0:00

Those were the key numbers in one of the two best Oregon games I've seen in 40 years at Autzen Stadium, the Ducks' 32-31 win over second-ranked Ohio State

Somebody remind me when Duck fans last rushed the field like this at Autzen—I’m at a loss.

Editor’s note: I’ve resent this column to correct the network that televised the game—NBC, not ABC, as I said in my first version. And to include the correct link to the apology from UO football player Traeshon Holden. Speaking of which, my apologies.

DID YOU ACTUALLY think I could not write about third-ranked Oregon’s 32-31 win over second-ranked Ohio State Saturday night?

I had to.

Not just to compensate for The Register-Guard having no Sunday paper and no front-page story today on one of the greatest football games in UO history. Along with a win over Florida State in the 2015 Rose Bowl, this marks the highest-ranked opponent an Oregon team has beaten.

And not just because there was a strange musical twist right after the game that might have a weird connection to my Heart, Humor & Hope column. (More on that at column’s end.)

Thus, my decision to offer a special Monday bonus column.

For me, the win joins Oregon’s 31-20 upset of ninth-ranked Washington in 1994 as the greatest game I’ve seen in 40 years of watching UO football at Autzen Stadium. And, yes, I was there Saturday night—along with the largest contingent of visiting fans in our stadium since Washington’s purple wave of the early ’90s. Some Buckeye fans paid more than $1,000 a seat; a few bought Duck season tickets last spring just so they could attend this one game, which they knew would be sold out.

“I’ve never been in a stadium that loud,” said Sue Renner, an Ohio State fan who, along with husband Pat, has attended numerous games at the Buckeyes’ 102,780-seat stadium. “It was horrible.”

(Along with She Who, I met Sue and Pat last week at the Heceta Head Lighthouse Bed & Breakfast—see this coming Thursday’s column—and walked to, and from, the game with them.)

From start to finish, it was the loudest I’ve heard Autzen in four decades. It was beautiful.

If the audio reminder of the Ducks’ win over the Huskies in ’94 was Jerry Allen’s breathless announcement that “Kenny Wheaton’s gonna score,” the visual equivalent for Saturday’s win may become:

“00:00”

That was the time remaining on the clock when Ohio State quarterback Will Howard, after gallantly scrambling from the pocket as time slipped away, slid to the turf in hopes of stopping the clock, quickly calling a timeout and enabling the Buckeyes to attempt a game-winning field goal.

And, as a Duck fan who’s had his heart broken more than once by such opposing team heroics, I considered that a distinct possibility as I watched from my Section 35, Row 49 seat. But time expired just as Howard hit the turf, ending the game and triggering a surge of Duck fans onto the field in a wild celebration. People flowed from the stands like a 360-degree waterfall. Within minutes, Autzen looked like a bowl of black-, green- and yellow-speckled soup, the stands almost indistinguishable from the field.