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Oregon didn’t want us to celebrate 2024. What are we supposed to do in 2025?
PASADENA, Calif. — Before the disaster happened, Urban Meyer was happy to reminisce about one of the worst times in Oregon history.
The former Ohio State coach was riding the elevator up to the press box of the Rose Bowl on Wednesday when the topic of Phil Knight came up. The Nike Co-Founder is Oregon’s most famous booster, but it wasn’t so long ago that Knight wasn’t shy about showing up on other school’s campuses. Specifically, Meyer talked about how cool it was when Knight came to observe one of their practices during his time at Ohio State, which sprung a memory from the final day of the 2016 season.
Oregon lost to Oregon State 34-24 on that November afternoon to finish off a 4-8 season, one that also included a 49-point loss to Washington, a 25-point loss to USC and a 35-point loss to Stanford. But Knight wasn’t in Corvallis for that loss. He was in Columbus, in the Ohio State locker room, congratulating the Buckeyes for their 30-27 overtime win over rival Michigan in a game that would propel OSU into the then-four-team College Football Playoff.
“Of the top 25 teams, Nike supplies 20 of them,” Knight told the Buckeyes in that locker room. “None of those are we more proud of than the one in this dressing room.”
While Ohio State would ultimately fall to Clemson in the playoff semifinals, the messaging at the time seemed pretty clear. Knight, 78 at the time, wanted to associate with front-runners — winners, the teams that could compete at the game’s highest level. And within a week of Oregon’s season-ending loss, Mark Helfrich and his entire staff were shown the door, a catalyzing move in getting the Ducks to where they are today — a place light years away from the basement the Ducks found themselves in nearly a decade ago, but one that on Wednesday was accompanied by a familiar feeling of embarrassment.
Ohio State beat Oregon 41-21 at the Rose Bowl in a game that, at one point, saw the Buckeyes leading 34-0 in the second quarter. OSU’s offensive line, defensive line, quarterback, running backs, cornerbacks, linebackers and their litany of all-star receivers severely outplayed an Oregon squad that came into Pasadena with a 13-0 record, the No. 1 seed and a running mentality of “the job not being done.”
Remember, these Ducks were the ones who refused to celebrate most of the 2024 season’s successes. The Ohio State win in October wasn’t enough, redemption over Washington wasn’t enough and, if you were listening, you were told the No. 1 overall ranking the team held for more than half the season wasn’t enough. Oregon’s goal was to win the national championship, an expectation not placed on the program just by overzealous fans but also by a head coach in Dan Lanning and a group of boosters who, like Knight, have spent the last eight years trying to bring the Ducks to the same table as the game’s greats.
In that time, the Ducks have become a recruiting juggernaut. Their facilities are best in class and they’ve been praised endlessly by local and national media for how swiftly they’ve adapted to the NIL era under Knight’s leadership. By 2019, the Ducks were a Rose Bowl worthy team. By 2023, they were a national championship dark horse. And in 2024, the Ducks were a team whose roster, coaching staff and support system had established themselves to a point where UO was the preseason’s No. 3 team.
“Nobody has higher expectations for us than ourselves,” Lanning said before the season began.
Then they won every game they played in 2024.
On the first day of 2025, Oregon fans showed up in droves to a place that has hosted some of the program’s greatest memories. They packed planes, showed up early for the tailgates, filled up half the stadium and collectively marveled as the national anthem played with the stealth bomber flying low over the stadium. On college football’s most beautiful stage, Oregon fans were ready to progress to the next step. Instead, they were silenced from the opening kickoff as the Buckeyes gashed the Ducks play after play after play.
Will Howard finished with 316 yards and three touchdowns. Freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith caught seven passes for 187 yards and two touchdowns. Running backs TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins combined for 179 rushing yards on a day where Oregon’s Jordan James left the game in the first half with an injury and still led UO’s rushing attack with 14 total yards.
Had it not been for an Oregon score at the end of the half, followed by a touchdown to open the second, the Ducks were in danger of entering “Herbstreit says you don’t belong on the same field” territory.
“We really didn’t have the ability to stop them and we didn’t have the ability to get something going for us on offense,” Lanning said. “We haven’t really faced a lot of moments like this all year.”
It’s a damn shame, because, ultimately, 2024 should have been viewed as an amazing season for Oregon. Dillon Gabriel finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting. Bryce Boettcher became the next hometown hero. James ran like a Mack truck, the Ducks’ front-seven dominated game after game and Lanning, in just his third season as head coach, put on weekly clinics in showing how to prepare a team for the job at hand. Ask anyone who was at Autzen Stadium on Oct. 12 and, up until Wednesday, they’d likely tell you it was one of the best nights in Oregon history. It wasn’t just the Ducks taking a seat at the table, it was the Ducks taking the head of the table.
“I’m really proud of our guys, but I’m also really excited to, you know, figure out what we can go attack and improve, because the team we are today on October 12 is not going to be the same team we are in December,” Lanning said after that one.
He was right. Oregon wasn’t the same team in December January. Neither were the Buckeyes. Now, it’s the Ohio State who has pulled that seat out from under Oregon and have reclaimed its spot as the country’s front-runner.
Ohio State should win the national title. And while Oregon should be back in contention next fall, they’re also going to lose Gabriel, Tez Johnson, Jordan Burch, Traeshon Holden and a whole cast of characters who produced one of the best Oregon regular seasons ever. And while the Ducks have again loaded up through recruiting and are expected to, again, be major players in the transfer portal, 2025 will be a transitional season for the Ducks.
Will you be happy with nine wins? How about 10, 11 or 12?
Maybe. But I also wonder whether Knight, who turns 87 in February, will be content. He, more than anyone, has turned Oregon into a championship or bust program, one that will, again, no longer find a whole lot of joy in regular season wins in 2025 against a softer schedule than the one they just went through.
To be fair to Knight, he’s been all-Oregon since 2016. He’s been on the sidelines. He’s been in the press boxes. He’s been at the forefront of Oregon’s rise from the ashes of that 4-8 season. The Ducks simply don’t get whooped in the regular season anymore. But Knight has also been there for losses like Oregon’s 28-point loss to Utah in the 2021 Pac-12 Championship game and both of Oregon’s devastating losses to Washington in 2023.
I didn’t see him at the Rose Bowl. I was looking and couldn’t find him in his usual spot along the Oregon sideline. It had to be a dreadful experience if he was there, though, one that I’m sure was further emphasized late in the second half when the Rose Bowl threw Meyer up on the big screen to roaring applause from the Ohio State half of the stadium, cheering that didn’t subside until his successor, Ryan Day, stood on stage with the Rose Bowl Trophy.
“In this game there are ups and downs along the way,” said Day. “When things are going good, you’ve got to hug the guys you love the most. And when things aren’t, you’ve got to hug them even harder.
“You just have to hang in there and keep swinging.”
Lanning is 38. He has a lot of punches left to throw and I still think he’s going to land them one of these years.
Knight doesn’t have the same luxury, however, and I truly wonder how he’ll reflect on 2024. Was it a success? Was it a failure?
If it’s the latter, I worry that Oregon football has morphed into a program that’s allowed to enjoy the season only if it’s the last team standing. And at college football’s greatest venue, the Ducks showed on Wednesday they’re still far away from being the last team at the dance.
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
