beat Michigan and Ohio State in the same season was Michigan State in 2015. Oregon beat the Buckeyes 32-31 three weeks ago and enters Saturday as a more than two-touchdown favorite against the Wolverines Those who did that looked vulnerable at a 5-3 start.

Any fears that the Ducks would be worn down by the Big Ten schedule or impressed by the league's traditional strength have faded into the background. They have yet to weather the November storms, but they have shown no signs of taking on water.

“I see a really good football team, a complete football team, playing at a high level,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “We have to do everything we can to win.”

Conference realignment has been a mixed bag for the old Pac-12's programs. USC and UCLA are a combined 3-8 in the Big Ten. Colorado is 4-1 in the Big 12, while Arizona and Utah are a combined 2-8. Cal and Stanford are a combined 1-8 in the ACC.

Rob Mullens, now in his 15th year as Oregon's athletic director, praised coach Dan Lanning for steering the program smoothly through the transition. Lanning followed two coaches, Willie Taggart and Mario Cristobal, who left Oregon to work in their home state of Florida – Taggart after one season for Florida State, Cristobal after four for Miami. Oregon's perception as a stepping stone job proved difficult to shake.

Lanning, now 30-5 in his third season, has adopted Oregon as a destination. As Alabama searched for Nick Saban's successor, Lanning quickly fueled speculation by posting a video with the phrase, “The grass is damn green in Eugene.” Things have only gotten greener since then, with Oregon's move to the Big Ten brought stability, exposure and guaranteed revenue streams that were missing during the Pac-12's tumultuous final months.

“The exposure, the reach and the connection that comes with it is great, not just for Oregon football, but for all of Oregon athletics,” Mullens said, noting that Saturday’s game will be on CBS’s seventh televised schedule -appearance of the Ducks will be on the network in a row. “We’re seeing more traffic to the visitor center, more clicks on the website, more people taking a closer look.”

Oregon defeated Ohio State 32-31 on Oct. 12 and is 5-0 in Big Ten play. (Ali Gradischer / Getty Images)

When Ohio State played at Autzen Stadium earlier this season, the game was broadcast in prime time on NBC and ESPN's “College GameDay” set the stage. Oregon had record season ticket sales due in part to that game, and the Eugene airport set a record for departures the next day, Mullens said.

“It was a Chamber of Commerce weekend,” Mullens said. “'GameDay' was there, a national television audience, a record crowd at Autzen Stadium. It was fun to have the game everyone expected, with two teams fighting until the end.”

The Ducks defeated Ohio State for the second time in four years, this time with Kelly, their former head coach, back in the Autzen Stadium press box calling the plays for the Buckeyes. It was an exciting win, but the days of Oregon trying to compete with other elite programs are mostly over.

When Oregon moved up to No. 1 in the AP rankings for the first time since 2012, Lanning responded with a snappy, “Who cares?” Maybe there was a time when Oregon needed to prove it could compete with programs like Ohio State and Michigan can, but since Lanning arrived there is no longer any need.

“I just don’t think we’ve ever judged ourselves by what other people think,” Lanning said. “That doesn’t necessarily change. We have our own internal goals and plan of what we want to be. At the beginning of every year everyone asked me what success looked like. To me it looks like we’ll be playing our best football at the end of the season.”

Lanning will coach his first game at Michigan Stadium on Saturday, just as Bellotti did in 2007. Bellotti remembers telling his players the dimensions of the field to remind them that it was the same size as everyone else. The Ducks covered every inch of that turf, racking up 624 yards, the second-most total the Wolverines had ever allowed.

“It was just one of those games where everything worked,” Bellotti said. “It was the quietest 110,000 people I’ve ever been in front of.”

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This year, Michigan rebounded from an 0-2 start to finish 9-4 during Lloyd Carr's final season. Oregon started 8-1, then lost Dixon to a torn ACL and handed the reins to Kelly in 2009. The Ducks played for national championships in 2010 and 2014, experienced a brief slump when Mark Helfrich was traded to Taggart, and have been on a steady upward trajectory since then.

Beating Michigan in the Big House wouldn't be the milestone it was 17 years ago, but Michigan is still the winner of three straight conference titles and the reigning national champion. The road to the Big Ten Championships goes through places like Ann Arbor, Columbus, Madison and State College. Now it's about Eugene too.

There wasn't a single moment that put Oregon on the path to becoming a heavyweight in the Big Ten, but its most recent trip to Michigan Stadium was a big step along the way.

“We were viewed as someone to be dealt with, an equal opponent in the Big Ten,” Bellotti said. “The Michigan game was certainly one that gave us more exposure because we went to the Big House and did it to them.”

(Top photo by Dennis Dixon: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)