Oregon wanted to accomplish a lot of things in this shortened 2020 season, but now a lot of those goals went by the way side tonight in Corvallis.
The Beavers shocked the Ducks 41-38 for their first win over their rivals since 2014. That loss cost Mark Helfrich his job.
While it would be surprising if some heads rolled after this loss, make no mistake about it, losing to the Beavers wasn’t in the playbook.
Tailback Jermar Jefferson ran roughshod over a Duck defense that has had it’s problems this season, but not quite like that. The junior ran for 226 yards and two touchdowns.
The Beavers took the lead with just 33 seconds left in the contest when backup quarterback Chance Nolan snuck the ball in from the one-inch line. Nolan came in for Tristan Gebbia who injured his knee trying to score on the previous play.
Before getting hurt, Gebbia played the game of his life, going 23-of-37 for 267 yards and a touchdown.
It was a nail-biter back and forth in the second half as the Ducks and Beavers traded scoring drives. OSU finally took their first lead on Jefferson’s two-yard rush to take a 34-31 lead with 12:28 remaining in the fourth.
This was the first time the Ducks found themselves down in the fourth quarter with Tyler Shough helming the offense and the sophomore quarterback rose to the occasion.
Shough led Oregon on a 10-play, 75-yard drove that took almost four minutes and ended with Cyrus Habibi-Likio punching it in from a yard out for the 38-34 lead.
Oregon State looked to take the lead earlier by driving down to the 12-yard line, but the Duck defense came up huge by forcing the Beavers to turn the over on downs.
With 2:18 left, Oregon took over and one first down would have clinched the game. But two shorts runs and an incomplete pass took only 23 seconds thanks to the Beavers having all three timeouts.
It’s an offensive possession Oregon will think about for quite some time.
OSU took over on their own 47-yard line and took just 1:23 to go down and score the game-winning touchdown.
The Ducks had no timeouts remaining and just 32 seconds for some kind of miracle to happen, which it never did.
Oregon still has things to play for. A Pac-12 title is still within reach and some kind of bowl game is still very much possible. But the journey to the playoff came to a screeching halt tonight, not only for the Ducks, but for the conference as a whole.