OREGON BEATS ANOTHER TIME-ZONE TRAVELER IN A BIG TEN WAY UP IN THE AIR
Ohio State hit the extended road and lost, along with 10 of the first 12 teams in the realigned conference, and Penn State somehow survived the crawl by winning at USC after flying in from Harrisburg
When an Oregon wide receiver spit in the face of an Ohio State cornerback, consider it more saliva for college football’s newfangled slip-slide. The university presidents and commissioners didn’t realize how young players would respond, in a Big Ten formerly accustomed to shorter plane rides, when forced to travel over two or three time zones.
Who knew that 10 of the first 12 teams would lose after spanning lengthy times in the dozy air? The Buckeyes were among them, 2,059 miles from Columbus, as Ryan Day’s job security waned Saturday night in an excruciating 32-31 defeat in Eugene. Suddenly, after once looking at rivalry brands and song girls, we must super-scan road schedules to see who might lose in a conference that extends from New Jersey and Maryland to Washington, Oregon and California.
The map they showed during the NBC telecast looked like a Civil War creation, which Southeastern Conference boss Greg Sankey would appreciate. We couldn’t wait to see who survived the post-realignment whirlwind and, at present, the Ducks become the favorites if — if! — they outlast trips to Purdue, Michigan and Wisconsin. Ohio State will earn an at-large berth in the 12-team national tournament, but in the Big Ten and SEC, we’re peering at Oregon and Texas as early championship frontrunners.
And to think the hero was quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who is at his third program as a double transfer. He made his 55th career start — after starting at Oklahoma and Central Florida — and accounted for three touchdowns. “Coast to coast,” he said, sensing the question. “I've learned a lot at each stop and, more importantly, who I am as a person. At this point in my career, I just appreciate where I am at the present. I've loved every bit of it.”
Said coach Dan Lanning: “Anyone have a heart-rate monitor? You talk big moments, big games. This is why you come to Oregon. Our guys stopped them tonight. They scored enough. Our guys threw enough jabs. We get the dub.”
Get used to the craze. The games are great.
Don’t bother so much with who is where and when they arrive.
How crazy was the scene when Lanning, as fans stormed the field before the Ducks mascot waded over them, looked ready to battle a security guard? This on an evening when his former boss, Georgia coach Kirby Smart, shoved Mississippi State quarterback Michael Van Buren. The sport has gone haywire — with Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama already losing once — and the next three months should be unhinged. Only surprising Indiana, behind ringleader Curt Cignetti, had won a West Coast trip at UCLA before Penn State lit up Lincoln Riley and USC at the Memorial Coliseum.
Maybe try changing the official name to Big 18 or something sensible. The Big Ten is corporate falsification at a time when no one trusts college sports.
Think about this. Because the airport in State College has a short runway, Penn State coach James Franklin was forced to bus his team about 100 miles to Harrisburg for the Los Angeles takeoff. That added two more hours to an excursion that is mindless. Do the players ever study? Or is schoolwork not part of the 2024 regime?
“We cannot fly out of State College,” Franklin said last week, “so that was a big part of our discussions with the Big Ten when all this thing got started — is not only are we one of the most northeastern schools, but based on runway length, size of plane, weight of plane, fuel on plane, we can’t get out of here (to the West Coast) unless we would stop for fuel. So, with that, we’ve got to fly out of Harrisburg (in mid-season). So I think that’s one of the things we have to discuss, is increasing the size of the runway here, the size of the airport for a lot of reasons — for the university, for the community, for businesses, for the athletic department and for us now that we’ve decided to make this move as the Big Ten.”
How did the Nittany Lions respond? They flew five hours and beat the Trojans, who would have won if quarterback Miller Moss hadn’t missed a receiver for a winning field goal. After the 33-30 victory, Franklin approached players and told them to remove the planting of a flag — “WE ARE” — at midfield. Good thing he had a former walk-on kicker, Ryan Barker, who made an overtime field goal, and a magnificent tight end named Tyler Warren, who caught 17 passes for 224 yards.
“We found a way to get a tough win on the road. I’m going to take it and run to the airport,” said Franklin, whose team is 6-0. “Once we started making some plays, you could feel our Penn State presence in the stadium.”
He left Riley looking at a shaky future. At 3-3, he fired at a Los Angeles reporter who asked why the Trojans are faltering. “It always falls to me. When have I ever shouldered responsibility? I always take it. I'm the head coach,” he said. “It's all my job. Believe me, there ain't nobody taking more responsibility than I am. So, I don't know where that line of questioning comes from.”
Oh, from people who wonder how he’s .500 after faltering last season with Caleb Williams. “The reality of it is, we've played the toughest schedule in the country the first six games, we've had a chance to win all six games. And that's hard to do,” Riley said. “Like, to put yourself in position to win these games is friggin’ hard to do to begin with. So we're doing a lot of good, and I understand that that good is not going to get seen by the outside right now, because they're going to focus on the record and the fact that we've lost three games on the last play. We all knew this when we signed up for big-boy football. I get it. We've got to do a better job at the end of games. I have to do a better job. Our coaches. Our players. Because we're doing too many good things to put us in situations where we have the lead and we can win, but we've got to get paid off for it. We've got to be able to finish, and it all falls on my shoulders at the end, and that's why they call me head coach.”
Franklin’s victory was the best in the conference this year, with apologies to Oregon. He keeps his team in the Big Ten race and returned 2,250 miles to State College, where Ohio State arrives in three weeks. Chip Kelly showed up in Eugene as an offensive coordinator and didn’t help Day, who is 1-7 against top-five teams. “We all knew we were getting a dogfight, two heavyweights going at it,” Gabriel said. “That’s what college football is all about.”
Still, who is the scheduling wizard who sends the Ducks to West Lafayette on Friday, then sends them home, then sends them to Ann Arbor, then sends them home, then sends them to Madison?
All in less than a month.
You choose the loss.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.