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How Oregon may have used an intentional penalty in final seconds to beat Ohio State

Andrew Olson

By Andrew Olson

Published:

Oregon managed a 1-point win over Ohio State in a thriller that went down to the wire. At least one analyst believes Dan Lanning wisely determined that an intentional penalty presented a valuable trade-off in the final seconds.

After the game, Warren Sharp shared a video focusing on the final 10 seconds of play. Sharp believes Oregon intentionally used a 12th defender on the play that followed a Duck timeout.

The extra defender helped ensure Ohio State did not make a big gain with 10 seconds remaining, Sharp says. The Ducks were flagged on the play, but Sharp focuses on the fact that 4 seconds came off the clock. After the penalty for illegal substitution, Ohio State had the ball with just 6 seconds remaining for what turned out to be the game’s final play.

Unsurprisingly, the illegal substitution penalty did not come up in Lanning’s postgame press conference. Depending on the reach of Sharp’s video, Lanning may be asked about the late penalty at his next media opportunity.

Andrew Olson

A former Florida beat reporter, Andrew writes for the Saturday Tradition News Desk.