Yards Per Play: Rose Bowl Recap

No sugar-coating this: that was brutal. Pretty much as bad as it gets.

A little behind-the-scenes insight for you, the reader—when I was scheduled to write this article, it was before Wednesday’s game. If Oregon had won, it would have been easy: a comparative Yards Per Play (YPP) article analyzing Oregon and Texas. But if they lost, it was unclear what direction to take. A season recap? A deep dive into the game? It was hard to plan for.

When TreyVeon Henderson ran 66 yards to put the Buckeyes up 31-0 and effectively put the game out of reach, making it an embarrassment for the rest of college football to witness, I landed on what to do with this piece.

What I want to discuss today is how Wednesday’s embarrassment compares to the last time I felt a similar sense of humiliation from Oregon football: Dan Lanning’s first game as head coach against Georgia.

Lanning’s debut as Oregon’s head coach was the 2022 season opener against defending national champion Georgia. Oregon lost that game 49–3. Here’s a breakdown of the YPP differential from that game and the 2024 Rose Bowl against Ohio State.

Both games played out in a very similar manner on a per play basis. But the context surrounding each game was completely different—and that needs to be acknowledged.

• The 2022 Georgia game was Dan Lanning’s first-ever game as Oregon head coach.
• The 2024 Rose Bowl was Lanning’s 41st game as head coach.
• The gap in the 247 Team Talent Composite between the 2022 Oregon Ducks and the 2022 Georgia Bulldogs was 113.99 points.
• The gap between the 2024 Oregon Ducks and the 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes was 81.91 points.
• The 2022 Georgia Bulldogs went on to win their second consecutive national championship, while the 2022 Oregon Ducks finished 10–3 with a Holiday Bowl victory.
• The 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes are still in the College Football Playoff (results TBD), while the 2024 Oregon Ducks went 13–0, winning the same conference Ohio State plays in, thanks to beating them during the regular season.

The 2022 game was embarrassing, but it was understandable. Wednesday’s result, however, was completely unforgivable. Losing to this version of the Ohio State Buckeyes has no shame, but there’s no excuse for the Ducks to not even look like they belonged on the same field. That’s a fact. How do I know it’s a fact? Because these same teams played a competitive game earlier this season.

The goal for the Ducks this season was a national championship. Falling short doesn’t make the season a failure. The failure is that, in Dan Lanning’s third year, his team is still capable of being blown out by a fellow national title contender.

True championship-caliber teams don’t perform like the Ducks did on New Year’s Day, even on their worst days. That’s the next—and perhaps final—question I have for Dan Lanning as a head coach: what is he going to do to ensure his teams start the biggest games of the season prepared?

Last season, in what was effectively a College Football Playoff quarterfinal, Oregon fell into a 20–3 hole against their biggest rival in the most important game of the season. Washington was simply more prepared.

This year’s Rose Bowl felt the same. For whatever reason, Ohio State was better prepared from the opening snap.

Before I conclude, let me make one thing clear: I still believe Dan Lanning will be the coach who leads Oregon to its first national title. There isn’t a single other coach in football I’d rather have leading Oregon. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have room to grow.

Despite Wednesday’s debacle, Lanning remains an excellent recruiter, a master motivator, someone who embraces all forms of roster building, and a coach with a great track record for hiring assistants. Every flaw he’s shown as a young coach, he’s eventually found a way to address and improve.

I’m confident Oregon will return to this stage under Lanning. When they do, I’ll be eager to see how his team responds. The only problem is that we now have a long wait before Oregon gets that opportunity again.