A furious dress rehearsal at Oregon

The Ducks held on to beat Ohio State in a game that, in a 12-team playoff world, decided very little. It did set up some drama for the next time.

Dillon Gabriel

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It was a pretty full day. Imagine if it had meant something. 

Oregon bounced an surprise onside kick off an Ohio State shin, which led to a field goal. Oregon receiver Trasehon Holden spit in the face of Ohio State’s Davison Igbinosun, literally, and was ejected — this day and time, can’t they bring assault charges for that?

Dillon Gabriel, the Oregon quarterback, was starting his 55th collegiate game. He already had played for Tennessee coach Josh Heupel, when at UCF, and he had already quarterbacked Oklahoma to a win over Texas. Why, he can even remember when that was a Big 12 game.

Will Howard, the Ohio State quarterback, was a relative rookie with only 32 starts, 28 of them at Kansas State. But he did win a Big 12 championship there.

The No. 3 Ducks played the No. 2 Buckeyes in Eugene, a cornucopia for NFL scouts, a feast of talented Hessians who suddenly were thrown together in Big 10 competition. Barring a plague, both teams will make the 12-team College Football Playoff, and they have a reasonable chance of playing in the Big 10 championship game and wrapping up an automatic bid. So this was not win-or-go-home, but it did narrow the margin of error for both teams, and it was certainly the satisfying five-course meal of another nonstop Saturday, at least until it ended and we could watch the end of LSU-Mississippi.

Oregon wound up winning, 32-31, against a Hydra-headed machine that had averaged 46 points. The stars were in line. Buckeye freshman Jeremiah Smith looked NFL-ready again, catching seven for 100 yards. Gabriel connected on 23 of 34 for 341 yards and no interceptions or sacks. Tez Johnson burned the Buckeyes with a 48-yard touchdown catch, and Gabriel sprinted for a 27-yard touchdown. It would come down, obviously, to the team that had the ball last and that was Ohio State. Unfortunately for the visitors, they still had the ball when the clock struck zero.

Ohio State had a first down on the Oregon 28. Three points, and a victory, seemed quite likely. Except that Smith shoved aside the cornerback guarding him and was whistled for offensive pass interference, a call that is not made often enough. With five seconds left and with one time out available, Howard tried to get Ohio State back within range. But for some reason he embarked on a hopeless run up the middle, with 20 yards to go. By the time he slid, the clock was gone and the Autzen Stadium field was being stormed, although Oregon should be above that, by now. No doubt several thousand Buckeye fans wanted to invade the confines as well, to shake some sense into Howard’s head or to figure out what was in there.

“I worried about getting enough yards to get a field goal there,” Howard said. “But we gotta go back and look at it and figure out what went wrong. I gotta get down there, I guess.”

Yeah, that might have been prudent. Howard won’t be remembered for completing his first four passes on that drive, including a 26-yarder to Emeka Egbuka, after he was sacked on the first play of the drive by Matayo Uiagalelei, brother of well-traveled quarterback D.J.

Howard, in fact, had best hit the delete button for a few days, or until he gets the Buckeyes rolling again. But he shouldn’t have borne such a burden. Ohio State probably has the top running back room in college football, yet TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Jenkins got a total of seven carries in the second half. The best runner on the field was Oregon’s Jordan James, with 115 yards in 23 tries.

The two programs are equals, as the score indicated. Ohio State beat Oregon in a Rose Bowl and in the first College Football Playoff final, after the 2015 season, but the Ducks won, 35-28, in Columbus three seasons ago. It appears that Oregon is alone, among the West Coasters, who is ready for the Big 10 grinder.

USC has three Big 10 losses. All close, but all losses, including the overtime loss to Penn State in the Coliseum Saturday. A few hours later Minnesota finished an LA sweep, beating UCLA in the Rose Bowl. Washington got flattened at Iowa.

Even the Oregon-Ohio State game had a Pac-12 subplot. Chip Kelly is calling the plays for Ohio State these days, serving as offensive coordinator for Ryan Day, who played at New Hampshire when Kelly was on that staff. Kelly coached UCLA for six mediocre-to-poor seasons before he came to the conclusion that he didn’t really want to be the head man anymore. That might have been the only opinion he shared with Bruins fans.

There’s no reason to assume anything in college football this season, but Ohio State probably isn’t in danger of losing again until it goes to Penn State. Oregon doesn’t play Penn State but does travel to Michigan. Penn State doesn’t play Michigan.

A rematch will throb with stories of resentment and redemption, and so, theoretically, would a third matchup. Saturday’s outcome won’t change a thing for the Ducks. They already had great expectorations.

More weekend confetti:

– Texas 34, Oklahoma 3: Quinn Ewers returned to the Texas huddle and hit 20 of 29 passes for the top-ranked Longhorns, who are 6-0. They held Oklahoma to 235 yards and sacked quarterback Michael Bennett six times. Quintrevion Wisner also ran for 118 yards in only 13 carries. Texas’ inaugural voyage through the SEC intensifies Saturday when Georgia comes to Austin,

— LSU 29, Mississippi 26 (OT): The Tigers lost their opener to USC but are unbeaten since, and quarterback Garrett Nussmeier is rising on the draft charts. Although he struggled most of the night, Nussmeier completed a fourth-down pass to Mason Taylor just before he found Aaron Anderson for a 23-yard touchdown with :27 left. Then, after Ole Miss had to settle for an overtime field goal, Nussmeier needed only one play to win it. He found Kyren Lacy on a 25-yard scoring play to raise his own statline to 22 for 51 with two interceptions. The Tigers’ defense also came alive, sacking Jaxson Dart six times. The loss was the Rebels’ second, and they still must play Georgia.

— BYU 41, Arizona 19: The Cougars are 6-0 and tied for the Big 12 lead, and they had four takeaways in this one, including three interceptions of Arizona’s Noah Fifita. They already have 10 interceptions for the season. For those who remember Parker Kingston’s great-circle-route punt return against Kansas State, he caught a touchdown pass and threw another one. All three of Kingston’s career passes have gone for scores.

— Vanderbilt 20, Kentucky 13: How would the Commodores handle fame and success after their win over Alabama last week? Much better than Alabama handled shame and failure, apparently. While the Crimson Tide was hyperventilating to beat South Carolina 27-25, Vanderbilt throttled Kentucky in Lexington. The Commodores (4–2) had the ball for nearly 35 minutes and got a 15-for-18 passing game from Diego Pavia, and they led 20-7 with eight minutes left.

— Pittsburgh 17, Cal 15: They’re not the Steelers but they keep stealing ballgames, to the tune of 6-0. Pitt has beaten Cincinnati by a point, West Virginia by four, and now this, even though the Panthers only had the ball for fewer than 22 minutes. Pitt had 14 first downs and went 2 for 11 in third down conversions, and also was minus-two in turnover ratio. But Cal’s Ryan Coe missed a 40-yard field goal that would have provided the lead, and the Bears, who have lost three games by a total of seven points, had 12 penalties and suffered six sacks. Another factor was Pat Narduzzi’s decision to go for a fourth-and-one on Pitt’s 28 yard line, and  Desmond Reed’s subsequent 72-yard touchdown run. The last time Pitt was 6-0? It was 1982, when Dan Marino was quarterbacking.