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QuickTake:
The defense gave up 554 yards, Dante Moore was just 14 of 29, and it was Dan Lanning's first loss to an unranked team in five seasons.
Quick, what’s more common: A lightning strike or Oregon’s defense looking downright bad?
On Saturday in Stillwater, Okla., both happened with alarming frequency.
The offense looked pretty paltry, too.
And the ramifications for this one are going to ripple for a long time.
One week after squeaking by unranked Boise State in Eugene, Oregon continued to look all out of sorts on both sides of the ball, losing 39-31 to unranked Oklahoma State in Stillwater, a stunning result for a squad that was expected to be in the hunt for a national championship.
Trailing by eight with three minutes to play, the Ducks got the ball back with one final chance to get their act together. But the drive went horribly wrong on the fourth play, as Dierre Hill Jr. fumbled on the Oregon 40, giving the ball back to Oklahoma State. The Cowboys got a first down, ran out the clock to secure the upset and students clad in orange and black — certainly the Ducks’ least favorite colors — flooded the field.
With the win, the Cowboys, who went 1-11 last year, snapped a 21-game FBS losing streak. Their victory came just one week after Tulsa thumped OSU 24-10. It was also the first loss to an unranked team in Dan Lanning’s five seasons at Oregon. The offensive performance – a measly 281 total yards – was one of the worst of Lanning’s tenure.
Lanning was succinct in his postgame analysis: “It wasn’t really close,” he said. “We got our asses kicked.”
Oregon dropped four spots in the Associated Press Top 25 after last week’s win, and is likely to plummet down the rankings again this week — maybe even out of the Top 25 all together.
Delayed 90 minutes because of thunderstorms in the area, Oregon’s offense again looked sluggish and out of rhythm while the defense seemed startled at the sharp play of Oklahoma State quarterback Drew Mestemaker (26-of-43 passing for 317 yards and two touchdowns, plus 109 rushing yards and one touchdown).
The Ducks gave up 554 total yards — 353 in the first half alone — an astonishing figure considering last season, the most yards Oregon allowed in a regular season game was 382, against USC.
“We keep on killing ourselves with penalties, one person not doing their job — that goes for everyone, including me — we’ve got to be better,” linebacker Teitum Tuioti said. “All this (preseason) hype about the defense, we’ve got to lock in. Maybe we’re reading our press clippings too much.
“We’ve got to put our head down and work right now.”
Meanwhile Oregon’s offense was stunningly off, with quarterback Dante Moore completing just 14-of-29 attempts for 191 yards.
There were problems all over the field and yet Oregon’s defense was also the only reason the Ducks were in the game in the first half. Devon Jackson got Oregon’s first score with a 96-yard pick-six midway early in the first quarter to put the Ducks up 7-3, and midway through the second, linebacker Matayo Uiagalelei snagged a deflected pass and sprinted 11 yards to set up Jordon Davison’s 1-yard touchdown run to pull the Ducks within three, 17-14.
But even with the defense keeping the deficit manageable, Oregon’s offense could never really get going — certainly not to the gear it needed or that Duck fans have come to expect. The Ducks went 0-fer on three fourth down attempts, including two at critical moments. (OSU, meanwhile, was successful on its only fourth down attempt.)
Late in the third quarter, trailing 27-24, Oregon went for it on 4th-and-7 at the Cowboys’ 43, where Moore was sacked for a loss of five yards. The Ducks’ defense forced OSU to settle for a field goal, but it stung nonetheless.
Then, trailing 36-31 with just under seven minutes and facing 4th-and-8 on its own 33, Oregon bizarrely opted to go for it. Moore’s pass was short, Oklahoma State took over and the Cowboys booted a 31-yard field goal to increase their lead to 39-31 with 3:11 to play.
“You have to be aggressive when you know you need a touchdown,” Lanning said of his decision to go for it on fourth down, while acknowledging that the passing game was out of sync all day. He said he’ll undoubtedly be “second-guessing” those decisions.
Lanning lamented Oregon’s overall play at the line of scrimmage and tackling, saying neither took the step from Week 1 that they should have. He said Oregon “didn’t have a lot of rhythm on offense” and gave up too many explosive plays on defense. He also took the blame.
“Our guys are much more capable,” Lanning said. “All that starts with me. I didn’t prepare our guys well enough.”
No one is going to say that Oklahoma State is anywhere close to the caliber of Indiana, the defending national champion, though Saturday’s loss was eerily similar to the two times last year the Hoosiers topped Oregon in one obvious way: The Ducks couldn’t run the ball against either team. Indiana held Oregon under 100 rushing yards both times it matched up with the Ducks last year, and the Cowboys did the same Saturday, as Oregon totaled just 90 yards on the ground.
Penalties remained an issue for the second straight week, with Oregon tallying seven for 66 yards. Though considering everything that went wrong Saturday, it might be the least of the Ducks’ problems in the immediate.
