The people who have said the 12-team College Football Playoff undercuts the significance of the regular season need to hush. Failing that, they needed to be in Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore., on Saturday night.
They needed to be here for the daylong buildup—from predawn onward—for what was widely considered the biggest home game in Oregon Ducks history. They needed to be here for the frenzied atmosphere during the game, with crowd noise causing multiple Ohio State Buckeyes penalties. They needed to be on the field afterward, amid the swarm, and outside the stadium later, as the party continued to reverberate well into the night.
“Anyone got a heart-rate monitor?” Ducks coach Dan Lanning asked after his No. 3-ranked team’s 32–31 victory over the No. 2 Buckeyes.
The games still matter. A lot. Not every outcome is a playoff disqualifier, but so what? Try telling those overjoyed Oregon fans this pulsating victory in front of the biggest crowd in Autzen history was no big deal.
It was a huge deal, both tangibly and intangibly.
The tangible: The Ducks are the only compelling counterpoint to the Texas Longhorns in the “Who’s No. 1?” debate. They are now in the pole position in the oldest and richest conference, which is their new home, the Big Ten. They have the best win of any team nationally to date. They aren’t in the playoff yet, but nobody is closer to it than they are.
The intangible: Few sports still are guided by an old money vs. nouveau riche ethos as much as college football. In this matchup, Ohio State is the established blueblood with national championships that are older than most of their fans. Oregon is a 30-year phenomenon built on Nike money, uniform flair and flashy offense that has played in two national title games but won neither. It is, in the rigid hierarchy of the sport, still a striver.
After Saturday night, the Ducks have taken a step away from blueblood striver and a step toward blueblood arrival. This game could ultimately carry that much weight.
“How awesome is Oregon?” Lanning said, speaking to the media but more importantly to recruits everywhere.
In terms of score and stats, this was a jump ball of a game. If these two teams meet again in the Big Ten championship game or thereafter in the playoff, the result could go the other way. Oregon won by a single point and outgained the Buckeyes by 29 yards. Ohio State ran three more plays. An offensive pass interference penalty and quarterback Will Howard’s faulty internal clock might have been the only things that kept the Buckeyes from a walk-off win.
But beyond a considerable home-field advantage, the Ducks overcame more to secure this victory. There was a Thursday injury to standout defensive end Jordan Burch, who was leading the team in sacks and tackles for loss. There was a controversial early call that kept Ohio State’s first touchdown drive alive, when an apparent Oregon interception was ruled a Buckeyes catch, with play never stopping for a review. There was the first-half ejection of No. 2 receiver Traeshon Holden for spitting on an Ohio State player, a foolish and classless move that would loom much larger if Oregon lost.
The Ducks prevailed anyway because they were bolder. They were better in clutch situations. And they were more physical than the Buckeyes.
Lanning, who has at times overdone the bravado in big games, dialed up one big surprise but otherwise played it pretty straight. His first-half call for a ricochet onside kick worked perfectly, with kicker Atticus Sappington firing a line drive off an Ohio State blocker that Oregon recovered. The Ducks got three points out of that stolen possession, and those points loomed large at the end.
In the final two minutes, the 38-year-old Lanning resisted his natural impulse to go for a fourth-and-goal at the Ohio State 1-yard line, sending in the field goal unit for what was the winning kick. Lanning has passed up some field goals before to go for touchdowns, but in this instance, he played it by the book and trusted his defense to hold on at the end—which it did, barely.
Oregon also had the better quarterback, having won the transfer portal maneuvering by landing Dillon Gabriel out of Oklahoma (He led the Sooners to victory in the Red River Rivalry game against Texas a year ago; Oklahoma was wiped out by the Longhorns on Saturday.) Ohio State wound up with Howard from Kansas State. Both were good Saturday night, but Gabriel made more winning plays.
The 23-year-old is on pace to start more games than any quarterback in FBS history, and his veteran savvy showed. His zone-read keeper early in the fourth quarter resulted in a 27-yard touchdown run for a 29–28 lead, and he completed four passes on the winning field goal drive. For the game, Gabriel threw for 341 yards and ran for 32, accounting for three TDs.
“It’s hard to replace experience,” Lanning said of Gabriel. “You get the feeling like Dillon is out there in an empty place, like it’s a Tuesday.”
Gabriel sang briefly during his postgame news conference. Before that, he and some teammates were yelling expletives coming off the field.
“A lot of f-bombs,” he said. “But rightfully so.”
Gabriel wasn’t the only key transfer pickup the Ducks made in the offseason. Receiver Evan Stewart arrived from Texas A&M and had his biggest game of the season, lighting up touted Ohio State cornerback Denzel Burke on his way to seven catches for 149 yards. Stewart, Holden, wideout Tez Johnson and tight end Terrance Ferguson all had catches of 30 yards or longer against an Ohio State defense that hadn’t allowed a single catch of 30-plus yards this season.
Oregon was eager to challenge that Buckeyes secondary.
“[Oregon coaches] told us this week they hadn’t seen anybody like us,” Stewart said. “And when you look at the film, yeah, it’s the truth.”
“Bombs away,” Johnson said.
The final key element for Oregon was winning in the trenches. Much-hyped Ohio State rush ends JT Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer recorded zero sacks, and the Ducks outrushed the Buckeyes, 155–141. Jordan James, less heralded than the Ohio State tandem of TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, gained more than those two combined, 115–110.
“Jordan, man, he runs like he’s pissed off,” Lanning said.
“I’m trying to be the most physical guy on the field at all times,” James said.
For Ohio State, this marked another time when third-year defensive coordinator Jim Knowles’s unit wasn’t quite good enough against a top-five opponent. In 2022, the Buckeyes gave up 530 yards and 45 points to Michigan, then 533 yards and 42 points to Georgia. Last season, Ohio State gave up season highs of 5.63 yards per play and 30 points to the Wolverines. Oregon’s 496 yards and 32 points were by far the most the Bucks have surrendered so far this season.
And yet, Ohio State still was in position to win if not for a push-off by star freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith in the final minute. That offensive pass interference flag pushed them out of field goal range, and then Howard scrambled on the final play and ran out the clock, trying to slide to set up a field goal but not getting down in time.
The loss, as noted above, is hardly fatal. But it does increase the pressure on a team that came into the season saddled with the most pressure of any in America. A trip to undefeated Penn State on Nov. 2 takes on added weight, as do season-ending home games against undefeated Indiana (of all things) and nemesis Michigan (a poor version of the Wolverines, but still).
The games all matter, still. The scenes for the big showdowns remain profound. Autzen and Oregon had their moment Saturday night, and it may have changed the program trajectory for good.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Oregon’s Thrilling Win Over Ohio State Shows How Much Games Matter in 12-Team CFP Era.