My heart still hasn't recovered from the closing minutes of Oregon's thrilling 32-31 victory over Ohio State in a battle of #3 versus #2. After tonight, Oregon should be the second ranked team in the country, maybe even close to the top spot, a major accomplishment given the mediocre play from Oregon in its first two games.
Sports writer John Canzano captured my feeling exactly in his "The Bald Faced Truth" substack post (I'm a subscriber) as the talented Ohio State quarterback took the field in the last few minutes of the game, needing only a field goal to pull out a win.
EUGENE — It sure was something on Saturday night to see Oregon fans storm the field and Chip Kelly storm the press box elevator at the end of regulation.
Final: Oregon 32, Ohio State 31.
The biggest win of the Dan Lanning era.
No question mark there. None needed. Because Lanning’s Ducks took possession of the Big Ten Conference penthouse with a gritty, gutsy, never-say-die victory at Autzen Stadium. It wasn’t perfect. Nor easy. But the win came just the same, and it was accompanied by some national respect for the UO program.
Kelly, Ohio State’s mercenary play-caller, was down by a point when his offense got the ball. He had 107 seconds, three timeouts, and a trusted kicker. I don’t blame you if you shook your head, turned off the TV, and headed to bed. Or maybe just covered your eyes with the sofa pillows.
Kelly vs. the Ducks defense with the game on the line?
I was totally prepared for Kelly and Ohio State to come out on top. It just looked like one of those agonizingly close losses in important games was going to bite the Ducks in the butt again. But poor clock management by Ohio State in the closing seconds saved Oregon.
Inexplicably, the Ohio State quarterback kept the ball and ran up the middle when there was just six seconds left in the game. Canzano wrote:
I’d wondered all week if it would come down to the grandmaster chess player against his old school. We’d seen Kelly win a pile of games during his tenure in Eugene. He and Buckeyes’ head coach Ryan Day presented a formidable challenge for Lanning and his youthful staff, particularly defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi.
Lupoi is an elite recruiter who happens to also be Oregon’s defensive playcaller. Kelly loathes recruiting but can work the back of a napkin at a coaching clinic with the best around. That contrast and the sky-high stakes provided terrific theater on Saturday.
It wasn’t lost on me that Oregon’s Jabbar Muhammad, a transfer cornerback from Washington, deflected a critical pass on the second-to-last play of the game. Or that when Ohio State quarterback Will Howard decided to tuck the ball and run with the final seconds ticking away, he was being chased by players Lupoi recruited, developed, and put on the field.
Howard ran, slid, and then looked up at the clock.
Timeout?
Too late — “0:00.”
This was Oregon's big entrance into the Big Ten. I've got to admit that the scary reputation of Ohio State, which had beaten every opponent easily up to now, made me hope that at least Oregon would keep the final score close so if they lost, they wouldn't sink far in the rankings.
But the Ducks pulled it out -- even with a botched extra point, a failed two-point conversion to make up for the missed extra point, a missed field goal, and a deeply irritating ejection from the game of Oregon receiver Traeshon Holden when he spit in the face of an Ohio State defender after making a catch near the goal line, which led to a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that took away the chance for a touchdown when the Ducks had to settle for a field goal.
That four point difference between a touchdown and field goal was very much on my mind as Ohio State started its final possession just one point behind, since an Ohio State field goal would win it for them. I have no doubt that one of the happiest people in Autzen Stadium after the Ducks' victory was Holden, since if they had lost, his spit in the face would have gone down in Oregon football history as one of the stupidest moves ever by a Duck in an important game.
It still was really stupid. But at least it didn't cost Oregon the game. If Oregon can beat one of the top teams in the country after making preventable errors, the rest of the season looks really promising for the Ducks.
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