Oregon Scored 38 Straight and Buried Ohio State in the Horseshoe

For one quarter at Ohio Stadium, it looked like the afternoon Ohio State got its season back. Bo Jackson ran in two touchdowns, the Buckeyes led 14–0, and the team that started the week as the first one out of the College Football Playoff bracket was handling a ranked visitor the way a touchdown favorite is supposed to. Then the game flipped, and it never flipped back. Oregon scored the next 38 points, emptied the Horseshoe in the fourth quarter, and left Columbus with a 41–28 win.

Fourteen up, then nothing

Both teams played this game with a backup plan at quarterback. Ohio State started freshman Luke Fahey for the second straight week — Julian Sayin has been out since he was injured in the Oct. 17 win at Indiana — and Oregon went with Dylan Raiola, who has been starting since Dante Moore’s season-ending concussion at USC. Early, the freshman looked like the story. Fahey hit Jeremiah Smith for 32 yards and Devin McCuin for 41 on one scoring drive, and Jackson finished both of Ohio State’s first two touchdowns, from 16 yards and from 8. He ended the day with 48 yards on 11 carries and the two scores.

Oregon, meanwhile, punted twice and put an early snap on the ground. And Smith, the most dangerous receiver in the country, was about to vanish: by the official stats the Columbus Dispatch tracked, Ohio State did not target him once between the last 3:36 of the first quarter and 6:37 of the third.

The fake punt that turned the afternoon

Gage Hurych’s 33-yard field goal got Oregon on the board early in the second quarter, 14–3, but the Ducks were still going nowhere two possessions later — three-and-out, facing fourth-and-9 near their own 40 with 2:21 left in the half. Dan Lanning never hesitated. Linebacker Teitum Tuioti took the punt snap and lofted a pass to fellow linebacker Matayo Uiagalelei, who carried it 30 yards to the Ohio State 39.

Six plays later, Oregon was in the end zone. Raiola found Jamari Johnson for 15, converted a third-and-15 with a 20-yarder to Dierre Hill Jr., and Hill ran the next snap 9 yards for the touchdown with 1:25 left in the half. Ohio State got the ball back with time to answer and handed it straight back — Fahey threw into triple coverage and defensive back Devin Jackson intercepted him at the Oregon 41.

What followed was the wildest minute of the day. Brandon Smith took a screen pass 31 yards, Raiola moved the Ducks to the goal line, and a 3-yard touchdown catch by Dakorien Moore was wiped out on review when the ball was ruled to have hit the ground. A defensive holding call on the same play kept Oregon alive anyway, and on the final snap of the half the Ducks lined up in a spread-out trick formation and snapped the ball directly to tight end Jamari Johnson, who punched in a 2-yard touchdown. Oregon led 17–14 at halftime — 14 points in the last 1:25 of the half, after scoring three in the game’s first 28 minutes.

Thirty-eight straight, by the numbers

The second half opened the way the first one ended. Oregon went 75 yards in five plays, and Hill broke the biggest run of the day — a 48-yard touchdown where he cut right and broke three tackles, per the Associated Press. 24–14. Ohio State’s first possession of the half included a snap over Fahey’s head and a punt from its own end of the field, and the boos that started there never really stopped.

Hurych missed a 52-yard field goal that would have stretched the margin further, but it only delayed things. Raiola hit Dakorien Moore for an 11-yard touchdown in the back left corner of the end zone — a one-handed catch with Ohio State’s Dominick Kelly in coverage — for 31–14. Early in the fourth, Uiagalelei sacked Fahey on fourth down, and three plays later Raiola found Brandon Smith on a 15-yard screen for 38–14 with 12:02 to play.

The drought, in full: Ohio State gained 39 yards of offense across the entire second and third quarters, per the Dispatch, and on its eight drives during Oregon’s run it managed 74 yards on 40 plays. ESPN Insights noted the 38–0 run was the highest scoring run against Ohio State at home since 1999. The Buckeyes went more than two hours between scores. Smith spent the start of the fourth quarter screaming at coaches and teammates on the sideline, per the AP, and the stands emptied around him — by midway through the fourth, much of the crowd of 103,551 was gone.

Too late, and what it costs

Ohio State’s two fourth-quarter touchdowns were real and irrelevant. Fahey found Smith for a 13-yard score with 3:25 left — Smith’s sixth straight game with a touchdown — and ran in the two-point conversion himself. Hurych answered with a 40-yard field goal, and in the final minute Fahey hit Smith for 57 yards and then Nate Roberts for a 15-yard touchdown to close it to 41–28.

Fahey’s final line — 36 of 50 for 360 yards with an interception in his second career start — reads better than the game felt: 200 of Ohio State’s 413 yards came in the fourth quarter, after the outcome was settled. Raiola was 25 of 40 for 257 yards and two touchdowns with no turnovers, was never sacked, and spread the ball to nine different receivers. Hill carried 13 times for 75 yards and two scores as the lead back with Jordon Davison out.

The cost is the part Ohio State cannot spin. This is a third regular-season loss, the program’s first since 2011, and back-to-back defeats for the first time since 2011 — to unranked opponents in back-to-back weeks for the first time since October 1992, per the AP. The Buckeyes opened the season as the top-ranked team in the AP poll and started this week 12th in the playoff rankings, the first team out; the AP’s verdict Saturday was that their playoff chances are likely dashed, and that even a spot in the Top 25 is now in danger.

Oregon (6–3) takes the other side of all of it: a second straight win, a measure of revenge for the 41–21 Rose Bowl loss that ended its 2024 season, Dan Lanning’s second win in three tries against the Buckeyes, and its own thin playoff hopes still breathing. Michigan visits Autzen Stadium next Saturday. Ohio State hosts Northwestern — and spends the week answering for a home collapse Columbus has not seen in a generation. One worry travels home with the winners: Tuioti, whose fake-punt pass turned the game, left in the fourth quarter with a leg injury and needed help to the medical tent.

Full linescore and play-by-play: Game Center — Oregon at Ohio State. More: College Football hub · Stats Hub