In Oregon’s recent half-decade run of success, down-to-the-wire victories have been rarer than Ducks losses. Friday night’s Civil War game had the makings of a heartbreaking loss, until Marcus Mariota and Josh Huff connected on a 12-yard touchdown to give them a 36-35 lead with 29 seconds to play. The touchdown, arguably the biggest play of Oregon’s season, would prove to be the game-winner.
“We finished,” head coach Mark Helfrich said. “We were talking in the fourth quarter there how this was going to be one (game) you were going to talk about forever and it turned into a great finish.”
The score was one of several lead-changers during the second half of the final game for Oregon’s seniors. So crazy were the final two quarters that it would be easy to forget how in-control the Ducks looked early.
The first quarter appeared to foreshadow another Civil War blowout (the Ducks won their previous five games over Oregon State by an average of 20 points.) Oregon jumped out to a 14-0 lead by the end of the first quarter, with a huge performance on the ground by Thomas Tyner, who rushed for 83 yards and a touchdown in the quarter. Tyner, replacing an injured Byron Marshall, finished the game with 141 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries.
Oregon wasn’t able to maintain the distance between themselves and the Beavers in the second quarter, though.
The Ducks stuffed Oregon State’s offense to open the quarter, forcing them to punt. The punt would serve as a field-advancing play for the Beavers, though, because of a muff by returner Bralon Addison. Oregon State recovered and scored a touchdown 12 plays later on a two-yard rush by running back Storm Woods.
“Just a bunch of stuff we can’t do,” Helfrich said of the mistakes, which included two interceptions and multiple penalties.
Oregon looked like they were going to answer on the next drive after putting themselves in a first-and-goal situation at the 10-yard line, but they couldn’t find the end zone, getting to the two-yard line on fourth down. In the past, the Ducks would have attempted to score a touchdown on that fourth-down play, but head coach Mark Helfrich decided to be conservative and kick a field goal.
Those would be the only three points the Ducks would score in the quarter, while the Beavers tacked on 10 more to tie the game at 17 going into the second half. After starting the game completing all six passes for 107 yards, Mariota went 0-for-6 with two interceptions to end the half. Mariota bounced back in the second half, finishing the game with 285 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions on 17-of-34 passing.
“I wasn’t trying to press,” Mariota said. “I knew these guys in the locker room were going to be able to get open.”
The second half wasn’t as drastic from quarter to quarter, as both teams traded punches and leads.
The Beavers struck first with a 47-yard field goal by Trevor Romaine, but the Ducks answered with a 28-yard touchdown pass from Mariota to Huff with 7:46 left in the third quarter. The touchdown put the Ducks up 24-20. Huff, in the final home game of his career, had a huge game, catching nine passes for 186 yards and three touchdowns. Two of those scores were game-savers.
“I left everything out on the field,” Huff said.
The momentum seemed to be completely with Oregon State after they took a 29-24 lead with 11:05 to go, but the Ducks fired back on the next drive. On fourth-and-11 from the OSU 12 — quite possibly a bigger play than the game-winner — Mariota connected with Huff gfor a touchdown, giving the Ducks a 30-29 lead.
The Ducks had a chance to seal the game on their next drive. The defense stopped the Beavers, forcing them to punt. Three plays later, Mariota found a wide-open Pharaoh Brown for what would have been a first down, but Brown couldn’t hang on and Oregon had to punt.
After successfully driving down field on the Oregon defense, Mannion handed the ball off to speedy wide receiver Victor Bolden, who took the handoff and bursted off the right tackle for the Oregon State go-ahead touchdown. Following the Bolden score, Mannion missed Cooks and the Beavers failed on the two-point conversion for the second time in the game.
Trailing by five, the pressure was all on Mariota and the Ducks’ offense to score with 1:38 left in the game. On the game-winning drive, Mariota finished 5-of-8 for 76 yards including the decisive touchdown pass.
“Quite frankly, it was a bad throw,” Mariota said. “Huff made a great catch. I told him, ‘Thank you, man, because that would’ve looked bad if you didn’t catch it.’”
While Mariota was critical of himself on the throw, Huff had no complaints.
“It’s the best throw he’s had this year,” Huff said with a wide grin.
The Beavers got the ball with 23 seconds left in the game, but there wasn’t enough time for the Beavers to mount a final comeback. On the last play of the game, the Beavers desperately tried a hook-and-ladder play (where the receiver catches and laterals to another player), but the ball fell to the turf and the Ducks recovered.
“Exactly how you draw it up, the ball scooting around out there,” Helfrich said, jokingly, about the final play.
The Oregon players stormed the field, a sea of green and yellow jumping up and down in unison. Soon, they were joined by the student section. For the sixth straight season, the Ducks came out of Civil War victorious.
After the game, Helfrich said he wasn’t entirely pleased with his team’s performance. The Ducks nearly lost a game they were heavily favored in and shot themselves in the foot multiple times with turnovers and penalties. Nick Aliotti’s defense struggled yet again to stop the run and didn’t play much better through the air.
But in the end, the Ducks got the victory, their 10th of the season. This is the sixth straight season with at least double digits in the win column. They might not be going to a BCS bowl game, but they’re not going to complain about another win in another successful season.
“I don’t think we should ever be ashamed or feel bad about a 10-win season,” Aliotti said.
Follow Victor Flores on Twitter @vflores415