McLaughlin: Oregon Has To Wait (Again) For That Special Season
By SPENCER McLAUGHLIN
Contributor, 750 The Game
I didn’t see that one coming. I don’t know if the most ardent scarlet-and-gray diehards in Columbus expected to hold a 34-0 lead in the Rose Bowl game. A matchup that was decided by one point on October 12th had its script turned on its head from the jump in Pasadena on Wednesday.
Ohio State throttled Oregon, with a final score of 41-21 somehow seeming closer than it felt. The Ducks were outclassed on both sides of the ball and just couldn’t do anything right. Even their punter Ross James, who’s having a historic season of booting the ball away this year, struggled against the Buckeyes. Everything went wrong and Oregon didn’t even make that many self-inflicted wounds, they just got outplayed.
The Ducks were 13-0, champions of the Big 10 and the top seed in the new 12-team Playoff. They would have been the national champions before the BCS began in 1998. They would have been straight to the title game against Georgia from 1999-2013. They wouldn’t have played Ohio State at any point from 2014-2023. But it’s 2024, and Oregon just had a really bad day against a great team in the midst of a good one.
Oregon fans have a legitimate grip to bemoan the fact that they played Ohio State as their reward for winning the Big 10 Championship, while Penn State drew SMU at home and Boise State and awaits a semifinal matchup with Georgia or Notre Dame. I’m in that camp that the Playoff format needs to change ASAP to reward teams that have the best season, but that’s not where anyone’s focus should be.
Was Oregon actually good enough to win it all? Or was it another “over hyped” Ducks team that got exposed?
Duck fans are right to be disappointed, sad, frustrated, etc. in the wake of an embarrassing showing in the greatest setting in college football. But I’m not going to allow that to retcon what I stated many times before: this Oregon team had a real shot to win it all.
As cliche and boring as it sounds, these things do happen sometimes. Peak Alabama under Nick Saban once lost a title game 44-16 to Clemson. I was there. It was not a fluke final score. The following year, that same Clemson team saw a 17-7 lead in the title game evaporate to Joe Burrow and his band of elite wideouts to the tune of a 42-25 defeat.
It happens. Oregon fans are just rightly frustrated that it happened to them, contrasting the 2015 Rose Bowl Game in which the Ducks beatdown the reigning national champions 59-20. That’s the first consideration.
The second one is that Ohio State looks like the best team in the country. I’m not going to be picking against them the rest of the way, but let’s play the games first. This same Oregon team beat Ohio State in this same season. So if you believe Ohio State can win it all, you’re right to think Oregon could have as well–because they did. Yes they were at home, but they also had a myriad of mistakes in that game that kept 10+ points off the board.
The worst part for Oregon fans is not that the Ducks’ progrum under Dan Lanning (with proper spelling) is going to crater. Their national title window hasn’t closed for good. The hardest part is that it’s an all too familiar place to be.
Fans have waited their whole lives to see Oregon put together that special season that sees them capture a national title. I’ll put my money on that happening in the next 5 years. Lanning is a terrific coach who got beat by a really good staff from Columbus. For those Oregon fans who thought this really was the year, you weren’t mistaken or misled. Sadly this is just how it goes sometimes, and the impact is magnified as Oregon keeps waiting for that first special season.
So here we are again, back to “maybe next year” for the Ducks. They’ve waited a long time, and I truly believe they won’t have to wait forever.
For now, the waiting resumes and in the wake of the loss there’s no way to sugarcoat it:
This sucks right now. Just remember that does not mean it will feel that way forever.
Spencer McLaughlin is an Oregon Ducks football contributor to 750 The Game. He also hosts the “Locked On Oregon Ducks” and “Locked On College Football” podcasts and has work featured throughout the season here.