Oregon knocks out Ohio State in first Big Ten test: ‘We were going to put on a show for them’ (Video)

EUGENE, Ore. — Dan Lanning walked into the postgame press conference with a broad smile.

“Does anyone have a heart rate monitor?” he joked.

Lanning is all of us, all of us who adore college football, and we witnessed on Saturday what makes the game so incredibly great: close wins and big marks, passion and prestige, upsets and underdogs. racing heart strong pulse

Four teams in the top 25 won in overtime, two teams won by two points and one by one point.

Perhaps none of them were wilder than what unfolded here in the Pacific Northwest inside a roaring, swinging Autzen Stadium.

On that field, two of college football’s most expensive teams waged war, each estimated to have spent nearly $20 million on their rosters. Two big Big Ten brands battled it out. Here’s a haystack. An uppercut there.

Eight touchdowns combined. Almost 1,000 meters of attack. Seven lead changes.

Great catches wild races Great achievements

Absurd events, too. An expulsion for spitting! A shot in play in the second quarter that bounces off a player. Questionable late game decisions. A costly offensive penalty late in the game.

And, in the end, a classic for the ages: No. 3 Oregon 32, No. 2 Ohio State 31.

“You don’t have too much,” Oregon wide receiver Tez Johnson says. “You dream of playing games like this.”

A dream, that’s how it felt. A college football dream. An epic showdown that delivered. Lanning described it as a heavyweight fight that went all round.

His Oregon Ducks delivered the final blow. A defensive stop that left the opposing quarterback lying on the turf. The clock to zero. And the fans running around the field. It was pure madness. Shirtless students. A crowd surfing mascot. Even adults. A man with a cane weaved through the crowd: “This makes me feel young!”

And there among them, in the madness, a hero walked the field: quarterback Dillon Gabriel, minutes removed from a 373-yard, three-touchdown performance, a prime-time televised outing that perhaps the will lead to the Heisman Trophy. conversation and has put the ducks fully in the hunt for the title.

In front of a record crowd here, the Ducks swept the Buckeyes to victory in a game representative of their Big Ten run — a matchup against the biggest of brands in front of a prime-time national audience.

That’s why you join the Big Ten.

It ended in impressive fashion: the best athlete on the football field received a costly penalty. With Ohio State up for a game-winning field goal, Jeremiah Smith, the Buckeyes’ talented freshman wide receiver, brushed aside a defender for a reception inside the Oregon 30-yard line. Flags waved: Offensive pass interference. He backed the Buckeyes out of field goal range with 20 seconds on the clock.

Coach Ryan Day decided not to use a timeout. As time expired, quarterback Will Howard threw incomplete to set up the final play. With six seconds on the clock, Howard dropped back for a pass, felt pressure and ran out of the pocket. Inexplicably, he poked the ball, ran and slid down as the clock struck zero.

Fans poured onto the playing surface. The Buckeyes were enraged. And Oregon had a signature win over its new conference power — the most significant validation yet for what Lanning has built here in Eugene. NIL’s effort supported by Nike, a great college town, a young and risky coach.

Lanning pulled off an upset in the second quarter, calling an onside kick that bounced off an Oregon player and was recovered by the Ducks (resulting in a field goal, the ultimate difference in the game).

Afterwards, the 38-year-old coach took a deep breath. Many emotions ran through him. The strongest of them? “Relief,” he said.

Breathe easy. Halfway through the season, the 6-0 Ducks are now in the driver’s seat of the Big Ten title after coming through what will be their toughest test of the regular season. The rest of the way, there’s no undefeated Penn State or Indiana. However, a road game at the Big House is slated.

This is not the time to talk about it, of course. Time to talk about an epic Saturday in college football. Seven teams in the top 25 won in overtime, by two points or by one point. No. 13 LSU, No. 4 Penn State, No. 23 Illinois and No. 8 Tennessee survived overtime. No. 22 Pitt and No. 7 Alabama each won by two points.

And then there were the third-place Ducks and their one-point win in front of a very electric environment on a perfect day for football. A record crowd of 60,129 people watched. And they sounded like 100,000.

Lanning, who wears a single-ear headphone, needed to cover her open ear to hear at times. “That’s good,” he said.

They sang, danced and swayed. Finally, they stormed over, jumping the barriers to reach the playing surface and embrace their heroes, one in particular, Gabriel.

“A lot of F-bombs,” the quarterback said of the aftermath. “The clock strikes zero and you just enjoy yourself.”

He shredded the Buckeyes, completing 23-of-44 passes and throwing some of the prettiest long balls you’ll ever see. Ohio State entered without allowing a pass of 30 yards or more. Gabriel and his receivers had four.

Johnson caught a 48-yarder. Evan Stewart caught one for 69. Two more receivers each caught passes of 32 yards.

“Bombs away,” Johnson said.

“We were going to give them a show,” Stewart said.

Boy did they. A 496-yard performance with seven third- or fourth-down conversions, a 100-yard rusher (Jordan James, who runs like he’s “angry,” his coach said) and an offensive line that pushed its opponent.

In the locker room before the game, Lanning delivered a message to his team: Leave it in the field. Give me everything you’ve got.

There was also one more message.

Lanning said, “You can sleep when you die.”