Oregon
Big Ten Power Rankings: Ohio State finds mojo against Penn State, moves back behind Oregon
Groundhog Day arrived early in Pennsylvania, where Punxsutawney James (Franklin) saw his shadow, which means another long winter for Penn State after again losing to Ohio State.
The Nittany Lions, who have not defeated the Buckeyes since 2016, dropped behind OSU and Indiana after Saturday’s 20-13 loss. Oregon remains No. 1. The biggest stress points are in Lincoln and Madison, where Nebraska and Wisconsin suddenly are in jeopardy of missing bowl season.
1. Oregon (9-0)
Last week: 1
This week: vs. Maryland
What to know: The Ducks’ voyage to regular-season perfection is smooth sailing with only Maryland, Wisconsin and rival Washington left to play.
2. Ohio State (7-1)
Last week: 4
This week: vs. Purdue
What to know: With their season at a crossroads, the Buckeyes looked both ways against Penn State and then late in the game looked good both ways, on offense and defense.
3. Indiana (9-0)
Last week: 3
This week: vs. Michigan
What to know: Hand the conference coach of the year honor to Curt Cignetti now. No reason to wait. The Hoosiers are 9-0 for the first time in program history.
4. Penn State (7-1)
Last week: 2
This week: vs. Washington
What to know: : Penn State no longer controls its own destiny in the race to make the Big Ten title game, but the playoff remains probable, even if a deep playoff run does not.
5. Iowa (6-3)
Last week: 5
This week: at UCLA (Friday)
What to know: We’re not sure if the Hawkeyes are sneaky good or sneaky bad, but we’re willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
6. Minnesota (6-3)
Last week: 9
This week: at Rutgers.
What to know: A true test to see if the Golden Gophers are as good as their record. We think not, but Rutgers won’t prove us right.
7. Illinois (6-3)
Last week: 6
This week: idle
What to know: Once upon a time this season, Illinois surprised people. We’re no longer surprised. We figured the Illini eventually would fold like a cheap lawn chair..
8. Washington (5-4)
Last week: 11
This week: at Penn State
What to know: The Huskies can take heart in a hopeful stat: Since 2017, Penn State is 3-3 the game after losing to Ohio State.
9. Michigan (5-4)
Last week: 10
This week: at Indiana
What to know: Michigan optimism: Nobody really knows if IU is that good. Michigan reality: Everybody knows the Wolverines aren’t that good..
10. Wisconsin (5-4)
Last week: 8
This week: idle
What to know: The last time the Badgers finished with a losing record (2001), Barry Alvarez still had hair. Don’t look now but a sub-.500 season remains a possibility.
11. Michigan State (4-5)
Last week: 12
This week: idle
What to know: Green. White. Green. White. The chant you hear when Sparty waves the surrender flag on the field.
12. UCLA (3-5)
Last week: 16
This week: vs. Iowa (Friday)
What to know: News flash: UCLA is not awful. Still bad, yes, but not awful. Just ask Nebraska.
13. USC (4-5)
Last week: 13
This week: idle
What to know: Sitting here wondering if Lincoln Riley wishes he were back in Oklahoma. We hear the L.A. media wish he were.
14. Nebraska (5-4)
Last week: 7
This week: idle
What to know: We’re not saying Nebraska is regressing into the Nebraska of Scott Frost, but we’re not not saying it, either.
15. Northwestern (4-5)
Last week: 15
This week: idle
What to know: The Wildcats get a week off to celebrate their overtime win against Purdue. The party deserves to last 30 seconds.
16. Maryland (4-4)
Last week: 14
This week: at Oregon
What to know: The Terps always disappear in late fall, like a golf ball hiding under autumn.
17. Rutgers (4-4)
Last week: 17
This week: Minnesota
What to know: Upset special: the Scarlet Knights are due. The Golden Gophers are doo-doo.
18. Purdue (1-7)
Last week: 18
This week: at Ohio State
What to know: What hurts more? Having to play Ohio State or being 18th in the first year of Big Ten expansion when rival Indiana is 9-0?
roller@dispatch.com
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Oregon
Oregon Ducks’ Dan Lanning’s Bonuses Reaching a Million Dollars Before Rose Bowl Game
The 2024 Oregon Ducks season has been one of the most successful in program history. For the first time ever, Oregon finished out the regular season with a 13-0 record and a Big Ten Conference title in their first season with the league. With all this success during Oregon coach Dan Lanning’s third year with the program, it makes sense the young coach gets a big pay day.
In total, by reaching the Rose Bowl quarterfinal for the College Football Playoffs, Lanning is expected to make an extra $850,000 on top of his $7 million base salary for the 2024 season.
Included in the $850,000 bonus is $150,000 for clinching the Big Ten Conference title and $200,000 for reaching the Rose Bowl. Lanning would have earned $150,000 for a first round playoff game slot. The rest of the $850,000 is made up of bonuses like Oregon’s 12-0 regular season (the second time that record has happened in program history since 2014).
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If Lanning and the Ducks are able to beat the Ohio State Buckeyes in the new year at the Rose Bowl, Lanning’s bonus will increase by $250,000. For a National Championship appearance, Lanning gets another $500,000. Finally, if the Ducks win it all, Lanning will get $500,000 more for his contract this year, and every other year of his contract with the Ducks.
Lanning earned a contract extension of one year, extending his tenure at Oregon through January of 2031, after beating the Maryland Terrapins in November 39-18.
With all this success, many Duck fans may wonder if Lanning will continue to stay in his current contract. On The Zach Gelb Show before the Rose Bowl, Lanning emphasized there’s no need to doubt his allegiance to Oregon when compared to a job in the NFL.
“You know it used to be a goal of mine. It certainly did. But I think at this point, everybody can realize I’m not going anywhere,” Lanning said when asked by Zach Gelb about coaching in the NFL. “I love what we have here, I’ve got three young boys that love Eugene, we have a lot of unfinished business that we hope to handle, and I’m enjoying the ride. So this will be the place that I’m coaching for a long, long time, as long as I continue to do my job.”
Lanning’s legacy in Eugene is already a great one for Duck history. He coached the Ducks to a 10-3 record for his first season in 2022 before building a 12-2 record in 2023. Lanning is the third head coach at Oregon to reach at least 22 wins in his first two seasons. His 31 wins are tied with Chip Kelly for the most by an Oregon head coach through his first 36 games.
Lanning is the fifth-highest paid coach in the Big Ten, tied with Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, and is the 18th-highest paid coach on the FBS level. Big Ten coaches rounding out the highest paid list include Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, and USC’s Lincoln Riley.
The Oregon Ducks face off against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day with a 2 p.m. PT kickoff.
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Oregon
Five Things to Know About Oregon Entering Rematch in College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl
On Jan. 1, Ohio State gets a shot at something no other Buckeye team has gotten before – revenge against a squad that beat them earlier in the season.
13 – 0 (10-0)
Jan. 1, 2025 – 4 pm et
Rose Bowl
Pasadena, CA
No. 8 Ohio State faces No. 1 Oregon in the Rose Bowl, riding hot off a dominant 42-17 win over Tennessee and eager for some getback after the Ducks dusted them 32-31 in Eugene earlier this year. Ohio State’s only other rematches since the start of the 20th century came in 2017 against Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game and in the 1976 Rose Bowl against UCLA, but OSU won both meetings with the Badgers that year and the first meeting against the Bruins before losing to UCLA in Pasadena.
Ohio State’s second meeting with Oregon comes with much greater stakes. Both teams are battling to keep their seasons alive and advance through the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff. The Buckeyes re-engineered their defense after their defeat in Autzen Stadium and have born great fruits, allowing no more than 17 points in any game since that loss on Oct. 12.
Oregon’s been a juggernaut all year but isn’t without flaws. Its offense and defense have each limped through some victories, though the same arsenal of weapons that gave Ohio State’s secondary fits is still in place.
The Last of the Unbeatens
Those with enough of an interest in Ohio State, Oregon or college football in general to be reading this sentence know that the Ducks were crowned Big Ten champions on Dec. 7. They beat Penn State, a fellow quarterfinalist in the CFP, by a 45-37 margin in the conference title game.
Five of Oregon’s seven wins since beating the Buckeyes have come by 21 points or more. That includes a 38-9 shelling of then-No. 20 Illinois and a 38-17 win at Michigan. The Ducks were No. 1 in every edition of the College Football Playoff rankings and earned the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye in the CFP.
It’s odd that their reward for such efforts is a meeting with the team that had arguably the best first-round showing in the CFP, Ohio State. Discussions about flaws in the playoff structure aside, this is a game that could easily produce this year’s national champion with two rounds of CFP action still to go afterward.
Not only is Oregon the only undefeated team remaining in the FBS, only two other teams have even survived with just one loss on their docket to this stage. Those schools are Notre Dame and Boise State, which will also play in the quarterfinals next week. The Broncos’ lone defeat came at the hands of Oregon, a 37-34 battle waged on Sept. 7.
A Couple of Clunkers
Two teams have come close to dethroning the Ducks since their one-point vanquishing of the Buckeyes, those being Penn State and a 5-7 Wisconsin team that closed its season on a five-game losing streak. Oregon’s defense struggled in the former and its offense in the latter.
The Nittany Lions racked up 516 yards of offense in the Big Ten Championship Game, mostly due to the efforts of their rushing attack, which got 100-yard performances from both Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton. If not for two interceptions and a 20-of-39 mark passing from quarterback Drew Allar – who has had a good year otherwise – PSU could have thrown about 50 points on the scoreboard and knocked off Dan Lanning’s bunch.
A November night game in Madison froze Oregon’s attack to the point that the Ducks didn’t score a touchdown until the fourth quarter, one that tied the game at 13 before a 24-yard game-winning field goal, the third of the night settled for from the leg of Atticus Sappington. Such red zone trepidations are what kept the game close as Oregon still outgained Wisconsin 354 yards to 226.
Star quarterback Dillon Gabriel also had an off night, going 22-of-31 but for just 218 yards, a mark of seven yards per pass attempt well below his 8.8 for the year. He had no touchdowns and an interception, which came in a goal-to-go situation.
What can be learned from what otherwise appears like a non-replicable stymying of Oregon’s offense in a strange game in a raucous Camp Randall Stadium? Football games can be won and lost in the red zone. Lost amid the other failings of the Buckeyes’ defense against the Ducks in Week 7 is that it came up with a goal-line stand to give its offense a chance to win the game with a field goal had time not expired on Will Howard’s final scramble or Jeremiah Smith not been whistled for a controversial offensive pass interference.
Oregon has been solid in the red zone this season, ranking 34th nationally in red zone scoring rate (88.5%) and 20th in touchdown rate (72.1%), but a stop or two inside the 20-yard line could be enough to swing this playoff game. There are certainly other lessons to learn from the Ducks’ four one-score wins this year, and it’ll be up to Ryan Day and company to discover whatever vulnerabilities they can.
Book of Gabriel
The final chapter of Gabriel’s storied college football career has been his best yet.
Starting for an unprecedented sixth season thanks to a COVID-19 waiver and a medical redshirt, Gabriel is second all-time in the NCAA for passing yards with 18,423 and in touchdowns with 153. He’s 794 yards and two touchdowns from equaling the career records in those categories, both held by former Houston quarterback Case Keenum.
Gabriel is third in the country for completion percentage in 2024 – one spot behind Will Howard – connecting on 73.2% of his throws. He’s racked up 3,558 passing yards, ninth-most in the FBS, with 28 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Those numbers and Oregon’s unblemished record made him a finalist for the Davey O’Brien Award, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and the Heisman Trophy. The first two recognize college football’s best quarterback, the last its best player.
Gabriel’s efficiency meshes with the Ducks’ RPO, short-pass-heavy offense like peanut butter meshes with jelly. But it was downfield strikes that hurt Ohio State the first time the two teams met, with wide receivers Tez Johnson and Evan Stewart burning cornerback Denzel Burke for big plays as Gabriel finished 23-of-34 for 341 yards and two touchdowns, adding 32 yards and a score on the ground.
Given that Tennessee’s best offense, what little it had, came on scrambles from Nico Iamaleava and scrambling quarterbacks have at times been a thorn in the side of Ohio State’s No. 1-ranked defense, Gabriel’s legs will also have to be accounted for. He’s collected seven rushing touchdowns this year with 192 yards on the ground. Those legs also become a factor in extending passing plays, as the Buckeyes failed to corral him for a sack back in October.
Barbershop Quartet
Wide receiver Tez Johnson headlines a vaunted Oregon pass catching corps. (Credit: Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
The names of the four passing-game weapons Ohio State’s defense will need to contain haven’t changed, but they’ve further proven their lethality throughout Oregon’s season.
There is perhaps no better a trio at wide receiver in college football than the Ducks’, save for the Buckeyes’ own corps of Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate. Johnson is the headliner from the slot position, collecting 78 receptions for 866 yards and 10 touchdowns, all team-highs.
Stewart and Traeshon Holden provide ample support to Johnson’s flanks, each over 600 yards receiving in 2024. The final complement to the passing game is tight end Terrance Ferguson, one of the nation’s premier receiving threats at his position with 38 catches for 520 yards and three scores.
Johnson had seven receptions for 75 yards the first time Ohio State and Oregon played but it may have been the best game of Stewart’s career as he finished with seven catches, 149 yards and a touchdown. Their effort combined with Gabriel’s in Week 7 prompted a re-engineering of Jim Knowles’ defense that has, thus far, been successful.
But Ohio State also hasn’t played as complete a passing attack since it played Oregon. Holden was also ejected in the second quarter for spitting on Buckeye cornerback Davison Igbinosun.
Running back Jordan James is a threat in his own right if Ohio State puts too much focus on the passing game, as he has 1,253 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns at a clip of 5.5 yards per carry this season.
Strong Pass Defense
Ohio State currently possesses the best defense in college football statistically, but Oregon doesn’t lag that far behind.
The Ducks are No. 9 nationally in total defense, allowing just 301.8 yards per game. They excel against opposing passing attacks, rankingNo. 8 nationally with 175.7 yards per contest allowed through the air.
But Ohio State found success tossing the pigskin against Oregon once already this year, with Will Howard going 28-of-35 for 326 yards and two touchdowns against the Ducks in October. That said, Oregon did not have the services of star defensive end Jordan Burch that day due to a lower-body injury.
In just nine games this season, Burch has racked up 30 tackles, 11 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks. His running mate at defensive end, Matayo Uiagalelei, has 11.5 sacks in 2024.
Conversely, Oregon’s been weaker defending the run this season, as evidenced by Penn State’s two 100-yard rushers two weeks ago. The Ducks are just 35th in rushing yards allowed per game (126.1) and tied for 55th in yards allowed per carry (four). In Week 7, Ohio State rushed for 122 yards in the first half in Eugene, but only gained 19 yards on 12 carries in the second half after anchor left tackle Josh Simmons suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second quarter.
It’s been a series of ups and downs for Ohio State’s ground game and offensive line since. The Buckeyes struggled against Nebraska but got a season-defining game from their offensive line at Penn State, smothering the Nittany Lions late with their rushing attack. Season-defining, at least, until Rimington Trophy-winning center Seth McLaughlin suffered his own season-ending setback, a torn Achilles.
The ground game showed signs of being ineffective the following game against Indiana, then bottomed out against Michigan. But after coming out aggressive passing the ball against Tennessee, the Buckeyes quietly outrushed the Volunteers 156 to 152, averaging a respectable 4.7 yards per carry.
Ohio State’s patchwork offensive line – and team at-large – will hope to carry that momentum forward against the Ducks. Kickoff is at 5 p.m. Eastern Time and 2 p.m. local time in Pasadena on Jan. 1.
Oregon
Foothills of the Northern Blue Mountains of Oregon under a high wind watch Monday and Tuesday
The National Weather Service issued a high wind watch at 9:29 p.m. on Sunday valid from Monday 4 p.m. until Tuesday 10 a.m. for Foothills of the Northern Blue Mountains of Oregon.
The weather service states, “Southeast winds 25 to 40 mph with gusts of 45 to 65 mph possible for the base of the northern Blue Mountains of Oregon.”
“Damaging winds could blow down trees and power lines. Widespread power outages are possible. Travel could be difficult, especially for high profile vehicles,” describes the weather service. “Monitor the latest forecasts and warnings for updates.”
Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service.
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