Oregon's Dan Lanning Admits To Timely Use Of NCAA Rulebook To Help Eke Out Win Over Ohio State

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning has been a topic of conversation for the past few days since his team's dramatic win over Ohio State on Saturday night. 

But the talk around the win has also shifted to a discussion on the NCAA rule book, which Lanning used to his advantage against the Buckeyes, or at least he's hinting at it. 

There were ten-seconds remaining in the game on Saturday night, and Ohio State was driving down the field for what would've been a game-winning field goal. As the Buckeyes were sitting at the 43-yard line, they needed at least 5-6 yard gain to give them a chance at hitting a field goal. That's when Dan Lanning called a timeout to discuss with his defense what they were going to do on the ensuing play. 

As the Ducks got into formation, Ohio State's Ryan Day was seen yelling at the officials on the sideline that there were twelve players on defense, but the Buckeyes ran a play that ate four seconds of game time. On the play, Will Howard had the ball batted away, and the officials threw a flag for too many men on the field. 

The problem for Ohio State was that the time didn't go back on the clock, so the Ducks had pulled-off a pretty smart move, trading the penalty for time off the clock. On the ensuing play, Will Howard ran down the middle of the field, sliding with no time left in the game, and the stadium erupted in jubilation as Oregon had won in dramatic fashion. 

So, the question folks wanted to know over the past 48 hours was if Dan Lanning had planned that penalty coming out of the timeout. On Monday night, we got the answer, without actually saying ‘yes, Yes, I did it’. 

"There are some situations that don’t show up very often in college football, but this is one obviously that something we had worked on. So, you can see the result," Lanning said Monday night when asked. 

I have to say, this was pretty genius on the part of Oregon, knowing that the NCAA rulebook had a loophole when it came to the time that had come off the game clock. 

And in this case, Dan Lanning looks like a bonafide rockstar in the eyes of Oregon fans, doing this against Ohio State with a 1-point lead in the fourth quarter of such a massive game. 

Also, it's very hard to prove that a coach would do this intentionally, so the 15-yard penalty for unsportantlike conduct would be extremely hard to prove. 

Ohio State's Ryan Day Discussed The Play, What Could’ve Happened 

During his appearance on a roundtable show Monday, Ryan Day noted that the right move might’ve been to spike the football, instead of running those precious seconds off the clock. But, he noted that there was still a chance to make a play, even with more defenders on the field than allowed. 

"In that situation, if you were to see 12 or 13 guys or whatever – I mean, I guess they could put 20 guys on the field if they wanted to – I guess you would spike it so that you save that time," Ryan Day mentioned about the play. "And then you just get five more yards. But when you look back on the play, there were guys open. There was still an opportunity to make a play there."

I would almost guarantee that the NCAA will now change this rule, and make it a dead-ball penalty, with no time allowed to come off the clock in this situation. It's either that, or the offense will decline the penalty if they have a big play, or pickup more than the penalty would give, if the timing was perfect. 

Either way, there's no looking back now, and hopefully we get a rematch between the Ducks and Buckeyes this season.