Flashback to a season ago, almost one year to the day of Ohio State’s first Big Ten Conference meeting with the program. Oregon was in Seattle to face bitter rival Washington, which built a two-touchdown lead on the Ducks in the second half.
Touchdowns from a Bo Nix pass to Troy Franklin and a Jordan James carry quickly gave Oregon the lead, only for Michael Penix Jr. to lead a drive that culminated in the Huskies scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 98 seconds remaining.
The Pac-12 Championship Game rematch less than two months later was more of the same: Oregon erased a three-point deficit, took the lead into the fourth quarter, but couldn’t do enough to hold on.
Similar scenarios played out in 2021 losses to Utah and in a confounding late-season setback at Arizona State in 2019. This time was different, thanks in part to Ducks, who experienced previous heartbreaks.
One such player is running back Jordan James, whose touchdown carry in the Pac-12 Championship Game last December gave Oregon a fleeting lead over Washington. He set the tone against Ohio State.
“Jordan, man, he runs like he’s pissed off all the time,” Ducks coach Dan Lanning said in his postgame press conference.
If James is indeed running a bit angry, he deserves to be after last season’s near-misses. In a game that Lanning said would be determined by physicality and establishing the ground game, James’ intensity was vital.
His 115 yards helped Oregon achieve a 155-141 rushing advantage on Saturday. And it wasn’t just holdovers from the previous season contributing to the victory over Ohio State; transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel’s 32 yards were critical as well. Twenty-seven of those yards came on a fourth-quarter touchdown, the last time either squad reached the end zone.
That’s noteworthy, considering two programs long synonymous with explosive offense went the next 13:20 without scoring touchdowns. Oregon has long been adept at outgunning its opponents through innovative offense, an identity cultivated from the same University of New Hampshire coaching tree that gave Ohio State its head coach, Ryan Day.
Calling plays for the Buckeyes on Saturday was Chip Kelly, the same former UNH coach whose approach to hurry-up and spread offense fostered Oregon’s rise to national prominence in the 2010s.
Warranted or not, the knock on past Ducks teams under Kelly and his successor Mark Helfrich—who coached Oregon to that inaugural Playoff championship—was that they lacked the physicality to beat teams like Alabama and Ohio State. Thus, by winning with physicality and clutch defense against a Kelly-coordinated offense, Oregon’s win carried further significance as a full-circle moment.
There may not have been a bigger play in that context than Matayo Uiagalelei sacking Ohio State’s Will Howard with 1:46 remaining, as the Buckeyes needed only to reach field-goal range to inflict further heartache on the Ducks. Pushing Ohio State back nine yards and consuming almost 30 seconds changed the entire complexion of the Buckeyes’ final possession.
With that last defensive stand, Oregon secured a win that didn’t clinch a national championship. The Ducks are only halfway through their regular-season slate. It also didn’t guarantee them a Big Ten title or even a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game—the loss to Washington 364 days prior proved as much.
But by winning the type of game that has so often eluded Oregon in the last decade, the Ducks took a symbolic and meaningful step toward their next best chance to win a national championship since January 2015.