For an Oregon Ducks fan, it's hard to say there's a loss that has been more frustrating to experience than this one in the last decade.
That's coming after a 41-21 defeat to the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Rose Bowl two years ago and a 56-22 blowout to the Indiana Hoosiers a year ago in the Peach Bowl. Hell, that's even with a history of a blowout loss to the Buckeyes in the national championship game in 2014, and a heart-wrenching loss to the Auburn Tigersin the BCS title game back in 2010.
Those defeats were met with sadness. This one is being greeted with anger.
Oregon woke up on Saturday as 24-point favorites over the Oklahoma State Cowboys, with a chance to prove that their Week 1 struggles against Boise State were just early-season woes, and
that their "championship or bust" mentality going into this year was still on par.
They busted quickly.
The Ducks fell to the Cowboys,39-31, in historic fashion. It was the first time in college football history that a team has snapped a 10-game losing streak by beating a top-10-ranked team, and it also broke Oregon's nation-leading 12-game road winning streak as well.
It was ugly, inexcusable, and downright exhausting. Here are our biggest takeaways from all the action.
This is on the Coaches
Which one do you want to start with? Dan Lanning, Drew Mehringer, and Chris Hampton all deserve heaps of blame here, as each unit — and the team as a whole — failed to show up and is responsible for the embarrassing loss.
Let's start with the guy up top.
Aggressive is one thing. Stupid is another.
Throughout his career at Oregon, Lanning has made a name for himself with brashness, pushing the envelope when necessary. We've seen this with fourth-down calls, fake punts, onside kicks, and many other extravagant decisions. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. Generally, in every situation, the decision was defensible, though.
On Saturday, Lanning crossed over from risky into idiotic.
Trailing by 5 points with 6:48 in the game and a 4th and 8 on his own 38-yard line, Lanning decided to keep his offense on the field and go for it rather than punt with three timeouts and a world of time left in the game. Instead of pinning the Cowboys deep and making them drive, Lanning put the ball in Dante Moore's hands in the midst of the worst game of his career. Unsurprisingly, Moore short-armed a throw, and the Ducks turned the ball over.
Oklahoma State would go down to kick a field goal and make it an eight-point game.
That decision just encapsulates how mismanaged Oregon was today. The Ducks were flagged seven times for 66 yards, including a pair of delay of games late in the fourth quarter when the Ducks were trying to mount a comeback. That's coaching, and that's inexcusable.
"We didn't have a lot of rhythm on offense; defensively, we gave up way too many explosives, some poor eye discipline, not winning at the point of attack," Lanning said after the game. "Our guys are much more capable of that, so all that starts with me. I didn't prepare our guys well enough."
Flipping now to the coordinators, neither was even close to good enough on Saturday. Offensively, the Ducks were out of rhythm and out of sync for the second game in a row, amassing just 281 yards of offense and 12 first downs in the game, punting five times.
Defensively, things were just as bad: a unit billed as arguably the best in the nation gave up 554 total yards, including 317 through the air and 237 on the ground. Cowboys quarterback Drew Mestemaker threw for 317 yards and rushed for 109 yards on his own. The Ducks allowed Oklahoma State 12 explosive plays in the game.
While the players are the ones on the field and will get a ton of direct criticism, anyone casting shade needs to start with the guys on the sideline. Going into a year where there were such high expectations, Lanning took a risk and hired a pair of inside guys who were on the team, rather than going national and getting big names. On Saturday, that looked like a tough decision. Time will tell if it pans out. This loss is absolutely on Dan Lanning and his staff for not having their team prepared, and it will be a mark on his resume until he can finally win the big game.
The Dante Moore Conversation
I think we should have a conversation about Dante Moore. By no means am I writing him off as a good player, or someone who can lead this team to a lot of success. I do think that my ceiling for him has dropped a bit, though. He needed to step up and lead this team to victory today, and instead, he shrunk. That makes it multiple times in his career now when he has not met the moment.
We saw it a couple of times last year against Indiana, both in the regular season and the postseason, and now, in a big spot where he was needed against an unranked Oklahoma State team, he once again was unable to answer the call.
Moore finished with just 191 yards passing and two touchdowns on 14-for-29 completion. In the first half, he threw for 45 total yards, the lowest output of his starting career. He missed open guys and short-armed a handful of throws in big moments where Oregon needed a completion.
It wasn't the on-field play that troubles me, though. This is a game where the team needed someone to step up and will them to victory. That's his job, and he didn't come through. Part of the reason he came back for another year was to work on his poise and become a better team player who could step up in moments like this, and if today was any indication, he still has a lot of work to do.
Where is the Defensive Line?
Regardless of your thoughts on the defense as a whole going into this season, there was a pretty undisputed thought that Eugene, Oregon, was home to the best defensive line in the nation. With four returning starters of Matayo Uiagalelei, Teitum Tuioti, A'Mauri Washington, and Bear Alexander — four players who could be playing in the NFL right now — many believed that the front four would dominate the trenches and be a game-changing unit for Oregon.
Through two games, that has been anything but the case.
The Ducks had zero sacks on Saturday, and just three QB hits against a team that was missing its starting left tackle and played much of the game without its starting center. They allowed the Cowboys to rush for 5.9 yards per carry and gave up over 200 yards on the ground. While a couple of players made big plays — D'Antre Robinson had a tipped pass that led to Devon Jackson's 96-yard pick-six, and Matayo Uiagalelei picked off a Mestemaker ball later in the 2nd quarter — the unit as a whole was forgettable and has largely been average this year.
With so much talent on paper, this position group needs to step up if Oregon is going to have any hope of achieving the lofty goals it has set for itself. So far, it hasn't been close to good enough.
The Rushing Attack
As much as we want to point fingers at the defensive line, we can also focus on the rushing attack so far this year. With both Jordon Davison and Dierre Hill in the backfield, there was an expectation that the Ducks would be able to run at will this year and lean on the ground game. Through two games, that hasn't been the case.
Oregon rushed for 90 yards on Saturday, with Hill leading the way with 74, while Davison added just 23. The longest carry by any back was 14 yards. This comes a week after Oregon rushed for just 119 yards against Boise State.
The Ducks' offense is dependent on the run game, and has been for well over a decade. If they are going to find any semblance of success this season, it's going to start up front with the offensive line — which wasn't good enough on Saturday — and the running backs finding a way to get upfield.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Dan Lanning said something to open his press conference after the game that resonates.
"Every single goal is still in front of us," Lanning said. "We control our own destiny."
He's not wrong. Oregon is 1-1, and they've got a tough schedule ahead with road games against the USC Trojans and Ohio State Buckeyes. They will also face the Washington Huskies and Michigan Wolverines at home. If the team that played on Saturday shows up to any of those games, this season could very well have five or more losses when all is said and done. But if you believe in the talent and the coaching, there's still a chance that they could figure this thing out, improve, and find a way to win some big games over the next few months.
The College Football Playoff is not out of reach; nor is a national championship.
Did the path get harder? Undoubtedly.
It's still there, though. Just have to take it one step at a time and realize that the most important step is the next one.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: 5 takeaways from Oregon Ducks' historic loss to Oklahoma State
