Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
The Oregon Ducks went to Seattle and outplayed the Huskies. They also lost.
SEATTLE — There’s a dance to being best stationed on the sideline for the end of a big game. It’s all about jockeying for position, as players, coaches and administrators start rubbing elbows with the writers and photographers and the boosters who make their way down to the field for the final drives. There’s a flow to it — pick a spot, hope the action comes your way — and boy did Phil Knight ever have a vantage point for what should have been one of the most memorable moments in his own Oregon Ducks history.
How could it not be? Here his No. 8 Oregon Ducks were about to put the fork in the No. 7 Huskies in the only top 10 battle in 115 games between these two. Oregon, after trailing by 11 earlier in the second half, should have wrapped things up moments earlier with a goal line stop on fourth down. That gave the Ducks the ball, up four, with six minutes to play. And even as the ensuing Oregon drive stalled out around midfield right in front of Knight, with the way Oregon’s defense was playing, a simple punt on fourth down pinning Washington in its own end should, at the very least…
Hold on.
Oregon punter Ross James remained on the sideline. Bo Nix and the offense stayed on the field. Instead of punting and forcing the Huskies to travel, at minimum, 75 yards, the Ducks went for it. And instead of watching the coronation of a program he’s spent hundreds of millions of dollars — and decades — supporting, the Nike co-founder instead got to watch Nix’s pass fall incomplete to Tez Johnson.
“God damn it!” Knight bellowed, throwing his hands up.
There were still two minutes to play. The Ducks still led. But Knight seemed to know it was over.
Of course, two plays later, Washington scored for the 36-33 lead. A few more after that, Camden Lewis’ 43-yard try to send the game into overtime sailed wide right. And within seconds, any decorum to the sideline disappeared as swaths of Husky Stadium’s sold-out crowd had spilled onto the turf.
Knight was gone. A few minutes later outside of the Ducks’ locker room, the second-year coach he helped sign to the largest contract in Oregon history was left to sift through the wreckage: A winnable first loss of the season, one that put his biggest rival into the shotgun seat for the playoffs, was dialed up by himself.
“I think this game is 100 percent on me,” Lanning said. “I don’t think you guys have to look anywhere else but me.”
Glad we’re not wasting any time with the debate.
Because Nix (337 yards, 2 touchdown, 0 interceptions) was good enough to win on Saturday. So, too, was Oregon’s offensive line and a running game led by Bucky Irving that totaled 204 yards on the ground. Even Oregon’s defense, which hit Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. just one time and failed to sack him in last year’s 37-34 loss in Eugene, was good enough. The Ducks got home on Penix for one sack and hit him enough times that the nation’s leading passer appeared noticeably hobbled in a second half that saw the Ducks go to work.
“We knew Penix is an elite quarterback and he’s just been back there chilling,” Oregon linebacker Jeffrey Bassa said. “The D-line and the people who were blitzing did a great job of getting home. Throughout the game, the quarterback started getting hurt a little.”
Ultimately, the Ducks out-gained Washington. The Ducks won the turnover battle that didn’t take place on fourth down. Heck, Oregon even held Penix below 60 percent passing for the first time this season. The Ducks did everything to move to 6-0 for the first time in 10 years except for call the right plays.
The Ducks left three points off the board at the end of the first half by electing to go for it on fourth down instead of kicking a field goal. The Ducks got stuffed, went into half, then promptly got stuffed again on their first drive out of the break. The Ducks left another three points off the board later in the third when they failed to convert a fourth-and-3 from Washington’s 8 yard line with the Huskies leading 29-18.
Pick a kick, any kick, and Oregon is at least likely pushing this game into overtime.
“I’ll certainly go back and evaluate myself,” Lanning said. “It’s about adapting — the game’s about adapting and getting better.”
Luckily there’s still time. At 5-1, Lanning’s Ducks are still well in control of their Pac-12 championship game destiny. There’s still Utah on the schedule. There’s still USC on the schedule. There’s still Oregon State on the schedule. This isn’t like last year, when Washington’s fourth-quarter win ended Oregon’s playoff hopes. Frankly, if Oregon plays as well as it did on Saturday the rest of the year, the Ducks should be on a crash course for Las Vegas for a rematch with UW. But of course, there’s a lot of things that should happen in football.
“It’s hard. I’m my biggest critic and I think coach Lanning is the same way,” Nix said after tying the NCAA record with his 53rd start at quarterback. The quarterback, like Bassa and WR Troy Franklin, said what you’d expect of him when asked about the calls out of their control. They trust their coach, Nix said. They trust their teammates, Franklin said.
Still, go ahead and add Saturday to the biggest “What Ifs” in Oregon history. Because if things go differently, the Ducks are the most talked about team in the country and Nix wouldn’t have to be reminded by a team beat reporter that he’s now 0-7 against top 10 opponents on the road.
“Can you name them?” Nix asked.
Well, the reporter said, there’s Alabama and Ole Miss and Georgia and…
“Those are good football teams,” Nix said.
So are his Ducks, which is why Saturday is going to stick with them long after they touch back down in Eugene.
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
