There appears to have been a method behind Oregon’s latest 12-man madness against Ohio State.
The Ducks received a penalty for having too many men on the field with 10 seconds left in their 32-31 victory over Ohio State on a play that ended up giving Ohio State five yards in exchange for four seconds running on the clock.
After Oregon called a timeout, DB Dontae Manning entered the field late and became the 12th man on the field when he joined the area where three Ohio State receivers had lined up. OSU quarterback Will Howard threw down the field, but the pass fell incomplete with six seconds left.
On the next play, Howard seemed to lose track of how much time was left and climbed up the middle. When he slid to the floor to call a timeout, time had expired and Oregon was victorious.
On Monday, Oregon coach Dan Lanning was asked about the penalty. Although he did not explicitly confirm that Oregon deliberately added a No. 12 player to the field, it appears the penalty was intentional.
“There was a timeout before that — we spent an inordinate amount of time on situations,” Lanning said with a slight smile. “There are some situations that don’t come up very often in college football, but this is obviously something we had worked on. So you can see the result.”
Dan Lanning’s full answer below on whether the 12-man-on-the-field penalty against Ohio State was intentional.
In short, it appears that the answer is “Yes.” pic.twitter.com/BtmoqxTEIn
– Brenna Greene (@BrennaGreene_) October 15, 2024
Oregon could afford to take the five-yard penalty as a worst-case scenario in that case because Ohio State was facing a 3rd-and-25 and was so far out of field goal range that five yards wouldn’t have gotten the teams close enough. Buckeyes. to try a long kick. Of course, adding an extra defender doesn’t guarantee the offense won’t make a big play, but it’s decent protection.
Especially with the clock rules in college football. Unlike the NFL, the clock does not reset to where it was before the snap when a 12-man penalty is imposed. The Oregon staff knew that time would not be added to the clock and that Ohio State would likely only have enough time for one more play even if it gained five free yards. Four seconds to five yards is a great trade.
The solution to prevent more teams from taking advantage of the loophole is for college football to change the way the penalty is applied and add time to the clock. But that won’t happen until after the season at the earliest. And Oregon’s coaching staff deserves a lot of credit for realizing how they could lose seconds off the clock at Ohio State’s expense to get the win.
