Going back in time, almost one year to the date of Ohio State’s first Big Ten Conference meeting with the program. Oregon was in Seattle to face rival Washington, which scored two touchdowns against the Ducks in the second half.
Touchdowns from Bo Nix to Troy Franklin and Jordan James quickly gave Oregon the lead, only for Michael Penix Jr. leading a drive that culminated in the Huskies scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 98 seconds left.
The Pac-12 Championship Game rematch less than two months later was the same thing: Oregon erased a three-point deficit, took the lead in the fourth quarter, but couldn’t do enough to keep going.
Similar situations played out in the 2021 loss to Utah and in the puzzling late-season comeback at Arizona State in 2019. This time was different, thanks in part to the Ducks, who experienced heartbreak in the past.
One such player is running back Jordan James, whose touchdown in the Pac-12 Championship Game last December gave Oregon the lead over Washington. He set the tone against Ohio State.
“Jordan, man, he runs like he’s upset all the time,” Ducks coach Dan Lanning said in the postgame press conference.
If James really is a little angry, he deserves to miss last season. In a game that Lanning said will be dictated by physicality and establishing the ground game, James’ toughness was key.
His 115 yards helped Oregon to a 155-141 rushing advantage on Saturday. And it wasn’t just last season’s participation that contributed to Ohio State’s victory; quarterback Dillon Gabriel’s 32-yard pass was also critical. Twenty-seven of those yards came on fourth-quarter touchdowns, the last time either team reached the end zone.
That’s remarkable, considering two long plays like a blast offense went the next 13:20 without scoring. Oregon has long had the ability to beat its opponents with a new offense, an identity planted in the coaching tree of the University of New Hampshire that gave Ohio State its head coach, Ryan Day.
Calling the Buccaneers’ games on Saturday was Chip Kelly, the same former UNH coach whose fast-paced, spread offense inspired Oregon’s rise to national prominence in the 2010s.
Confirmed or not, the knock on past Ducks teams under Kelly and his successor Mark Helfrich—who coached Oregon to that first playoff appearance—was that they didn’t have the strength to beat teams like Alabama and Ohio State. So, with a physical win and a clutch defense against a Kelly-coordinated offense, Oregon’s win took on even more 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 left, as the Buckeyes needed to get into field goal range to upset the Ducks. Pushing Ohio State back nine yards and taking about 30 seconds changed the entire complexion of the Buckeyes’ final possession.
With that last defensive stand, Oregon got a win that didn’t win the national championship. The Ducks are in the middle of their regular season. It also didn’t guarantee them a Big Ten title or a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game—losing to Washington 364 days ago proved as much.
But by winning the kind of game that has often eluded Oregon over the past decade, the Ducks took a symbolic and meaningful step toward their best chance to win a national championship since January 2015.
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