Penn State just showcased the blueprint for beating Oregon despite losing Big Ten Championship
Oregon fans, take your moment to celebrate — these moments are rare in sport fandom, and it deserves to be celebrated. Dan Lanning has led the Oregon Ducks to a 13-0 record, a Big Ten Championship in their first year in their new conference, and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff rankings […]
Oregon fans, take your moment to celebrate — these moments are rare in sport fandom, and it deserves to be celebrated. Dan Lanning has led the Oregon Ducks to a 13-0 record, a Big Ten Championship in their first year in their new conference, and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff rankings with a first round bye.
It's an incredible time to be a Ducks fan. Truly. Drink it in.
Now, with that said, we need to talk about what happened in the Big Ten Championship game, because Penn State just showed the rest of the College Football Playoffs field exactly how to beat Oregon, if it's executed correctly.
Oregon got absolutely destroyed up front in this game in a manner that we haven't seen from them this entire season. The running back duo of Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton from Penn State ran for a whopping 229 yards on only 24 carries to the tune of a staggering 9.54 yards per carry.
Quarterback Drew Allar added 54 yards and a touchdown of his own on only five attempts.
The offensive line for Penn State, combined with their running attack, bullied Oregon in a way that they haven't been bullied this season.
The Ducks are honestly quite fortunate. Luckily, their offense was dominant as well, scoring 45 points on Penn State, and crucially, not turning the ball over once. The Penn State offense, which looked like a freight train that Oregon couldn't stop, did give the ball away twice on interceptions, including a game-ending pick down the right sideline on a 50/50 ball.
If it weren't for those turnovers, I don't know that Oregon would have won this game.
Oregon's offense also was a unit that fortunately kept their lead comfortable for most of the game. Quarterback Dillon Gabriel connected for four touchdown passes, wide receiver Tez Johnson broke the Big Ten Championship record for receiving yards with 181 on his way to being named game MVP, and the pair of running backs in Jordan James and Noah Whittington combined for 169 rushing yards and two touchdowns. It was the offense that led the charge.
"We've had moments where the defense had to the offense's back. Tonight, the offense had the defense's back," head coach Dan Lanning said after the game. "Man, it was a battle back and forth. That's a good football team. They're tough to prepare for, but our guys had just enough."
Just enough is right. The line of scrimmage battle being lost when Oregon's defensive front was on the field was a jarring sight for how dominant they have been this season. Maybe Penn State just showed the rest of the country that you can't stop running the ball at Oregon's defense.
Follow along all year for more Oregon Ducks coverage on A to Z Sports. You can find me on Bluesky @jonhelmkamp.bsky.social, as well as follow our main page @AtoZSports.bsky.social for all the latest news.
